Michaelmas Issue 3

Self-care and body positivity special edition The

Cambridge Student

03 November 2016 Vol. 18 Michaelmas Issue 3 www.tcs.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge study: women more likely to help the injured

Students go to polls in Class List referendum • •

Joanna Taylor News Editor

Yes and No Campaigns vye for student votes

Voting closes later tonight

Reetika Revathy Subramanian News Editor

T

publication of the lists.”

If abolished, Cambridge will be one of the very last universities in the United Kingdom to hold such a tradition, with Oxford getting rid of its public exam results tables in 2009. If the referendum passes, it could mean that the current sabbatical officer team, led by Amatey Doku, would have to officially adopt the stance that public Class Lists should be re-introduced, a reversal of what Priscilla Mensah’s team called for last year.

Growing pressure to get rid of the tradition began in May 2015 when a campaign called ‘Our Grade, Our Choice’ initiated by students and academics garnered over 1,200 signatures. The campaign said: “We understand that this is a tradition and, for many, is a celebration of their academic achievements which is why we simply request the students are given the choice of whether or not they are on the Class List.”

Following the petition, CUSU Council voted in favour of abolishing the publication of the lists. However, campaigners condemned this decision, calling it “anti-democratic” for not having consulted the students.

Following this, Senior Tutors, University Council members and faculties were consulted. On 13 July, the University issued a grace to stop Class Lists. This was then opposed by 55 members of Senate House, triggering their own referendum, later this month. There have already been two referendums held in 2016: on the introduction of a Disabled Students’ Officer role and on CUSU’s affiliation with National Union of Students.

A misty morning breaks over Cambridge

he future of Class Lists will become one step closer to being resolved this week, as students have their say. They are currently voting on whether CUSU should support the abolition of class lists. The verified result of the student vote will be declared on 4 November.

The referendum is aimed at gauging students’ response on CUSU’s stance on the absolute abolition of the Class Lists. However, the final outcome will be decided by members on the Regent House roll. Under the centuriesold tradition of class lists, students names and grades are posted outside Senate House.

Under the current system, while an opt out is available, students must submit medical evidence. In plans proposed by the ‘Save the Class List’ campaign, students would have the chance to opt-out of publication.

Previously, CUSU’s Welfare Officer Poppy Ellis-Logan and Education Officer Rob Cashman had said that the current system of Class Lists denied students privacy with their results and was damaging for the welfare of many students.

Countering this claim, Nicholas Taylor, one of the founders of the ‘Save the Class List’ campaign said, “People say publishing the list has a negative impact and can even be a trigger for depression for some. We are saying those who don’t want their names to be published don’t have to.” He further added: “We have heard from students who have actually benefited from the Editorial Comment page 18 →

Image:

Alexander

Far more women than men stopped to help an overturned cyclist in a social psychology study conducted by Cambridge researchers.

The cyclist, planted by the Investigation team, lay on the grass near Trumpington Road by an upturned bicycle, pretending to have been injured. Another researcher stood nearby, counting the number of passers-by who stopped to help.

Whether or not they stopped, all passers-by were then asked to describe their journey down the road and told that they were taking part in a memory test as a decoy.

They were then asked to complete both Empathy Quotient (EQ) and Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) surveys online.

37 people in total completed both surveys: 19 males and 18 females ranging from 18 to 77 years old. 80% of those who stopped to help the overturned cyclist were female.

The study also found that empathy was the key factor in whether or not people stopped to help. The number of autistic traits a person had, or their age, did not have any effect on whether or not they stopped.

Richard Bethlehem, a PhD student, led the study. Conducting a test ‘in the real world’ improves the validity of results, he claimed.

“Our results support the theory that people who do good are, at least partially, driven by empathy.”

The study has been published in Social Neuroscience and supported by the Autism Research Trust, amongst other organisations.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the university’s Autism Research Centre, said that the study’s results are a “first step towards understanding why some people may or may not stop to help a person in Pautrel distress”.

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03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

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The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016

News

University among top for animal research Cambridge is amongst research universities who carried out 1.37 million animal experiments in 2015 Joanna Taylor News Editor Cambridge is amongst a group of ten research universities that carried out a third of all animal experiments in the UK in 2015.

1.37 million tests were carried out between the ten institutions, according to a report released by UCL. Cambridge University undertook 181,080 procedures involving animal experiments in 2015.

Oxford carried out the most at 226,241, followed by Edinburgh, UCL and then Cambridge.

According to the report , 99% of the tests involved fish and rodents, and were split evenly between experimentation and the breeding of genetically modified animals.

Dr Lindsay Marshall of Humane

market after failing later tests.

Professor Michael Arthur, a researcher at UCL, disagreed with her criticism, saying that animal research provides answers that other forms of testing are not able to.

We are “proud” to perform a “significant proportion of the UK’s leading biomedical research” he claimed, pointing to a test on fish which aided the discovery of a genetic defect associated with childhood Parkinsonism.

Research universities are committed to the ‘3Rs’: replacement, reduction and refinement, which means avoiding replacing animals in tests, keeping numbers per experiment as small as possible, and minimising suffering.

Despite this, data from the Home calling animal experiments “cruel”.

UK taxpayers who are funding Office shows that 4.07 million animals were tested on for the first time research would be “horrified to discover their money is helping to 95% of drugs tested on finance this suffering”, she claimed.

“We urge all universities to leave animals do not make it behind this archaic practice and focus on to the market on developing innovative and humane research methods for the twenty-first century for the good of both humans in 2015.

Many universities reduce the and animals.”

Cambridge’s policy on use of number of test subjects by using the same animals in different experiments, animals is to “place good welfare at Dr Marshall explains, arguing that the centre of all our animal research”.

“We only use animals in research for those particular animals it only “increases the amount of suffering where there are no alternatives,” a University spokesperson said. they experience”.

We “try to limit the number Dr Katy Taylor, Director of Science at Cruelty Free International agrees, of animals used, either through UNDERSTANDING ANIMAL RESEARCH, FLICKR

181,080 Number of animal experiments carried out by Cambridge University in 2015

Society International claimed that the reasoning for increased animal research “no longer remains firm” as 95% of drugs that appear to work on animals do not make it on to the

Last edition, TCS reported that letters on the subject of women and feminism had been delivered to all Cambridge and Oxford JCRs and MCRs. A handwritten note accompanying the letters told recipients to expect three more.

True to their word, more letters have been delivered, on similarly garish paper and in jovial Calibri font. Their styles and subject nature is not dissimilar to the first letter, with especially memorable advice about how to treat one’s “cock”.

A second-class postage stamp is affixed to each of the letters, at a cost of 55p each. If we call the price of an envelope 20p, and believe the writer that every Oxbridge college will receive eight of such letters between

Each of the 576 letters arrive in a handwritten envelope

their MCR and JCRs (plus an extra 24 to include both students’ unions and newspapers), then the writer has spent around £430 on their prank.

This does not cover what must be substantial printing costs or the cost of coloured card. The letters are stamped at Peterborough, although the writer remains unknown.

Given the quantity of money they are prepared to spend on their letters, conclusions may be drawn that they are not acting alone and that they are investing significant time in the prank.

Each of the approximately 576 letters (of which half have been received) arrive in a handwritten envelope.

The writer claims that they hope to “subvert uni culture conformity” through messages such as “[i]t is remember [sic] a bit about guys … [having anal sex] and that should give pause for thought.”

Taxpayers would be “horrified to discover their money is helping to finance this suffering”, says Dr Katy Taylor Cambridge honour their commitment to the 3Rs. Researchers at Harvard University hope to replace animal testing with organs created through 3D printing.

Earlier this year they created the first entirely 3D-printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensing. The chip can easily be re-created and customised for different experiments.

Having created the structure of a heart on a chip, researchers hope to be able to rapidly produce chips for other organs. They could then even tailor them to match the properties of specific diseases or the cells of an individual patient.

Cambridge itself claims to be “actively looking” for research methods to “refine” and “ultimately replace” animal research.

The number of animal experiments conducted in the UK increased by 7% between 2014 and 2015.

Dinosaur brain found in fossil

Up to £430 spent on misogynistic prank Joanna Taylor News Editor

improving our experimental techniques and design or through the development of technologies or techniques that can replace animals entirely.”

Animal research at Cambridge is overseen by the Animal and Ethical Review Body who ensure that

Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin Deputy News Editor

The brain tissue belongs to a relative of the iguanodon

Found inside a pebble by amateur fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks, the fossilised brain tissue of a dinosaur has been proven authentic by Oxford and Cambridge scientists.

The fossil, which lay on a beach near Bexhill, Sussex, was discovered in 2004 but its importance has only been realised over a decade later.

A Special Publication from the Geological Society of London published the findings of Oxford’s Professor Martin Brasier and Cambridge’s Dr David Norman.

The international team of investigators who put together the publication suggested that the brain tissue most likely belongs to a relative of the iguanodon, a herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Early

Cretaceous Period, around 133 million years ago.

“The chances of preserving brain tissue are incredibly small, so the discovery of this specimen is astonishing,” Dr Alex Liu of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences commented. The dinosaur’s brain was “pickled” under highly acidic, oxygen-poor conditions, possibly in a swamp or bog, allowing it to be mineralised and thus preserved.

Whilst soft brain tissue has never before been discovered for any terrestrial vertebrate, casts of the inside of brain cases have provided clues in the past.

Now analysis of this fossil using scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging techniques is shedding new light on to the similarities and differences between dinosaur brains and those of modern reptiles.

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03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

News

Students refuse to select winner of accommodation award

Dorota Molin Investigations Editor

At the Student Accommodation Awards, an initiative of Property Week, the jury comprising of 10 students refused to select a winner in the category of ‘Student Experience’.

The decision was announced publicly

by Jenny Killin, one of the student judges.

Killin tweeted an image of the letter detailing the panel of judges’ official decision, which they had sent to the organiser, Property Week.

In this document, Jenny justified their decision by stating that the competition entries were ‘overpriced’. She explained that

23%

Extortionate house prices, students are ‘pushed into poverty’

The increase in student housing prices, 2009 – 2016 most entrants priced their cheapest room at a rate above the national average for purpose-built accommodation. This rate, on the basis of a recent housing survey, amounts to £146.73 per week.

According to Killin, this is a nation-wide issue. In her interview for BuzzFeed she argued that students are seen as ‘cash cows’ and are exploited.

In her opinion, as a result of these extortionate accommodation prices, students are ‘pushed into poverty’.

She went on to suggest that this affects especially working class students. These are discocouraged from applying to university or in the least, are put in a very disadvantaged position by having to work long hours.

She labelled the process ‘the social cleansing of education’.

Albeit expressed in dramatic terms, her opinions are not out of touch with research.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies found last year that the government’s decision to switch maintenance grants to loans – while increasing the amount given – could leave the poorest 40% of students with £53,000 graduation debt.

An analysis by The Guardian last week revealed that in the past seven years, the rise in cost of student housing outpaced inflation and prices increase in the private rental market. Between 2009-2010 and 2015-2016, the rates increased by 23%, rising from £120 to £147 per week.

The rate of increase is more than double from that seen in the private housing sector.

Between September 2011 and May 2016, the average private rent in Great Britain increased by 8%, according to figures from the Index of Private Housing Rental Prices.

By comparison, student accommodation costs in the UK increased by 18% in the same period.

In Cambridge, the chronic problem of accommodation is the existence of huge disparities in rent prices across colleges.

In Newnham – on the basis of last year’s investigation by TCS, one of the most pricy colleges – all of the current entrants spend £177.9 weekly on their rooms.

In Kings – the college on the other end of the spectrum – you can expect to pay between £99.6 and £149.2.

the RHS, explained to the Mail: “All the pesticides that can be sprayed onto grass to control soil pests have been withdrawn.

So there are now no chemicals that can be sprayed on to the grass.

“Imidacloprid has been withdrawn because there are issues with it damaging pollinators such as bees and suchlike.”

Barter said. “It would be very expensive indeed to drench a large area.”

Some colleges are getting more creative with their grub-removal efforts. Clare, which has only been affected in a few small areas, has tried rolling the land to make it more compacted, so that the beetles burrow deeper into the soil, out of the range of crows.

They have also tried deterring the birds by covering areas with netting.

Gallant is trying out a new product which isn’t harmful to crows. “As long as I don’t have a lawn full of dead crows,” he said.

Winter will provide welcome relief, as the cold weather forces the grubs deeper underground and out of the reach of crows. But if they aren’t removed, they will continue to cause problems once warmer weather arrives.

But gardeners are used to dealing with the beetle problem, which has been around for ten years.

“We’ll never be rid of the problem,” Steve Elstub, Clare’s head gardener, told Varsity.

“It’s a case of managing it and dealing with it in the most appropriate way possible.”

£27 How much more Cambridge students spend on rent per week than average Indeed, numerous students sense that the rent price does not stem from the quality of accommodation, but rather from the wealth of the college or its specific rent policy (as is the case in Newnham).

A student at Murray Edwards commented: ‘I don’t think the price reflects the quality, especially when compared to other colleges.”

“In the building at Churchill, for instance, everything is brand-new, [yet] a person still pays about £400 [a year] less than a [Medwards] fresher’.

According to The Student Times, Oxbridge students spend an average of £27 more a week than the national average on their rent.

WIKIPEDIA C

Immaculate college lawns dug up by crows Khushali Dodhia Deputy News Editor

College gardeners are waging a battle with crows, as they tear University lawns apart in search of bugs.

The courts of at least seven colleges have been disfigured, with Jesus and Pembroke being forced to re-turf entire lawns.

The problem arose after central Cambridge saw a large influx of chafer beetles this year. Their grubs feed on grass roots, leaving lawns susceptible to damage.

When crows eat the grubs, they dig up the weakened turf.

Some colleges have been affected more than others. Paul Gallant, head gardener at Selwyn, told Varsity: “The grubs like light, sandy soil like the soil at Selwyn. Wolfson and Robinson don’t have the problem because they’re on clay.”

Colleges closer to the river tend to have lighter soil, making them more vulnerable to the chafer grubs.

An EU ban on the bumblebee-harming pesticide imidacloprid, which has traditionally been used to deal with the grubs, has exacerbated the problem.

Guy Barter, chief horticulturalist for

“A ban on bumblebeeharming pesticides has exacerbated the problem”

7 Colleges that have had their lawns disfigured by crows Instead, colleges are using nematodes, microscopic worms that eat the chafer grubs. But they can only live in warm, wet soil, meaning that large areas of lawn must be irrigated.

This is impractical for larger areas of turf,

Clockwise from top: Graph comparing rent p Edwards College who have conducted an inv defence has been attacked by Cambridge for

COMMONS

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The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016 INFOGRAM TOM MURPHY VII

News

Cambridge for Consent takes on “locker-room talk” Khushali Dodhia Deputy News Editor

WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

The student group Cambridge for Consent has launched a campaign against “lockerroom talk”.

The organisation, which aims to promote and celebrate sexual consent, asked sports teams from across the University to photograph themselves holding signs reading “Call Time on ‘ Locker-Room Talk’”.

The campaign comes after Donald Trump’s misogynistic comments about groping women on the set of television show Days of our Lives in 2005.

The presidential nominee was recorded saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it” and, infamously, that you can “grab them by the pussy”.

Trump apologised “if anyone was offended” by his comments, dismissing them as mere “locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago”.

He then alleged that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s husband had “said far worse to me on the golf course – not even close.”

Pippa Goodman, Cambridge for Consent’s president, wants the photos to be taken as a “straightforward gesture” against Trump’s comments.

They will be posted on the campaign’s Facebook page.

The “Call Time on ‘Locker-Room

Donald Trump’s comments are “highly destructive” for consent

Talk’” Facebook event accuses Trump’s “flippant comments” of being “highly destructive as they justify non-consensual sexual behaviour and are certainly not representative of the attitudes of 99% of sportsmen and women”.

“Thus, we want to demonstrate that any comments that normalise and trivialise sexual assault are not normal ‘lad behaviour’ and it is certainly not something that we partake in within the Cambridge Sports scene.”

Cambridge for Consent has made it clear that they “are not making any accusations about typical behaviour in sports societies”, with the campaign being a “platform” to challenge comments made by “a high-profile individual”.

The page calls on teams participating at both College and University levels of any gender to submit photographs.

A number of sports teams have committed to the project so far, including the Canoeing Club, Rugby Fives Club, Diving Team and Selwyn Mixed Lacross Team.

For those who want to get involved with the campaign but are not members of a sports team, there will be an event on Kings Parade, with details to be confirmed shortly.

Men are ‘missing ingredient’ in fixing workplace inequality, says Medwards study DAVID HITCHBORNE

per week for King’s and Newnham Colleges against the national average, Murray vestigation into workplace inequality, Donald Trump whose “locker-room talk” Consent, Pembroke College’s previously lawn which has been attacked by crows.

Khushali Dodhia Deputy News Editor Men are the “missing ingredient” when it comes to dealing with workplace inequality, a study published by researchers at Murray Edwards claims.

The study, Collaborating with Men, appeals to men to do more to help improve workplace culture for women.

Academics found that women often reported feeling frustrated in the workplace, especially with the behaviours and assumptions of their male colleagues and bosses. These included things like being interrupted or ignored in meetings and being excluded from informal conversations where decisions are often really made.

They then interviewed 40 men in early career, middle management, and senior leadership roles in both small organisations and large businesses, in the private and public sectors.

The ground-breaking research asked both the women and men what could be done to change women’s workplace experiences. Previous studies have tended to focus on how women can adapt to a

“Women often reported feeling frustrated in the workplace”

male-orientated work environment.

The study suggests five things men could do in order to assist their female colleagues’ development in the workplace.

These include building strong mixedgendered relationships, facilitating neutral meetings where women can openly discuss issues that arise because of their gender, and amplifying women’s voices in meetings in which they are often spoken over.

Dr Jill Armstrong, a Research Associate working on gender equality in careers at Murray Edwards, led the study.

She said, “[I]f individuals are not prepared to change something themselves, then no amount of company policy is going to make a tangible difference.

“However, given that most men haven’t done much thinking about how their behaviour may negatively affect women’s careers, it follows that it’s not obvious what they can do to help. [...]

“The effect [of the research] was to make unconscious behaviours visible and to prompt many men to suggest practical changes which could help redress the balance.”

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03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

College Watch

Images: Jessica McHugh

Pembroke Peterhouse Magdalene

A fancy dress prank at Pembroke College Halloween formal has attracted the attention of the Daily Mail and The Sun. A student wearing a ‘killer clown’ mask stood in the hall’s doorway holding a plastic weapon.

He then proceeded to walk around the hall, pretending to threaten students and dabbed when he reached the High Table.

A Pembroke formal attendee told TCS: “It was clearly a joke, and hardly out of the ordinary as everyone was in fancy dress, including the service staff. People clapped when he walked out then got on with their meal.”

This hasn’t deterred The Mail from reporting that a clown holding a machete “burst into a formal dinner” and that students were terrified by the sight.

Halloween formals at Pembroke are notorious among students for their pranks: last year two second-years were asked to leave for pretending to enact oral sex whilst dressed as David Cameron and a pig.

A toast to Harambe was also raised this year.

Joanna Taylor

Peterhouse has organised a 13th-century themed formal joint with the JCR Committee of Merton College, Oxford for the 19 November.

Items on the menu include “garden leaf gruel” as the starter, “roasted cockatrice” for main or, for vegetarians, the “set curd pie with spinach and barley broth” with “winter beets”, “sage pudding” and “roast droppings” on the side, and finally an “egg mead pudding” for dessert.

Invitiatons have been sent to JCR commitee members from Peterhouse’s sister college, Merton, setting the formal up to be one of the most memorable swaps in the college’s history.

Peterhouse is the oldest Cambridge college, founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. It remains fairly traditional, still insisting on student attendance at a set number of formal halls. Merton College is the fourth oldest in Oxford, with its foundations tracing back to the 1260s.

The theme of the formal is thought to represent a celebration of the rich history of both colleges, both founded in the 13th century.

Armaghan Hallajian

Proposals for a new library have become a topic of controversy at Magdalene College.

The new building will be situated parallel to the Pepys Building and will require the destruction of the bordering greenery around the College Fellows’ Garden, something which has attracted much criticism.

Its large size has also been a divisive factor, alongside its design which, with its large number of chimneys, has been criticised for looking too industrial.

The design does include working spaces which look out over the Garden. A gallery and student socialising spaces on the ground floor opening out into the Garden have also been included.

The structure has been positioned so as to retain both the yew trees that are situated to the north of the Pepys Building and the mature trees that look out onto Chesterton Road.

Nevertheless, the plans have provoked an outcry from a large proportion of Magdalene’s student body.

Jesus

Dr Julian Huppert, former Cambridge MP, has taken up a new role at Jesus College as the director of the College’s new “Intellectual Forum”.

The centre will be based at the college’s new West Court development. Its work will be focused on confronting issues facing the modern world such as the meaning of privacy in a digital age, the future of employment and the ways in which health and social care can be transformed in the years to come.

Before joining the college Dr Huppert worked as a lecturer at the Cavendish Laboratory. He also worked as a research scientist before he was elected as Lib Dem MP in 2010.

Dr Huppert said he was “delighted and honoured” about his new role, viewing the opportunity as a “chance to make a difference.”

Professor Ian White, master of Jesus College, said: “Julian Huppert is a polymath with an impressive track record and a huge range of relevant experience. We’re delighted that he will be joining Jesus College as the founding director of this centre.”

Armaghan Hallajian Armaghan Hallajian

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The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016

Government hopes to ban unpaid internships Khushali Dodhia Deputy News Editor Theresa May is considering making unpaid internships illegal, senior ministers have confirmed.

Speaking to ITV’s Peston on Sunday programme, Work and Pensions Minister Damian Hinds said that “sought-after occupations” in popular industries like fashion and media are not “accessible to everybody”.

“It’s important for social mobility that everybody has a crack at getting into the particularly competitive industries.”

The government estimates that there are up to 70,000 interns in Britain, a third of whom are unpaid. Because so many live in cities with high living costs, rich candidates have the edge.

Campaigners say that forcing companies to pay the £7.20-an-hour minimum wage would open up internship opportunities to applicants from a wider range of backgrounds.

School-aged children, apprentices, and full-time university and college students completing accredited degree courses would not be required to receive payment.

Responding to concerns that firms would cut the numbers of internships they offer if unpaid work was banned, Ben Lyon, co-director of national campaign Intern Aware, said the fears were unfounded.

“I think companies will pay. Look at what happened when the minimum wage was first introduced in 1998 – it didn’t lead to a decrease in the number

of jobs.

“We have done research with YouGov that shows that were you to introduce a ban, the vast majority of companies say it would make no difference at all [to the number of interns they take on.”

The pressure group, which has helped interns to successfully demand back pay from companies including Harrods and Sony, has conducted research showing that companies which pay their interns are 14% more likely to employ them than their nonpaying counterparts.

Separately, MP for Elmet and Rotherwell Alec Shelbrooke will introduce a Commons’ Private Members Bill to ban unpaid internships on Friday.

He described unpaid internships as

Up to a third of 70,000 interns in Britain are unpaid

a “scourge on social mobility.”

He continued: “I’m confident that this government is serious about building a Britain that works for everyone and not just the privileged few so I look forward to the government supporting my bill.”

But he caused outrage on the BBC’s Daily Politics on Tuesday for comparing unpaid internships to slavery.

Debating with Institute of Economic Affairs news editor Kate Andrews, he said: “We have heard these arguments before when we were banning the slave trade.”

However, this bill is unlikely to pass, with commentators suggesting it is more likely that the ban will be introduced by the Government in the Queen’s speech next year.

A Cambridge historian has helped to exonerate Gaëtan Dugas, the man blamed for bringing HIV/AIDS to America.

The French-Canadian was branded “Patient Zero” and described as “The Man Who Gave Us Aids” by the New York Post.

But a study from the University has shown that Dugas was one of the many thousands of people infected by the virus in the 1980s before it was eventually recognised as AIDS. An international team of researchers painstakingly reconstructed the route by which HIV/AIDS entered the US from the Caribbean.

Using new findings and existing data, they mapped the spread of the

NEWS BULLETIN Fees waived for graduates in most African countries A statement delivered at the opening of the third Cambridge-Africa Day by Professor David Dunne, Director of the Cambridge-Africa Programme, has confirmed the University’s decision to waive the usual application fee for Sub-Saharan students.

Addressing a huge audience of students, academics and philanthropists filling the auditorium in Emmanuel College’s Queen’s Building, he emphasised the importance of the fee waiver which he termed a “major contribution” to the university’s efforts towards improving access.

The Programme aims to attract talented graduate students from less developed countries to take part in the diverse scholarship schemes available to them. The programme is partnered with institutions in 23 countries.

20% of ethnic minority graduates regret degree One in five graduates who are from an ethnic minority wish they had never enrolled for a degree at an English university, a study has revealed. The average for BME students is significantly higher than for white students or the average overall.

The study was facilitated by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and based on a survey taken by 36,090 English-domiciled graduate students who completed their course in 2010-11.

A spokeswoman from HEFCE told The Times Higher Education: “an implication of the findings is that prospective BME students may need more and better information, advice and guidance to be able to make better decisions about what and where they ... study.”

Killer clowns sighted in Cambridge city centre

Historian works to clear accused AIDS patient 0 Khushali Dodhia Deputy News Editor

News

virus from non-human primates to humans in Africa, with the subtype prevalent in the Western world arriving in New York by 1971 from the Caribbean.

From New York it spread to San Francisco and eventually to western Europe, South America, and Australia.

Dugas was blamed after a typo in a 1984 study on homosexual men with AIDS, which referred to him as “Patient O” (so called because he lived outside of Canada), resulted in him being called “Patient 0”, a term now often used to mean the first sufferer in an outbreak.

Co-author of the study and Cambridge University historian Richard McKay emphasised the dangers of trying to pinpoint the first case of a disease: “One of the dangers of focus on a

single patient zero when discussing the early stages of an epidemic is that we risk obscuring important structural factors that might contribute to its development – poverty, legal and cultural inequalities, barriers to healthcare and education.”

AIDS had killed over 20,000 Americans by 1990, including many gay men, who are the group most affected by the virus in the US. Dugas died of AIDS-related infections in 1984, aged 31.

McKay said: “Gaëtan Dugas is one of the most demonised patients in history, and one of a long line of individuals and groups vilified in the belief that they somehow fuelled epidemics with malicious intent.”

He has since been applauded for using methods of historical research, never previously used.

44 incidents involving ‘killer clowns’ were reported to Cambridgeshire police in less than a week. Five of the incidents occurred in the city centre. Some of the clowns carried knives, baseball bats and even machetes.

17 of the 44 incidents were either directed at children or happened near schools, whilst six of the 44 involved knives. Possession of machetes, hammers and baseball bats have also been reported.

One man told police that he “punched the clown in the face straight away” when one jumped out in front of him.

Jason Ablewhite, Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner, said “I have spoken to the Constabulary and am reassured that anyone found to be terrifying or threatening others may warrant public order criminal offences.” He has asked others not to get involved.

Tributes paid to Emmanuel student who died in Iran

Negar Miralaei, a fourth year PhD student at Emmanuel College, has died in a car accident in Iran. Students of the college were notified about the incident on Thursday, 27th October by the Senior Tutor, who wrote they were ‘very sorry to report the sad news’.

Negar studied Computer Science and was soon to submit her dissertation. She was described by a University representative as “a dedicated and determined researcher, who brought passion and drive to her work in a challenging area of research. She was “a cherished colleague, whose warmth, generosity and kindness won her many friends both in Cambridge and beyond.”

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03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

News

The news roundup SPORT

Cambridge Football enters Hall of Fame Cambridge University Football Club has been officially recognised for its contribution to the development of the game’s official rules. Formed in 1856, the club created a set of 10 laws they called the “Cambridge Rules” which members pinned up on the trees in Parker’s Piece. 50 years later, the club has been awarded a place in the Football Hall of Fame by the National Football Museum.

CHARITY

Over 70 sports men and women have stripped off for the calender

WILDLIFE

Invasive ladybirds land in Cambridge

FOOD

Cambridgeshire welcomes sake bakery

Sports teams strip off for charity calendar More than 70 Cambridge University sportsmen and women have stripped off for a new naked calendar in order to raise money for Lewy Body Society and Help Refugees. Posing for photographer Anthony Rubinstein, students used sports equipment to protect their modesty. The Cambridge Blues Calendar 2017 has been one-and-ahalf years in the making and is now available to purchase.

WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Ladybirds carrying Laboulbeniales, a virulent sex disease, have swarmed Cambridge amongst other places in the UK. The harlequin ladybirds carry a fungus which causes an outbreak of small yellow spines, making them look like “miniature hedgehogs”.

Laboulbeniales, which is sexuallytransmitted, has broken out amongst the harlequin species of ladybird, an invasive species.

The UK’s first sake bakery is in the process of being constructed in East Cambridgeshire by the Hashimoto family. 60 people, including the Japanese ambassador Koji Tsuruoka and MP Lucy Frazer, attended a traditional Japanese ceremony held at the construction site. The traditional Shinto ceremony is called ‘Jichinsai’, and is performed to purify the building and pray for the safety of the construction workers.

£1.65 Average amount spent on Halloween treats per household in Cambridge.

Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell is scheduled to address the Labour Club at the Union on the 2nd December, shortly after the 2016 Autumn Statement. Due to take place at 7pm in the Union Chambers, the event will take the form of a speech followed by an opportunity for attendees to ask questions. Details on who will be allowed to attend has not yet been disclosed.

HALLOWEEN

Fewest takeaways in country in South Cambs

Cambridge is third ‘stingiest’ for Halloween

South Cambridgeshire has fewer takeaways than anywhere else in England, according to new figures released by Public Health England.

The South Cambs area, which covers a circle of spread out villages around Cambridge, only has 37 ‘food takeaway outlets’: only 24.1 for every 100,000 residents. Luckily for students there are 120 different outlets in central Cambridge, or 93.4 per 100,000 people.

A survey conducted by OnBuy has found that Cambridge is the third ‘stingiest’ in the UK to children trick-or-treating. 65 cities were included in the survey. Leeds came out as the best place to go trick-ortreating, with an average spend of £16.40 on sweets per household.

Cambridge households spend an average of £1.65 on sweets, slightly more than Nottingham (£1.25) and Hull (£1.50).

Cost of Abu Bakr Jamia mosque now being constructed on Mill Road

FOOD

CONSTRUCTION

industrial-feel restaurant comes complete with a working water wheel, exposed brickwork and its own indoor barbecue. The new restaurant is the seventh in the Cambs Cuisine portfolio, which also owns popular eateries including The Cambridge Chop House and Smokeworks.

located in Mawson Road but plans to move to the larger premises for 1,000 worshipers. It is planned to be an environmentally-friendly building, with vegetation on the roof, a water recycling scheme and natural lighting to reduce the need for artificial light.

SARAH WELLS, BLOGSPOT

John McDonnell to visit CULC

FOOD

£15 million

Building begins on Mill The building Bella Italia conversion Road mosque completed must be purified The conversion of Bella Italia The construction of a massive new before that started in mid- August is now £15 million mosque in Cambridge’s construction complete and Millworks has now Mill Road has now started. The Abu opened in Newnham Road. The Bakr Jamia Mosque is currently can begin

POLITICS

There are 120 takeaways for every 100,000 people in central Cambridge

_EVANTHIA_

The ladybirds look like ‘miniature hedgehogs’

03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

9

Science

Could Facebook be the next Freud? Why should I care about...

Climate Change in Borneo

New research uses statuses, photos and activites to help with diagnoses

Camilla Penney Science Editor

R

esearchers from the University of Cambridge have suggested that data from social networking sites should be used to improve mental health-care.

Writing in The Lancet Psychiatry Dr Becky Inkster, from the Department of Psychiatry, and colleagues, argue that studying patients’ online activity in combination with offline information could help with identification and treatment of mental illness.

Over a billion people use Facebook every day; reporting their moods via statuses, friending and unfriending and sharing photos of their lives. All of these activities provide insights users’ mental health. However, so far little use has been made of this wealth of data by mental health professionals and psychiatrists. “The paper was basically an outline, or almost a manifesto, trying to illustrate that there are positives,” says Inkster, “We’re well aware, everyone is, of the negatives and the risks...[but] we could actually use social networking data to help with mental health problems.”

Facebook data has been used in sociological studies, but the idea of

focussing on psychiatric patients is a new one. The paper suggests that patients could choose to share their Facebook data with their psychiatrist, for example. Of particular interest is how patients relate to others online. Information from Facebook could help a psychiatrist to discuss potentially abusive relationships, or highlight friendships which have a positive impact. Importantly, the patient then retains control over these online relationships. Inkster describes the process, “[the patient] can… change their online situation so they start to address their social factors and we start to see small changes.”

Patient consent is central to this research. Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer at the Judge Business School and co-author of the paper, is keen to emphasise that the authors “advise using [social networking data] ‘in collaboration with’ people […] we want people to feel comfortable with how their data is used.” Inkster has similar concerns; she doesn’t want patients to feel that they are being monitored against their will or that Facebook data in isolation will be

used to diagnose mental health issues.

Her approach to the ethics is to ask “would we do this offline?” Ultimately the research is “for the benefit of the individual, if they choose to know a bit more about part of their social world”.

Matching online and offline information is an important part of using data from social networking.

Previous research suggests that many participants in Facebook studies are happy for their Facebook data to be linked to medical and mental health records. Inkster says that it is this offline information “that’s really the exclusive information that’s even more precious…[we view] this online information as sort of supplementing or filling in the gaps of their social world. It’s not [...] a clinical interview.”

Although the paper doesn’t report any clinical results, Dr Inkster is excited about the initial results.

Workshops with young patients have met with an enthusiastic response, with patients keen to suggest things to look at. She is hopeful that, as digital natives, the younger generation will embrace the use of social networking data in mental health.

PIXABAY

Innocent, yet deadly. Palm oil, as it is grown.

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Ned Booker Science Editor

Lithium Sulphur (LiS) batteries have the potential to replace conventional batteries, as they can achieve around five times greater energy density than the current stateof-the-art batteries.

However, three challenges are stopping their popularisation. The most stable form of sulphur has poor chemical conductivity; biproducts produced during the battery operation can react irreversibly with the electrodes; and sulphur cathode swelling and shrinking during cell operation can result in the cathode disintegrating.

Inspired by brush like cell membranes used for absorbing nutrients, a layer for LiS batteries consisting of zinc oxide nanowires coated with sulphur-coated nanotubes.

Using this brush arrangement the volume change can be mitigated and the biproducts reabsorbed.

2

In rockcress warmer temperatures accelerate flowering and their increase elongation, however how they distinguish temperature differences as small as a single degree Celsius is largely unknown.

It has been seen that phytochromes, the receptors that allow plants to respond to red light, allow plants to respond to changes in temperature in the dark.

Seedlings were grown for 8 days between 12 and 27 °C, with a steady increase in their length with temperature. They were sampled over 24 hours at 22°C and 27°C and it was seen that RNA messenger molecules were specifically affected when they phytochrome activity was altered.

This suggests that the way that plants respond to temperature may have been integrated into development from an early stage.

Matheus Henrique Nunes Science Editor

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len Reynolds, honorary professor at the Universities of Lancaster and Nottingham and director of the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP), tells us about the impacts of climate change in Southeast Asia, specifically in Borneo, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world.

What are the major sources driving greenhouse gases emission in the island of Borneo?

The major sources in Borneo are land use change and oil palm agriculture.

Deforestation rates in Malaysia and Indonesia are in the order of 2% per year... generating significant carbon emissions. Oil palm agriculture [also] involves significant methane emissions [...] When palm oil fruits are milled to extract oil, large quantities of effluent is produced [sic]. This is released into a series of settlement ponds [...] until the supposedly innocuous runoff is discharged [...] Much of the decomposition of organic material in this effluent is anaerobic and hence the release of methane.

Deforestation accounts for 15-20% of carbon emissions in Malaysia and Indonesia What are the most effective projects that aim to minimise the emission of greenhouse gases?

Larger growers of [RSPO, certified sustainable,] palm oil are now capturing this methane by constructing “tents” over the effluent ponds. 70% of palm oil in Malaysia and Indonesia is produced by large growers. The

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By mapping the magnetic fields produced in patients’ hands as they attempted to control a robotic hand, researchers have attempted to understand the causes of phantom-limb pain in cases where there has been partial or complete severing of nerve cells towards limbs.

The participants were patients who either had no sensation in their hands or had lost a hand. The patients’ brains’ magnetic fields were measured as they attempted to control a computer picture of a prosthetic hand.

Replacing the missing hand with the robotic one was expected to reduce the phantom pain, however the pain increased. The phantom pain decreased when a brain-machine-interface was used to dissociate the prostheses from the missing hand. This indicates that a causal link between the brain’s ability to reorganise the sensorimotor cortex and phantom limb pain.

captured methane is used to fire the boilers and generate steam and power to supply the milling process.

Currently these boilers are fired using solid waste, palm oil fibre and kernel shell mainly. An added benefit of using methane is that these organic materials can now, in theory, be returned to the surrounding plantation as soil mulch.

This increases soil organic matter [...] should mean that less fertiliser needs to be used... [A]voiding cutting down more forests in order to establish oil palm plantations, which RSPO companies are committed to, is the best way to minimise CO2 emissions.

Oil palm agriculture involves significant methane emissions Deforestation accounts for around 1520% of carbon emissions in Malaysia and Indonesia, broadly equivalent to the entire transportation sector.

How can individuals contribute to reducing emission of greenhouse gases?

Make sure that the food retailers that we shop at are committed to only using RSPO certified palm oil [...] especially for commodities (palm oil, coffee, tea, soil etc) which are major drivers of forest loss. A good example of a company that is really making differences is Unilever […] the world’s largest single buyer of palm oil [...] they are effectively removing deforestation from their supply chains across all their products lines and driving zero deforestation commitments among their suppliers. However, at the end of the day it is going to be the consumer pressure that drives the reduction in the consumption of non-certified products.

ELI+

10

03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Features

Making self care man-friendly Josiah White

I

t was only in my second year that I realised the importance of self-care.

Before this, the concept itself was not clear to me, from what could be categorised as ‘self-care’, to what it really meant. But self-care can be anything from taking a warm bath to doing parkour: anything that feels good for you. I spent most of my first year working and drinking. I lived on a binary between extreme work and extreme intoxication that meant I was burnt out at about Week Two. What changed in second year is that I started going on walks with my friend Sam. Strolling is probably the most underrated activity in Cambridge. Not just because of Cambridge’s beauty but also because it is only through stepping outside of the library that you are able to find some of the hidden wonders of the city.

For instance, going on walks took me to all of the many charity shops in Cambridge. Originally, I focused mostly on Mill Road’s charity shops, which are certainly high in quality if not quantity, but now I spend most of my time on Burleigh Street. The wonderful thing about Cambridge charity shops is that, because Cambridge is relatively wealthy, the quality of clothes is the best I’ve ever seen in charity shops. I tend to feel quite guilty about spending money at most clothing stores.

The prices are high, and I always feel that I could do something better with the money. Charity shops, on the other hand, are cheap, and all the money goes to a good cause.

Another gem I have found is the

Accordia building development. This Stirling Prize winning site contains some of the best modern housing in Britain.

The place is wonderful for both walking and working, with lots of park space and benches. It’s just past the Botanic Gardens, another great place for walking and working.

The Botanic Gardens, and Cambridge in general, are particularly beautiful in autumn with the changing of the colours.

It’s especially important to explore the city before the darkness of winter, to see the nature of Cambridge in all its vibrancy.

Finally, there are Cambridge’s cinemas: the Vue in the Grafton Centre and the Art’s Picturehouse. Both are wonderful cinemas for different reasons. The Picturehouse has an eclectic selection of films, and on Sundays and Tuesdays they often show old classics ranging from ‘Strangers on a Train’ to ‘The Big Lebowski’.

Whilst the Vue has a more basic selection of the big blockbusters, what is especially gripping about it is the seating.

Last year the cinema was refurbished so that all seats now recline fully and turn into something close to a bed. Be sure to take a big coat to use as a blanket, and maybe a pillow too!

These are just a few of my recommendations for taking care of yourself in such an intense environment.

Self-care does not have to be something you’re constantly attempting to fit into your schedule; self-care is remembering to take care of yourself in everything you do. Move your legs and take a walk, you never know what you might find.

You are more than just those Week Five Blues Sana Ali Features Editor

B

efore coming to Cambridge, I’d heard of the looming ‘Week Five Blues’ from a friend, so when I began experiencing mental health problems within a few days of being here, I felt completely alone. Cambridge is intense from the second you step into college. From the looming shadow of Kings’ College Chapel to the excessive emails about matriculation and formals and college rules, the unique feeling of elitist suffocation is a difficult transition for anyone, but as a working class person of colour, I found it almost impossible to assimilate. I wish I could attribute this fact alone to my slow slump into unhealthy habits, sleepless nights and disregard for self-care, but the truth is, mental health doesn’t discriminate. The truth is, I didn’t realise it was Week Five before I began writing this. In other words, I didn’t realise it was ‘Time To Be Stressed’ before I began writing this.

Through placing such a strong emphasis on one week, those who aren’t stressed feel like they should be and those who struggled earlier are largely invalidated.

“At Cambridge, all emotions are heightened; from love to pure joy to despair.”

But the problem of Week Five Blues doesn’t completely lie in its capacity to invalidate, but in its ardent fixation on the concept of ‘Cambridge stress.’ There is enough stigma surrounding mental health as it is; associating all Cambridge issues with one week does not eradicate, but rather perpetuates the idea that to struggle is to be under Cambridge-specific stress. But mental health is triggered by more than just stress. For me, it wasn’t just the workload.

Making friends, past trauma triggers and often nothing identifiable at all, all contributed to the problems I’ve faced during my time here. And yes, Cambridge is a specific environment in which all emotions are heightened, from love to pure joy to despair, but we should be working all year round to help everyone deal with this, not just for a period of seven days.

But not all is lost here. Wonderful, helpful groups such as Student Minds Cambridge and their ‘Not Just Five’ campaign are working tirelessly to advocate for the validity of mental health conditions independent of Week Five and/ or academic workload, in order to fight the trivialisation of serious mental health

issues. Through providing a consistent platform for those suffering from mental health issues to make their needs known, SMC are fighting stigma and promoting welfare provisions at all times in order to ‘dispel the myths that stress is always the cause of poor mental health in Cambridge.’

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a fervent petition to eradicate the concept of Week Five Blues all together, nor am I undermining the reality of struggling during week five. Rather, this is a request

to open up the discussion further in order to avoid the isolation of those who do not feel as if their issues can be confined to a space of seven days. It is important to give everyone an open space to express their concerns and communally relax, but it is also important to validate those who need support outside of a specified time constraint. To extend the good nature of Week Five all year round and create an open space for those who need it, when they need it.

The Thursday Magazine

self-care cover

ready to colour

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Clean Eating: more harm than good?

Emma Rutter

C

hia seeds. Almond milk. Courgetti. Even if you haven’t eaten any of these things yourself (and let’s be honest, you’re not quite sure how to pronounce “chia”), you’re likely to know someone who has. Thanks to the popularity of wellness blogs and Instagram accounts such as Naturally Ella, My New Roots, and Oh She Glows, the clean eating movement has swept the globe.

Clean eating is about choosing foods which are as unprocessed as possible and avoiding foods containing processed sugar or white flour. Whilst this sounds good in theory, in reality it can become a trap, particularly when combined with perfectionistic tendencies – something I imagine many Cantabs are familiar with. When we start something, we want to do it well, and this means that things like clean eating can be taken to extremes. We’re so driven to perform everything ‘perfectly’ that this can translate into our eating habits too

soon, eating ‘clean’ is all you can think about. Devotees insist that clean eating is not a restrictive diet – it’s a “lifestyle” - but I beg to differ.

Before you go to sleep, you’ll have planned your meals for the next day. And the minute someone hands you an unexpected cookie, or a piece of cake, the guilty feelings start and you immediately begin to plan what you’ll eat over the next few days to ‘make up for it’. When you come home from lectures, you’ll make a list of all the things you have eaten, mentally calculating the amount of sugar in

that banana you had for breakfast and wondering if it was okay to have peanut butter and avocado today when they both contain fat. Even healthy foods can become a problem. Dried fruit? Packed full of sugar. Nuts? Far too fatty. Your diet slowly becomes more and more restricted until you’re stuck with vegetables and little else.

Dried fruit? Packed full of sugar.

Nuts? Far too fatty.

KABOOMPICS

Clean eating promotes a healthy lifestyle, but it can lead to an unhealthy, obsessive relationship with food.

It implies that foods which don’t fit the definition of ‘clean’ are impure and dirty, to be avoided at all costs.

It prescribes a list of do’s and don’ts, putting foods into categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, so that eating something ‘unclean’ fills you with self-loathing. Food consumes your thoughts, so much so that it becomes impossible for you to go even one hour without thinking about what you’re going to eat next. What started off as desire to be healthy can lead to a dark hole of self-punishment and suffering.

Quite simply, it can trigger an obsession with food. Food should be something fun to eat, something to share with friends, not a battleground. Feel free to add some salad to your plate at lunchtime but don’t feel guilty for that prebed mug of hot chocolate. After all, it’s just food.

We’re so driven to perform everything ‘perfectly’ that this can translate into our eating habits Suddenly, instead of being a nourishing and essential activity, food becomes a challenge. You insist that you just want to feel healthier and have more energy, but all too

Black Mirror continues to terrify Will Kaye

I

consider myself a Luddite. Technology just scares me.

But it is at least comforting that my anxiety is shared by the rest of the populace. There’s an interesting (if heavy handed) piece of dialogue in ‘Playtest’, the second episode of the new series of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror which sums up this fear. ‘Singularity; it’s when computers outsmart man like women did years ago’.

So the tone is set.

Like The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror is an anthology show. This new Netflix series contains 6 vignettes connected only by their subject matter; technology and communication. ‘Nosedive’ predicts a world where the ratings system of social media defines one’s social presence. ‘Playtest’ imagines a VR horror video game which learns how to scare you. ‘Shut Up and Dance’ shows us a vulnerable young boy who becomes a puppet when his most intimate secrets are stolen. ‘Hated in the Nation’, the feature length finale is a tale of social media, crowd culture and bizarrely, the extinction of bees.

This Netflix series is six vignettes connected only by subject: technology and communication It’s difficult to discuss Black Mirror because often Charlie Brooker relies on shock reveals and twists to cement his narrative. In this sense, many episodes are formulaic. I found myself repeating out loud every time an episode introduced its central character ‘I wonder how this person’s life is going to fall apart’. But a formulaic structure is avoided by the show’s frightening creativity.

‘Shut Up and Dance’ kidney punched me with its harrowing final scene and prompted me to put blu-tac over my webcam. ‘Hated in the Nation’ was far too long for what its story had to offer, but any piece of television which simultaneously remains believable and contains a scene where woman is murdered by a swarm of robot bees deserves commendation.

Formulaic structure is avoided by the show’s frightening creativity ‘Playtest’ had a cheap ending and nothing to say about the legitimately interesting topic of virtual reality. ‘Men Against Fire’ was rushed, cold and you could see the twist coming a mile away. However, a bad episode of Black Mirror does not mean a bad piece of television.

The standards set for these episodes are so high that they disappoint when they simply underperform. The standout of the series is ‘San Junipero’, where Brooker breaks all his own rules. The piece is character based, a love story. It is set in 1980’s California and it has an optimistic ending.

One hour of joy out of a six and a half hour panic attack.

Brooker seems very concerned about the near future.

Every episode made me realise how vulnerable we are to an immeasurable amount of uncontrollable, digital shackles, which we often consent to wearing. You can imagine my anxiety when I realised after finishing the season that I had been sat in the same position, for 6 hours consensually staring at a distorted reflection of a worstcase-scenario view of the all too near future. The new series is quite brilliant, but worrying in how close to the bone it cuts.

NETFLIX US & CANADA

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Feel Good Theatre Gemma Sheehan Theatre Editor

H

ow do we choose which shows we go to? More particularly, how do we choose in Cambridge, where the wealth of productions coupled with incredibly hectic schedules can make many feel more stressed than relaxed at the prospect of ‘losing’ two hours to a performance?

As I sat on Friday watching Sam Fulton’s three hour long outside performance of King Lear, the idea of theatre-as an enjoyable hobby was on my mind. The day before I had gone to see a short, zippy comedy, and the contrast between the two was clear. But although I was incredibly behind with my essay and chilled to the bone by the end of the performance, I walked away in a better mental state than when I had first arrived. Despite being a tragedy, the play’s musing on immortal themes offered a kind of catharsis that might initially be hard to imagine.

I walked away at the end of the play in a better mental state than when I had first arrived

in a particular work rut, theatre can offer just as good a break without the lack of sleep and hangover that often accompany a night out.

The immersive nature of theatre makes it hard to keep worrying Of course, theatre is more than just relaxation. Many productions staged in Cambridge provoke, or deal with difficult themes that could be upsetting to someone in need of something soothing for the nerves. But with such a strong focus on the intellectual benefits of theatre and the provocative achievements of plays, I think there is still space to consider theatre-going as something that can be enjoyed for pleasure. In Cambridge in particular it feels like the idea of just going to watch a show for fun is one that is not embraced often enough. So next time you’re looking for a break from work, try hunting out what’s on at the ADC or Corpus, and soon you might find yourself embracing theatre-going as a hobby too.

N CHADWICK

It is theatre’s offer of a distraction that is its best feature as a relaxing hobby, and perhaps explains why even something as bleak as Shakespearean tragedy can be comforting. And yet unlike hobbies such as reading or watching TV, the communal nature of theatre is something I think is incredibly important, particularly in Cambridge, where you can often feel isolated. A break watching the fruits of other students’ hard labour not only fosters a sense of university community but also gives the impression of being a social activity.

When watching a performance, be it a comedy sketch show, a lengthy Shakespearian production, or an experimental piece at the Corpus Playroom, the immersive nature of theatre makes it virtually impossible to continue worrying about work or other problems. Much like the mid-week urge of many for a ‘cheeky Cindies’ when stuck

Comfort shows Theo Howe Film Editor

I

n the midst of the crushing drudgery that is Week 5, sometimes as an act of self-love it can make sense to stop the reading, put down the test tubes, and indulge in twenty minutes to an hour of shows that make you feel all snuggly and warm. Here are my suggestions.

The Simpsons: This works as a wonderful act of nostalgic escapism. Episodes from the golden age of the show are endlessly quoteable and the episodes are the perfect length to give you twenty minutes of mirth before you return to thoughts of deadlines.

Pingu: I don’t think it’s stated enough that Pingu is the greatest piece of art that the world has ever been blessed with. Of course, it can be hard to know which episode is the best to watch since there are many sad and potentially scarier ones, but since each episode is five minutes long there is very little skin off your nose if you happen to come across one of the incredibly rare weaker episodes. I have lost entire afternoons to the irreverent charm of the young penguin’s antics.

Sweet Genius: Four chefs, one flamboyant host, two unhelpful mandatory ingredients. If nothing else it provides some perspective to show that maybe your life is not as confusing as the format of this show. The highlight has to be when someone makes a pie, freezes it, then hacks at a bonzai to use as decoration. I am still in shock that this did not go down well.

The Eric Andre Show: Sometimes, something of a cathartic release is in order to give you the will to continue. Something that helps me with that is watching the host of a talk show destroy his desk to reveal a bath, and proceed to wash himself in the middle of an interview.

After this the co-host kicks the guest in the face. I’m usually left pretty confused by the whole affair but each episode is a ten minute rollercoaster that makes it very hard to think about anything else.

All praise ‘Nervous Conditions’ In the midst of a drab music scene, they’re offering something fresh Tiernan Banks Music Columnist

A

few months ago, I saw The Wave Pictures play The Portland Arms. With their sardonic chat, brilliant guitar and hugely faithful (if small) audience, they are one of my favourite live bands. But I found the whole experience deflating. It took me a few days to work out why.

Aside from Veterans Sports Team, I could think of no bands that included any students themselves. And every show I’ve been down to so far in my time here has either been fairly empty, or fairly packed with men in their forties. So, with some desperation, I went internetting for local bands that could convince me I was wrong.

In so doing, I found Nervous Conditions, and got hooked on their most recent Soundcloud upload, a demo of ‘Village Mentality’. The unchanging, hypnotic bass line over Connor Browne’s snarling vocals smacks of The Fall in their more coherent periods. The saxophone cuts

through the rhythm section, never allowing us to settle comfortably in any point – clearly not something they want from us, judging by the overtly cynical lyrics.

The recording is not perfect, but it was enough to pay the money to see them headline The Portland Arms. I arrived late, regrettably, and missed the first two bands. When I got there, it was packed with what I presume were friends and family alike, and there was a good buzz about the place. And Nervous Conditions put on a really good show.

They played with a maturity that much belied their age.

Improvising much of their instrumental sections, the band was confidently conducted by their frontman, who held a printed lyric-sheet in hand throughout (I’m still unsure if this was for artistic purposes or as a genuine memory-aid).

The watertight rhythm section allowed the off-kilter guitar riffs and jarring saxophone to roam as they pleased.

It was loud and danceable at times, brooding and

thoughtful at others. The vocals were in some sense reminiscent of the Two-Tone ska era in their delivery, even if the drums’ lack of syncopation takes that comparison no further. The lyrics were sharp and poignant, with Browne once despairing over the audience’s inability to listen quietly to a slow song – whether this plea was written in to the lyrics or improvised; it was a great remark nonetheless.

More than anything, given my previous scepticism and concern, it was great to see something of this sort happening in Cambridge, and it getting such a positive response. Naturally, the Cambridge students were still conspicuous by their absence. And there’s no obvious solution to that. But in any case, thanks to Nervous Conditions, I have been given some reason for optimism.

Nervous Conditions are playing again at The Blue Moon on November 15th.

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

The ubiquity Dressing to impress yourself of montages Ellie Mullett

Theo Howe Film Editor

I

t is a truth universally acknowledged that any sports film worth its salt will have a montage. Truth be told, I would definitely ask for a refund if it went the whole duration without the film quickly cutting between our protagonist punching something as some rad music blares in the background.

Even though montage theory has its roots in Soviet cinema of the 1920s and a comparison of Rocky montages to those in films like October and Battleship Potemkin would probably be interesting and thought-provoking, I do not have the capacity for that right now so prepare yourself for something very shallow indeed.

F

ashion in the modern world can be used to showcase your personalitys, and in daily life what we choose to wear can have a huge impact on our mood and attitude to the day.

When you are having a bad day, the temptation to dress ‘comfortably’ is all too great. You might feel disappointed with your supervision or disheartened by this week’s reading list, and by hiding in baggy sportswear you won’t be wasting your favourite outfit on a bad day. It doesn’t seem criminal to wear a sweatshirt with last night’s dinner decorating the front if you don’t plan on leaving the library all day anyway.

For the lucky few, clothes are just there to cover their modesty and keep them warm: their productivity will remain the same whether they are in pyjamas or a threepiece suit. But for the rest of us, it’s worth remembering

Why is it that a montage has come to be a sports movie staple?

Why is it that a montage has come to be a sports movie staple? Whilst I should point out that montages do not need to be set to music, it is usually the case that we are dealing with rhythmic montage when outside of silent film so always assume that there is some 80s cheese underpinning everything whenever I mention the word.

Truth be told, the reason is probably that we need some signifier that progress is occurring; to just cut to our hero being good at fighting people would be sudden and to show a day-by-day routine of them gradually coming to be able to run slightly further would be boring. A montage acts as a discourse marker so that the audience can adequately believe that the protagonist has gone from a zero to a hero.

A montage means the audience can believe that the protagonist has gone from zero to hero Rocky almost certainly helped popularise it as a technique, and after getting to the top of the Philadelphia steps they probably had no idea that the same ideas would be present in Air Bud V: Air Bud Spikes Back. I know that the montage in the original Rocky hardly counts as a montage at all if we are using real film theory used by actual people who know things, but I would like to take my 400 words of fame and run with it if possible.

I probably made no points at all but I find it strange that a cinematic technique originating in Russia was used on one film and deemed so successful that it was used on all films in the same genre henceforth. Stallone should have insisted that anyone who does so should pay him royalties.

MRKNOCKOUT8664

VALERIA BOLTNEVA

that fashion is designed to empower. Your outfit choice can be a surprisingly simple way to alter your mood. ‘Tidy desk, tidy mind’ is a well-known phrase, but a strong case can also be made for the link between wearing clothes that make you feel good and your efficiency.

While my Cambridge interview was not necessarily a ‘bad’ day, it was excruciatingly nerve racking. I found myself relying on my wardrobe for superficial confidence, and I remember the reasons behind picking the coat I wore that day. It is was not a garment designed for warmth but that was irrelevant as I was frozen by nerves anyway –the cut, the drape and the vibrant cobalt blue shade of my outer layer acted like chainmail, fending off thoughts of doubt. The interview rooms themselves benefitted from excellent central heating, but I kept my coat on, because in it I felt like a young professional. Fashion is no substitute for knowledge, but it can be a helping hand when you need to find motivation and confidence in yourself.

That is not to say we should never take a relaxed approach to what we wear. On a daily basis, when you feel neither lethargic nor uneasy, there’s nothing wrong in embracing the classic undergraduate jumper-and-skinnyjeans combination. It’s practical and seasonly appropriate, so take full advantage. And if your day really is abysmal, then feel no guilt in wearing your most sluggish attire and eating a whole pack of digestives. But also remember: there’s no longer a need for ‘Sunday best’. We have the freedom to wear the clothes that empower us as often as we wish, and we should take full advantage of this.

My love of Korean crime films Theo Howe

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t can be hard to know, or at least hard to accurately explain, why certain genres may appeal to us more than others. I have no such problem in describing my love for Korean crime films, but it makes me sound rather odd. Korean crime films are bleak, unfulfilling, and usually not afraid to be unreasonably violent. Before you move swiftly on to the next article and resolve to turn the other way should you ever see me approaching, I should explain why these are traits I actively seek in films.

Crime cinema can manifest itself in many forms but there is usually something of a sense of good versus bad, with occasional nuance to spice things up. Ultimately, the good side is expected to win in some way, with some of the more outgoing directors choosing to let evil have the upper hand at the end. Strange as it may sound, I love how Korean crime films often end with no victor, trailing off into a crushing abyss following a particularly violent couple of hours.

It is the brutality and the lack of closure that makes these films so thrilling. Memories of Murder works all the more because of how the investigation constantly feels like it is going nowhere. I Saw the Devil is so horrifying because of the moral ambiguity of all its characters. Sure, I like to cheer myself up with a screening of The Road to El Dorado after every film, but sadness and shock are equally viable measures of quality as sympathy and joy. Korean crime films have no desire to sugarcoat anything.

So I suppose like all things, I enjoy Korean crime films in moderation. If I refused to watch anything that didn’t feature some type of barbed wire based torture then it

would confirm the theory that I am no fun whatsoever at parties, but the combination of brutality and mystery raises the stakes in these films, bringing me to the edge of my seat in a way that no other style of film can. And no, I don’t know what it is about the crime films being Korean that causes this. Maybe I need to get better acquainted with the crime films of other nations, but for now all I know is that it’s the Korean films that deliver what I want.

I had a lecture on how all Korean media is permeated by han: a sense of crushing unfulfillment, but to theorise on the links between this and the nation’s cinematic output would feel too much like an essay, and I came here instead to talk about how seeing someone get curbstomped is a way for me to unwind.

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Reading as self-care Zen Tunes Megan Fereday Music Editor

Celia Morris

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ometimes. you just need to curl up with a good book and escape the world for a little while.

Week Five is definitely one of those times, so take a break from that textbook, and indulge in some reading just for fun. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

The Northern Lights: When you’re feeling rough as a Cambridge student, Philip Pullman’s novel might not seem like the most obvious choice for a comfort read, what with it being set in an alternate universe’s Oxford. It’s riddled with references to the things we’d probably rather not think about: colleges, masters, traditions, and angry porters. But it is also a story that romanticises these things back into our good books — I find it especially gratifying to read about the main character scrambling about on her college’s roof.

Good Omens: As is commonly said, there’s nothing like sassy angels and a dash of the Antichrist to cheer you up when you’re feeling down. Luckily, this book has both!

Get hold of a copy and allow yourself to be sent stumbling down a road that’s potholed with hilarious footnotes, alive with adventure, and paved by two of the best storytellers known to story-telling, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

There was no way I was going to leave the shop until it was very much in my possession. I have absolutely no regrets, especially as it has been passed around my staircase multiple times, bringing somewhat perplexed joy to various people. If you have a wicked sense of humour, a love of slightly expressionless bears, and a spare ten minutes, then Jon Klassen’s book is for you.

Wicked Autumn: In my opinion, there’s little that’s more comforting than a good detective novel — especially when it’s one set in a cosy village, where the detective in question is an MI5 agent-turned-vicar, who is frequently described as looking like Hugh Grant. This is the first in G. M. Malliet’s series, which is jam-packed with the quaint and funny, the sweet and sinister. And, as they progress with the seasons (Wicked Autumn is followed by A Fatal Winter), now is the perfect time to snuggle up with a copy and soothe away those Week Five Blues.

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hether it’s for meditation, sleep aid, yoga or just to clear your head, music can often help in times of stress.

We’ve compiled a list of ambient tunes to help you drift off into a blissful zen state. Plug in your headphones, shut your eyes, and enjoy.

In the Stream - S. Carey Daylight Goodbye - Message to Bears Twentytwofourteen - The Album Leaf Bleed - deadmau5 Andalusia - Hammock Varðeldur - Sigur Rós

KLIMKIN

Soft Like Snow - Heinali Avril 14th - Aphex Twin Boy 1904 - Jónsi & Alex Olopte’s Lullaby - Gabriela Parra

And Still I Rise: I bought Maya Angelou’s book of poetry in Week Five of last year and, as its title promises, it continues to lift me up whenever I’m in a slump.

These aren’t all happy poems, but they’re bracing ones: rhythmic and playful and with the ability to set your soul thrumming with renewed determination. Definitely pop into Fopp the next time you’re walking past, on the off chance that this collection is still around for a couple of quid.

Tiny Doors - Hiatus Threnody - Goldmund 20:17 - Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm Cloud Speed - Sad Souls Stars - Brian Eno

I Want My Hat Back: Another Week Five purchase: a picture book I found in the kids’ section of Waterstones.

Search ‘TCS - Zen Tunes’ on Spotify to access this playlist.

Finding the comfort in food Celia Morris

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rom where I am currently sitting in the middle of my bed, I can see two half-eaten packets of chocolate biscuits and three empty packets of Pom-Bears. Poking out of my bin is the box my McNuggets came in the other night. A bottle of squash sits on my shelf, begging to be taken to the kitchen so I can boil the kettle and be transported to sweet squashy paradise. Hidden in my desk drawer are bags of fruit: oranges, apples, and nectarines that my mum bought them for me when she came to visit a week ago.

The fact is that I love food (food — not fruit), and when the cold starts to set in and the work starts piling up, I find it one of the most rewarding means of procrastination, as well as helpful in alleviating some of the self-pity that increases in tandem with my sneeze-count. It is much nicer to be drowning in chocolate wrappers than tissues — or, at least, for the mountain of Kleenex to be interspersed with evidence of my love affair with Cadbury.

Food is also the easiest way to stay on top of that prevailing ‘Treat Yo Self ’ mindset. Are your running

CELIA MORRIS

nose, lacklustre word-count, blocked ears, and struggling bibliography collectively getting you down? Then buy a sandwich from Pret. Cycle to Sains just before it shuts to get a massive box of heavily discounted donuts. Wrap your tired hands around a mug of soup.

Lately, thanks to living next door to the heir of an egg farm, my kitchen has been readily stocked with free-range, double-yolked goodies This has been my most recent comfort-food go-to. I have learnt how to soft boil an egg to the point of absolute perfection,. It is almost as if I’m back at home on a sleepy Sunday, still in my PJs, only suggesting that I make my own breakfast because I know my dad isn’t going to take me up on the offer. I’m aware that there’s nothing particularly glamorous about a meal that leaves your hands covered in crumbs, yolk, and bits of shell, but the food that makes me really happy isn’t the kind of stuff that gets dished up at formal. It’s the toasty, homey, warm things, which in their simple niceness, almost make you forget that you should really be drinking some Lemsip on the side.

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Impressive student writing

by Costa: e x i l e review Florence Instone

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here is a uniqueness to Rute Costa’s original piece exile that makes it captivating from start to finish. I can honestly say that I have never seen anything like it. It is deeply disturbing, startling, and at times unnerving. And

I knew immediately it was going to be a play characterised by twists yet, the performance provides for an unforgettable viewing experience.

As I entered the Corpus Playroom, it was immediately clear that exile was going to be a play characterised by twists.

All six actresses were in place prior to the performance starting; five sitting against the walls of the Playroom, and one, Medea (Niamh Curran) lying bloody and seemingly lifeless in the centre of the sandy stage. Indeed, the stage floor was transformed into a bed of sand, the desert scene emphasising the truly desolate nature of exile.

There is an unmissable feminist tone The plot centres on the relationship forged between the women as they struggle to survive. Members of the group originate from a variety of cultures and historical periods in time, including Ancient Athens and Nepal. Yet each woman shares one thing in common with the rest; she has been ostracised by her community.

In a flashback Nepalese Samasti (Claire Takami-Siljedahl) chillingly relives her experience of being forced into a shed on the outskirts of her village due to starting her period, which is regarded as impure: ‘the gods were angry and their anger was red.’

There is an unmissable feminist tone throughout the play, which brings to light the brutal, cross-cultural maltreatment of women throughout history. Antoinette (Beatriz Santos) for example, recalls how she was locked in the attic of her Caribbean home by her husband, and Abhita (Ruby Kwong) is subjected to unimaginable violence after having been captured protesting outside Parliament. Her piercing screams echo in the mind of the viewer long after the conclusion of the play. Despite all this, however, the underlying message is one of hope rather than despair, as the bond which forms between the women is defined by sisterly strength in the face of oppression.

The use of sound was utterly transfixing Furthermore, the use of sound throughout the play was utterly transfixing – the work of composer Arthur Robijns cannot go unnoticed. His original soundtrack is serene, yet at the same time unsettling, perfectly capturing both the gravity of the situation and the strength of the six women. The sand is also used as a mechanism to create sound, as the women let it run through their hands and rub against their skin.

Overall this was an almost flawless production with an impressive performance from all involvedww. exile is a play that does not fail to intrigue, and is a must-see this week. exile runs at the Corpus Playroom Tues 1st – Saturday 5th October at 7:00pm.

9/10 KIERAN TAM

“Different and unusu of Horrors disappoin Meggie Fairclough

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ittle Shop of Horrors, a play written

by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, showed its opening performance at the ADC last night to a packed-out crowd.

It was definitely a night to remember; the gruesome, yet comedically satirical play was conducted professionally and in true musical theatre form, leaving everyone singing at its closing. It wasn’t without its faults: however, it is questionable whether this is just a result of first-time nerves, as it is hard not to appreciate the meticulous planning and rehearsals that went into making the actual performance a success.

It is undeniable that Little Shop of Horrors is a bizarre play, and the cast did it well, each subsuming into every aspect of the characters they were portraying. The most striking feature of the small cast was the fact that they all put so much effort and enthusiasm into their part, and this energy kept the audience hooked throughout.

There were some standout performances; the vocal talents of Audrey (Olivia Gaunt) and

Seymour (Adam Mirksy) were brilliant, and this was especially evident in Audrey’s solo, ‘Somewhere that’s Green’, where despite the blood-thirsty nature of the play, many of the onlookers teared up. As strange as it is to note, Audrey Two (Megan Gilbert) had an amazing voice, even though the audience never sees her actually sing as anything but a plant.

The cast worked together well as a whole, with close-nit harmonies perfectly executed, in addition to always being precisely on time with the band. There were a few off notes, but that is to be expected on the first night of one of the biggest productions of term.

The choreography was tight, and you could clearly see the amount of time that had been invested into rehearsals. Of particular merit were Ronnette (Holly Musgrave), Crystal (Clara van Wel) and Chiffon (Sophie Foote), whose excellent dancing complemented their vocals, additionally being incredibly synchronised with each other and pulling the whole thing off in heels.

The stage direction was also effective – the actors used the space they had to the full, and

The Cambridge Student • The Thursday Magazine • 03 November 2016

ALL IMAGES: OSCAR YANG

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Crystal Fighters hit, then miss India Harris

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rystal Fighters’ musical style is notoriously difficult to define.

Theirs is an an amalgamated mash of multilingual folk, electronica, traditional Basque, trippy psychedelia, and the occasional flash of dubstep. This careering through genres makes for sporadic albums, where very different sounds are yoked together and forced to coexist. On previous albums, Star of Love (2010) and Cave Rave (2013), weaker tracks are easily dismissed whilst the stronger tracks are captivating enough to keep on repeat for days at a time. Their latest offering, Everything Is My Family, is much the same.

‘Simplecito’, the album’s Anglo-Spanish opening track, presents the philosophical optimism that underpins the previous albums: ‘Open your minds, open your spirit, open your soul...’ This is followed by the wonderful, upbeat abandonment of ‘Yellow Sun’.

The sound is familiar, and the lyrics contain all of the band’s trademark images: colourful skies, love, dancing, mild drug references: it’s all there. ‘Good Girls’ sustains the acoustic continuity, and could have come from the previous album. So far, so good.

‘In Your Arms’, however, is a more radical departure - and not in a good way. The sound feels tired and lifeless; perhaps the closest the band get to creating a modern dance track. This is a sound that does not

ual”; yet Little Shop nts technically it was only when the entire cast came together that there was some obstruction and shuffling.

The set design was poor and it felt like this distracted from the high bar that had been set from the all-singing-and-dancing performance. It seemed unfinished and flimsy, as for example, the door on set kept jamming and the plant kept being flattened.

Additionally, the cast appeared like they were not used to working with the set and props, and there were many instances of props falling over or being left out. Scene changes were thus not as good as they should have been, and in one case a member of the production team was left on stage. Again, one can attribute this to it being the first night, but it felt as if overall the actors were ready to perform but the set hadn’t been quite as well thought out and rehearsed as the rest.

The lighting was far from flawless, and once more it seemed like additional practice needed to be invested for it to be completely in sync with the cast. However, the sound, namely the band, was fantastic. They continually played throughout, and despite not being able to see the

performers or be seen themselves, were never a note or beat out of line in accompaniment. You could really see how much time and effort had been put into rehearsals again in this sense.

Little Shop of Horrors was different and unusual as expected, although it was perhaps not as slick as it should have been. This is a shame consiwdering the amount of investment and effort put in by the cast. The set design was clumsy and was not good enough for the high standard of performance set out by the cast and band.

Overall, despite the technical faults, this was musical theatre as it should be and the freaky, fun and far-out play was executed well. Nonetheless, a slightly better production standard might be expected of an ADC mainshow.

Little Shop of Horrors plays at the ADC Tues 1st – Saturday 5th October at 7:45pm.

6/10

endear them and, sadly, continues into the underwhelming ‘Live For You’. These tracks are a long way from the celebrations of simple beauty that makes the music of Crystal Fighters so hopeful, and rare.

Other tracks do retain the band’s vibrant energy. ‘Ways I Can’t Tell’ evokes the early electronic sounds of ‘Star of Love’, and ‘All Night’ captures the casual, simple spirituality of previous hits ‘You and I’ and ‘Plage’.

On closing track, ‘Lay Low’, Crystal Fighters return to the calm and carefree philosophising that makes their music so refreshing. Set once more in a world of ‘highest mountains’ and ‘greatest oceans’, ‘Lay Low’ is speculative and gently uplifting: ‘Tiny shiny life / Come on and lay low / Trying to make it right / It’s time to let it go’.

Everything Is My Family is the musical embodiment of ‘hit and miss’. It is an album at its best not when stuck in the sticky glossiness of their newer sound, but when channeling the rawer, more percussive campfire sounds of previous albums. ‘Everything Is My Family’ is definitely worth a listen, but save time and skip straight to the highlights: ‘Good Girls’, ‘All Night’, ‘Lay Low’, and - my favourite - ‘Yellow Sun’.

5/10

The West Wing Weekly: giving an old dog new tricks Stevie Hertz

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s we descend into the final week of the American presidential election, with further allegations of sexual assault, corruption, and financial misdeeds, it is nice to look back at a simpler time. A time when a different Clinton was rolling towards the finish line, despite lurid allegations by the press and a Republican congress. Namely, the late 1990s, most notably the time when The West Wing first aired.

However, while it has been a decade since the final episode of the seven series jugganought ended, The West Wing has recieved a new burst of life. This isn’t only due to the state of politics on both sides of the Atlantic, where everyone could do with a bit of idealism, but also due to The West Wing Weekly, a new podcast. Hosted by superfan Hrishikesh Hirway and actor Joshua Malina, who appeared in later series of the show, the podcast analyses a new episode of the show each week.

Aiming to appeal to fans both old and new, they reveal no spoilers about the show, but talk through the plot, writing, directing and acting. While I, like many West Wing

fans (or ‘Sorkinites’ as we prefer to be known), have seen the show several times over, the podcast reveals new depths, arcs and metrics for analysis.

They also regluarly invite guests on to the podcast. These range from those involved in The West Wing, like director Thomas Schlamme and writer Aaron Sorkin, to people who worked in the real White House, talking about how realistic the show is and how they dealt with characters’ problems.

Of course, neither The West Wing, nor its subsequent podcast are perfect; both are tragically and overwhelmingly male. This is particularly rough when Hirway and Malina talk about the show’s often rampant sexism and try to work out whether it is an accurate depiction of a 1990s political atmosphere or the writers’ own.

The West Wing Weekly places the show in its context, for both good and bad (significant in its tirades against homophobia). And as our own politcal context gets darker, it provides a weekly hour of escapism.

8/10

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Bar Wars: Corpus versus Trinity Hall Emma Rutter

JESSIE MATHEWSON

JESSIE MATHEWSON

Quick comparison Corpus Atmosphere: 7/10 during the day, 7/10 in evening Value for money: 7/10 Overall: 7/10 Trinity Hall Atmosphere: 8/10 during the day, 6/10 in evening Value for money: 7/10 Overall: 8/10

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EMMA RUTTER

orpus’ Pelican Bar is, like several other college bars, set slightly underground. Unlike others we visited, however, the bar was only accessible using a student card – something we weren’t sure was going to work for us visitors. Thankfully it did, and we entered into a warm, inviting space. Made up of a set of several interconnecting rooms, rather than one large room, it’s got a cosier feel to it, but there are a few tables to sit at and a bigger space where you can play pool or watch tv – two very important pasttimes. Did I mention they have table football too? The bar is open for most of the day but closes for a few hours in the afternoon, so make your purchases before lunchtime to avoid disappointment. But you won’t find any stodgy bar food here; they’ve just introduced lentil crisps and ‘natural’ energy drinks to help you stay focused all day. (In theory.)

They hold ‘slacks’ (themed discos) several times a term, where they clear the lower room to make space for dancing.

It seems like it could get crowded quite easily, but there are plenty of places to take a breather. Drinks seemed averagelypriced, with the special ‘slack punch’ a real bargain at £1 per cup. When we visited, it seemed to be a tropical mixture flavoured with mango and peach. It’s only available during slacks, though, so time your visit carefully!

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rinity Hall is best known for its distinctive library building jutting out over the Cam, but the Aula Coffee Shop/Bar deserves some recognition too. It has a distinct 80s vibe due to the purple lighting, but with comfy sofas and a tempting variety of snacks (cookies, popcorn and ice-cream, to name just a few), this bar would be the ideal place to escape to after a heavy session in the library. They also sell frappuccinos and smoothies for those of you who can’t be bothered walking to Starbucks in the Lion Yard. It’s a space which can be used all day, every day; opening hours have recently been extended so you can stay here from morning to evening if you wish. There are lots of places to sit and chat, or grab a bite to eat for lunch – a real plus point, in my opinion – and they hold Open Mic nights and regular Ents (aka Vivas) throughout the term.

I’ll admit that it feels more like a café than a bar, so you might be better off going elsewhere if you’re looking for a place with atmosphere. However, they do serve alcoholic drinks, and they even have their own brand of ale – though as I’m not an ale expert, I’m in no position to give advice.

If you decide to visit, make sure to bring a map, or a friendly Tit Hall student with you – it’s hard enough to find when sober, never mind when drunk.

Escape from the Bubble:South-East Asia Off the tourist trail, exploring Battambang, Cambodia’s hidden gem Esme O’Keeffe Columnist

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utumn is setting in and with its chilly nip I draw my sheepskin closer around me. Long gone are the days of my travels in South East Asia. Don’t tell me, you went there too? Cambodia and Vietnam seem to have become, in many ways, the Magaluf of the privileged 18+ demographic. Wherever we went, we happened across friends and friends of friends.

Whilst travelling, we found many of the places on our trip all too geared-up for tourists like us – until we arrived in Battambang. Now Cambodia’s second most populous city, Battambang is sufficiently on the tourist trail for backpackers to have heard of it, but deemed sufficiently off-the-trail for it to be shunned by the majority of them.

Of course there is a part of me reluctant to share this hidden gem: it’s missed off the typical backpacker’s flying itinerary, and for us that made it even more charming. But at the same time it is an important reminder that, just like people, often the places which shout the loudest are not

the most valuable or worthwhile.

Battambang certainly does not shout. In fact guidebooks seem to struggle to find anything to say about it. One guide mentions the town’s ‘nori’ train. Better known as the ‘bamboo train’, this is a rattly contraption which thunders down a track from one remote village to another.

Consisting simply of a bamboo board on which passengers sit cross-legged, if you meet another ‘train’ coming in the other direction, one has to be swiftly dismantled to clear the tracks for the other.

The bamboo train is certainly one of the principle attractions of Battambang, along with the bat caves. These are famous for the sunrise spectacle, when for 45 minutes, thousands of bats stream out of the hillside for their nightly hunting spree.

An army marches on its stomach, and so did we as we snaked through paddy fields and banana tree plantations.

Lone water buffalo stood silhouetted in the distance and children careered down dirt tracks on rusty bicycles.

Food is always an important part of travel for me. Living off the rice/noodle soup/spring rolls diet for a few pounds a day, I had thought I was backpacking well: saving money and eating like the locals. In a tiny, dusty settlement outside Battambang I realised that I, along with the majority of my fellow travellers, weren’t getting quite the deal we thought we were. A handful of Cambodian women shuffled up to make room for me on a rickety bench at an even ricketier table. I was handed a bowl of white noodles with sugar, lemon, black pepper and a hearty dousing of chilli flakes. The best part: a side of roasted banana leaf parcels stuffed with ground catfish paste. This was simple Cambodian cuisine at its best. My lunch came to the grand total of 12.5 pence.

So why did I love Battambang so much? The food, the people, and whilst of course there were other tourists in Battambang, during my exploration of the rural outskirts I managed to spend an entire day without encountering a single one.

03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

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Light a bright spark For this week’s beauty shoot we took inspiration from the bright colours and sparkles of fireworks. Nothing says positivity and celebration like pyrotechnics, so with bonfire night just around the corner we tried to capture the warm glow of a cold night, and the dazzling lights that are somehow always worthy of an ‘ooh’ or an ‘ahh’. The spark of self-confidence is something we all aspire to, and it’s a feeling that comes from within. Some glitter and sequins on the outside never go amiss though, so for these looks we were generous with the sparkle: a twinkle in your eye is a twinkle on your eye. Here’s hoping these looks cheer up your Week Five.

Photography Qiuying Lai Makeup Kelly Huang Lighting Assistant Hannah Watson Models Ailsa McDougall, Juliet Skidmore, Hannah Grace Taylor, Megan Lea, Kelly Huang

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Weight loss: Scaling back the damage Rebecca Davies

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et me start by saying that I have never been one of the ‘skinny’ girls. But for five long years, I was dedicated to trying to be one. I was fortunate in that it never developed into an eating disorder.

But nonetheless, I calorie-counted my way through my teenage years, weighing myself every day, fixating over any slight change, good or bad. I tried, and largely succeeded in gradually losing weight and in this I have no regrets. But in retrospect, I do wonder what the practice of stepping on the scales actually did for me.

I do wonder what the practice of stepping on the scales actually did Our lives are governed by numbers; we plan our day into twenty-four hours, our essays into a number of words, our university life around the numbers we get from Student Finance, and count down the days until this number comes. Problems begin when we start assigning numbers to ourselves. As the recent Class List controversy suggests, these personal numbers are not always ones we want to share, or indeed numbers that necessarily have any value at all. Our weight is but one of these measures, and potentially the most distressing, because when we are given a number, our weight is immediately comparative either against others, or against our own desires.

In a world where discussions of health oscillate

awkwardly between celebrations of increasing lifeexpectancy to condemnations of unhealthy lifestyles, the need to ‘watch one’s weight’ seems self-explanatory. To this end, the efficiency and simplicity of stepping on the scales has plenty of appeal.

But for me, scales were the greatest obstacle towards the improvement of my body confidence. Whenever I met my weight goal, it was never enough; I just didn’t look how I imagined I would. I still didn’t love myself. It was then I realised that there was a much deeper issue here, one the scales would never indicate. Your weight isn’t just a number; it is a self-administered verdict on how we rate ourselves as people.

That’s why our weight weighs so heavily on our minds.

The purpose of scales is to provide a definitive and objective assessment. Yet our personal associations with that number are anything but definitive or objective. The scales will give you the truth without passing judgement on it. While some may argue this is a great benefit, I feel this often does more harm than good: it means we alone

inherently limited in diagnosing one’s health due to their inability to distinguish between weight from fat and weight from muscle. In light of this and my own personal development, I have more or less exorcised the scales out of my life. I am no longer at the mercy of numbers, no longer positioning myself on graphs or comparing myself to an ideal. At the moment I adhere to my mum’s system of weight-watching, namely the tight-trousers test. While it won’t give me numerical accuracy, it will base my views on my body by how I feel, which to me is the unit of far greater value.

MOJZAGREBINFO

The methods used to confirm the association seem fairly strange are passing the judgment. Our views on our weight go unmediated, our insecurities run wild.

In any case, it is increasingly evident that scales are

Shakespeare and Marlowe: The Bard(s)?

Sabhbh Curran

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or centuries now there has been weird and wonderful conjecture as to the identity of our most well-known playwright and questions over the validity of the “Shakespearean canon”. But, recently, this debate has intensified, following the controversial decision made by the editors of the New Oxford Shakespeare to attribute all three parts of Henry VI to the both Willliam Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.

A vast number of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays were jointly authored. Given that their writers were all living and working within a small radius, this is not surprising.

But the idea of Shakespeare doing it still causes an odd amount of unease, almost as if it diminishes his legacy. We TOM REEDY

know he collaborated with Kyd and Middleton among others, so co-authorship is not without precedent.

But what makes me suspicious about the ShakespeareMarlowe connection is that the international editorial panel is led by Florida State University’s Gary Taylor, a critic who has spent his career looking for the influence of other playwrights in Shakespeare’s work, even when the proof is shaky. Indeed, Taylor has been a lynchpin in the

Taylor has spent a career looking for the influence of other writers critical move away from viewing the Bard in isolation.

Some of the methods used to finally confirm this association seem, to an English student like myself, fairly strange. Taylor and his peers used statistical analysis of “linguistic repetition” and “adjacency networks” (i.e. which words are used next to other words). Apparently, all this data was enough to be able to “verify Marlowe’s presence in those three plays strongly and clearly enough”.

But reading and interpreting literature is something expressly human; we react to texts and they shape us in a dialectical relationship; algorithms can’t replicate that.

What’s more, we have few definitive versions of Shakespeare’s plays. Hamlet famously exists in three versions, all quite different. We will never know whether the plays that we have today are true to Shakespeare’s intentions, having been changed by modern editors, or even recorded through reconstruction by an actor or audience member.

Although the co-authorship of Henry VI cannot be proven, it will hopefully lead to a resurgence in the

performance and study of Marlowe. Living as a spy and gay icon, before being stabbed to death in a Deptford brawl, he has long been considered the bad boy of Elizabethan England. Typically, only Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine grace the modern stage., but The Jew of Malta, The Massacre at Paris and Edward II are all fantastic plays that dramatise the political tensions of late Elizabethan England. The early modern literary canon will always be led by Shakespeare, but it should not be dominated by him. The New Oxford edition certainly serves as a reminder of how little concrete information we have about the Bard. But if crediting the plays as coauthored leads to resurgence of Marlowe on the stage and in the classroom, it is no bad thing.

PARIS 16

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Mirror, mirror: Faith and self-esteem Katherine Ladd

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ou look sexy’ – it was a comment that left my thirteen-year-old self feeling utterly awkward and rather confused.This was the beginning of a gradual awareness that my appearance no longer seemed to be my own. Gone were the carefree days of running around in baggy t-shirts. Come thirteen, people were judging what they saw.

The beginning of my teenage years was marked by a phase of that horrible self-consciousness. I had lots of moments when I looked in the mirror and wished I could be different. I’d go out and exercise not just because I enjoyed it, but because I was worried about putting on weight. I hated feeling like the centre of attention, and I would deliberately avoid corridors at school where I’d have to walk past groups of people.

standards are a lie. God thinks you’re beautiful.’

And it’s taken me so long to realise that she’s right.

Because I really do believe in a God who calls us ‘wonderfully made’ and rejoices in the richly diverse beauty of the people He’s created. And the more I look at the world’s broken standards of beauty – where supermodels are reduced to anorexia and glossy magazines show us airbrushed faces to guilt us into spending – the more I recognise them for their shallowness.

By the time I reached sixth form I was in a much better place of self-acceptance. But I was starting to notice KATHERINE LADD

I still haven’t quite got to a place where I love the way I look

I really do believe in a God who rejoices in the richly diverse beauty of people

Beauty has reached a point of brokenness, and we’re living in a world where we’re constantly bombarded by the message: ‘You’re not good enough.’ So when I picture my younger self, worrying over her questionable fringe, I wish I could tell her to stand up a taller. I wish I could tell her to stop looking at herself and look at a God who says: ‘You’re good enough for me.’ And I wish I could reach out and take the mirror from her hands. Perhaps then she might realise just how much there is to see beyond it.

I’ve been a Christian for a long time, and during that time I faintly knew that something about my faith ought to be affecting my self-image, but I didn’t let it. When I was 14 I made a wonderful friend called Esther, who used to tell me that I was beautiful at every opportunity she got. I would shrug it away and insist, ‘I’m not. Not by the world’s standards.’ And Esther would say: ‘But the world’s

Marvel Comics: The Bible Juliette Bowen Books Editor

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he Christian publisher Kingstone is publishing a 12-volume comic-book adaptation of the Bible, aimed primarily at a pre-teen and young adult readership. But it seems perhaps a step too far for a religious book.

Marvel Comics: The Bible may seem a rather novel idea, but it pays to remember that the visual has always been very important in Christian history and culture. As much as we tend to walk around highly decorated medieval chapels and churches with an aesthete’s eye, the frescoes, stained glass windows, and other religious artwork were, originally, functional: they educated and edified an illiterate populace.

The visual still has its significance. Despite growing up in a non-religious family, I distinctly remember my childhood copy of The Lion Children’s Bible and its illustrations. It was the pictures that made it memorable.

Graphic novels themselves can no longer be pigeonholed as little more than the cartoon’s more sophisticated older sibling: they’re already an established platform for serious writing. Published in 1991, Art Spiegelman’s Maus is a graphic novel about his relationship with his Holocaustsurvivor father, and it won him the Pulitzer Prize.

Kingstone’s graphic novel version of the Bible may seem to be a somewhat dubious attempt to grab the attention of an increasingly secular population, but the publisher is not the first to recognise the power of visuals, and this spandex Bible is not so gimmicky as it might first appear to be.

some familiar insecurities around me: whilst leading on a kids’ holiday week, I felt a tightening in my chest when I noticed fourteen-year-olds coming down to meals and then not eating anything, and telling me they didn’t want to go swimming because they felt too exposed. They wrapped their arms around their waists and looked at the floor just like I had for years. And seeing that broke my heart. I’m still on a bit of a journey. I still haven’t quite got to a place where I love the way I look. But I also regularly pair my pink coat with luminous blue trainers, and I’ve stopped staring at the floor. I’ll go for a cycle to Grantchester because I feel like it, not because I’m worried I need to. And if I want a second slice of coffee cake then I’m going to have one, thank you very much.

Taste Test: Chicken Soup Amiya Nagpal

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aving once got food poisoning from some dodgy chicken soup, I went off the stuff for years, totally unable to stomach even the thought of having any. But, years down the line, soup has become an easy meal. There’s something truly hearty and nourishing about it.

Cambridge is a stressful place at the best of times. Here, free time becomes synonymous with residual guilt, and it often feels like you could always be doing more: more reading, more writing, more lectures. I say soup is one tiny fraction of a solution to taking time out for yourself.

It’s the easiest meal in the book, if you can’t make it yourself because hobs are an alleged fire hazard, you can microwave a big, satisfying pot of it and you’re good to go.

This week, I tested three different soups from Sainsbury’s. I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I went for three BEN TATMAN

different varieties.

The Covent Garden classic chicken soup comes reduced from £2 to £1.50 (or, weirdly, £2.10 to £1.60 from small Sainsbury’s on St. Andrew’s Street) in a 600g paper carton, which if you have it with nothing else at all, becomes a one person serving. It tastes a bit like chicken stock and is very creamy with very few proper bits of chicken. You’re going to need to salt and pepper this one yourself because flavour-wise it is super bland.

Seemingly packed full of goodness, Sainsbury’s Chicken and Vegetable broth is £1.45 for 600g. Similarly to the Covent Classic soup, it needs its own flavouring. It’s also far more vegetable than chicken heavy, but I wouldn’t necessarily complain about this, the vegetables actually help to make it feel like a more rounded meal.

Taste the Difference Moroccan Spiced Chicken Soup comes for £1.75, reduced down from £2, and is absolutely beautiful. Perhaps the clue is in the name, “spiced” means no need to add your own seasoning, and in a way that makes all the difference. The spices are cooked into the chicken and into the chickpeas, and for this reason it tastes a lot more homemade and a lot less manufactured.

Somehow, soup always seems to be on sale and for 25p extra I’d say go for the Taste the Difference stuff. It’s flavourful, and rich, and it makes you feel like you’re being warmed up from within. Make time for yourself. Sit with a film, sit with a friend, and slurp away.

Covent Garden: 5/10. More cream than anything else.

Sainsbury’s: 6/10. Vegetables are a nice touch, but spices would be an even nicer touch.

Taste the Difference: 7.5/10. Tastes like warmth feels.

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03 November 2016 • The Thursday Magazine • The Cambridge Student

Beating the ‘Week Five Blues’: self-care to help you through The middle of term can be tough, and you deserve a break...

Brighton, UK

Miriam Shovel

A green smoothie – the ideal hangover cure

Admiring the sky’s candyfloss colours

Ridiculously decadent brunch, just because

Buy yourself flowers to brighten your room

I swear my dog looks like he misses me too

Coffee with a heart = caffeine boost + selfcare

Making a ridiculous number of crepes

Tea and jumpers are the ultimate selfcare

I swear she’s not dead, just playing around

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The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016

Features

It’s not the end of the world JESSIE MATHEWSON

Lili Bidwell

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tarting university is never easy: moving away from home, being uprooted from your family and isolated from any kind of support network is challenging.

University is not just about developing your academic skills. Students must learn how to live independently and above all how to look after themselves. The environment in Cambridge is certainly not conducive to taking care of oneself.

Instead students are stretched and pushed academically in ways they are unlikely to have experienced before. On top of all this academic pressure, they have to deal with the little things, like laundry, cooking and getting enough sleep.

There is undoubtedly support available in these areas, for example, all Cambridge students can eat in a cafeteria should they so wish. Nevertheless, as an overwhelmed fresher, it can be difficult to find your way when time is so limited and the pressure so high. Students have to balance their studies with a range of other things, social life, extra-curricular activities and commitments, alongside trying to get enough sleep and avoiding fresher’s flu.

I think that it is really important that students put their lives at Cambridge into perspective every once in a while, and remember that while this week’s essay

REETIKA REVATHY SUBRAMANIAN

Is mental illness this new epidemic?

Taqwa Sadiq Features Editor

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n the past few decades, an epidemic has come to the fore. Look up from the library desk at which you are cursing your supervision assignment, glance up at the door of the bathroom stall that you’re trying not to touch too much, open up your YouTube homepage, read a recently-published novel, or turn to the cover of this newspaper. In all these places a commonality stares out at you; information relating to, discussion surrounding, and support for mental health problems, all wallpaper our society.

Perhaps this is simply because we have abandoned the stiff upper lip and opened up our conversations to welcome dialogue concerning issues which were previously ignored and repressed. Or perhaps it’s due to another factor: some are arguing that our lifestyles as a population have never been as fast-paced, as busy, as stressed, or as pressured before. In light of this, it is maybe not surprising that the NHS warns that one in four of us suffers from

mental health problems at some point in our life.

To explain this, pundits have turned to factors such as the traditional media’s constant promotion of unhealthy body images, and more recently, social media’s contagion of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Another key problem which is often pointed out, is that of communication skills. In our generation the phone call is too uncomfortable.

We’d prefer to be presented with a string of generic calibri letters; the humanity of the individual voice, in this context, is too jarring. It would appear that despite the interconnectedness and accessibility that our globalised world affords us, in being given the opportunity to talk to everyone, we seem to have lost the ability to communicate with anyone.

The positive side of this situation is that problems are not being ignored.

Many are attempting to provide treatment for mental health issues.

These treatments mainly involve selfawareness and slowing down enough for our surroundings to come into focus, so that we may become aware of

what is actually happening both within our minds and without. Techniques such as mindfulness, meditation, and even yoga seek to provide a moment of peace amongst the clatter and clamour that has become our daily norms.

However, these techniques are only treatment for a condition. Perhaps, now that we have accepted that we have a problem, it is time for us to go beyond treatment and tackle the core of the problem itself. It is only counterproductive for a society to invest in treating a situation that it is itself manufacturing and perpetuating.

Society is organised in such a way that to succeed is to stress, to suffer is to sacrifice your peace of mind for material gain, which ultimately ends up being something that many are prevented from enjoying after all, by mental health struggles.

This vicious cycle of unsatisfying success and guilt at not feeling happy with our successes will not be broken until we re-evaluate our attitudes to life, the universe, and everything in between.

might seem like the be all and end all at the time, in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter. That is not to say that work is not important, just that students need to put their health and well-being first. The statistics for mental illness at Cambridge are shocking, and the level of stress that so many encounter in exam term only contributes to this.

It is not easy as a student to prioritise boring things like sleep and eating well, since there are always so many more fun, interesting and seemingly pressing things to do. However university life is all about building life-skills and learning to live alone. Finding reliable friends to help you through this time is essential, and looking out for one another is very important when so much can go unnoticed, masked by the busy Cambridge life. So next time you feel tired or down, take a nap, have a bath or drink a relaxing cup of tea with a friend. Remember that although you want to push yourself to the limit, and reach your full potential, sometimes handing in supervision work late is not the end of the world, and having taken some time to yourself is far more important. A wellrested individual is going to be much more capable of studying than someone frantically lurching from one stressful thing to the next.

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03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Features

The Long Read:

In whiteness, we stand united Merlyn Thomas Features Editor

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allows women to bleach their oh-sounmentionable areas into fairness. A real testament to the fact that there is no part of the brown body that cannot be lightened or bleached.

Our hostile histories are wellknown and deeply-engrained within our communities, but argue as we may over foreign policy, border control and agricultural treaties, Pakistanis and Indians are united in one thing: the dream of whiteness. The issue of this dream may be framed in different ways in the respective countries. One with issues of caste and creed playing heavily into the rhetoric in India whist in Paistan, there seems to be a sense of extracting and locating any links to past Arab heritage. However regardless of where this idea stemmed from, the rhetoric is the same now: those who are darker are less beautiful.

Even between the the Pakistani colonel guard and the enthusiastic Hindu nationalist one thing is agreed: the daughter, wife, sister – insert female – must be white.

n terrorism, territory and policy, we are divided. But in our passion for whiteness we are united.

Each summer, I return to India. And there is yet another woman looking sad and dismayed with her ashy complexion on my TV screen, only to have her skin magically transformed into a celestially, white complexion within the magic number of weeks.

Sometimes 10, sometimes 7 – the best are most definitely the ones that claim to perform these miracles overnight.

Each time it is a different scenario: a girl unhappy she is not fair enough for her wedding, or a girl worried her complexion is not light enough for the all important CEO interview. And each time, a different skin-lightening cream comes to the rescue, whether it’s Pond’s, Garnier, L’Oreal or the most renowned Fair and Lovely. But the result is the same: a delighted, beaming girl with skin lightened by a few hundred shades. With a wave of a wand, deep-rooted issues in culture few months ago the hashtag are banished. “#UnfairAndLovely” was Most hair-raising is probably the born and exploded on twitter.

Indian product “Clean and Dry Created by two American-born SouthIntimate Wash”, a skin lightener that Asian girls, Mirusha and Anusha

A

Pakistanis and Indians are united in one thing: the dream of whiteness.

Yogarajah, the hashtag was born of the frustration and pressure many South-Asian girls face with respect to the colour of their skin. The campaign saw women calling out the blatant racism prevalent in these South-Asian communities baring photos of their brownness, challenging the norms.

Beacons of white hope are everywhere – at least in South Asia.

Even a cosmetic product advertised to primarily moisturise, cleanse, soften or smooth still have that bonus feature: to whiten. Whether it be on TV, in the magazines, your local shop, or your bedside drawers, these lightening creams are no secret and they don’t claim to be. What is perhaps the most disturbing of all is the latent betrayal of the truth. Although these adverts are brandished amongst women very obviously, the war against brown, ashy, dark skin is one which is waged silently and secretly. There is no prize for using these creams and being fair. The prize is for those who were born this way.

Women must pretend they were born this way, rather than bleached this way.

From closed bedroom doors in Pune, to beauty salons and doctor’s clinics in Peshawar, the women shoulder the heavy burden of whiteness. Neither

religion nor caste, status nor language will separate us from buying into the delusion of whiteness that we are constantly fed. What is perhaps more suprising is that there is no correlation to our anti-colonial histories. From revolt against British colonialism in mid 20th century, to a defiant nod to US intrusions in Pakistan, you might be forgiven for thinking that chemical whiteness could not be sold to us.

T

he sad truth is it is. And it doesn’t even really work.

Experts have warned that these skin bleaching creams can have long-lasting harmful effects on skin. A drug widely advertised on the Internet as a skin-whitening agent, Glutathione, which is at best a very strong antioxidant scientifically documented to reduce toxicity of certain anti-cancer drugs. But the rest of its claims are vague and unproven.

Many experts point out that lightening creams can only lighten the melanin in the skin to a certain extent, but the drastic changes we see on TV of this “Snow White” complexion is a myth.

Outside South Asian communities however, questions of complexion are few and far between. When I arrived

in the UK, I found it freeing in some senses. Although being brown and foreign raised equally difficult issues, the degree of my brownness was never called into question. Even now, my friends are confused when I explain this fascination with being fairer, whiter, anything to get that one-inch closer to the Western beauty ideals.

Outside of India I am brown. I am not light-brown or dark-brown but simply brown.

Within Pakistan and India however, the war still wages on. Our young countries – not even a century old – have a bitter history with deeprunning wounds that seem to have no end or resolve as of yet. With rising tensions in the political sphere between Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif, we spend a lot of our time looking over at one another from either side of the border, arguing over differences and interests, alliances and cricketing rivalries. But whilst shots may be fired from other side of the Kashmir border, we share one hurdle we have yet to overcome. In accepting our brownness, without justification or shame, and finally ending our longstanding battle to achieve whiteness – in this we are united.

Outside of India I am brown. I am Women must pretend they were born not light-brown or dark-brown this way, rather than bleached this way but simply brown.

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The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016

Features

Being body positive doesn’t mean ignoring Navigating Cantab warning signs culture

Joanna Alsott Features Editor

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s the threat of ‘fresher’s flu’ subsides, a new adversary: the ‘Week Five blues’ comes to the scene. Common symptoms include tiredness, poor concentration, homesickness, and a general apathy for existence.

If you’re feeling rough, though, don’t dismiss it offhand. In the UK alone, there are over 2,286 young people diagnosed with cancer each year. Our bodies are amazing machines that can do amazing things, but sometimes they get broken. Body positivity shouldn’t mean that we just ignore this, but rather love our bodies, so that they can get better. This involves taking care of them in every way.

Being busy all the time with work, and bereft of the watchful eye of parents, you may become a lot less aware of your body whilst at Cambridge. Any type of cancer is most easily treated when caught early, so if you’re worried about it, or even just unsure, always seek medical attention. This doesn’t mean that every lump and bump is cause for panic, but rather that it’s better to know and ask for a professional opinion, instead of just putting it to the back of your mind.

It’s scary, but it’s much better in the long term.

If you notice any of the following five symptoms, you might have something serious.

Feeling tired? Extreme fatigue that doesn’t go away can be an indicator of several cancers including leukaemia, lymphoma and thyroid. If you are getting enough sleep and the symptoms persist it is best to seek advice.

Sudden weight loss? If you or those around you notice any sudden and unexplained weight loss, it is best to seek medical attention; this is also a hallmark of several cancers.

Lump or irregular swelling?

If you discover a lump anywhere on your body it is best to get it checked. Remember that you should be checking your boobs or balls regularly for any changes.

Lymphoma is the most common cancer in people aged 15 to 24, and presents with a painless lump in the neck, groin or armpit. Women – particularly those with a family history of cancer – should also go for mammograms. The earlier you go to the doctor the better.

Check your moles! If your mole changes in size, shape or colour it is best to seek immediate medical advice. Skin cancer is becoming more and more prevalent, but is usually very treatable if discovered early.

Unexplained Pain? Unrelenting painful headaches are a common symptom of brain tumors. More young people die of brain tumours than any other cancer. If you notice

“Our bodies are amazing machines that can do amazing things, but sometimes they get broken.”

regular unexplained headaches, particularly in conjunction with problems with eyesight or hearing, vomiting for no reason and drowsiness, consult your physician.

Also, look out for joint pain. It is one of the most common symptoms of a sarcoma. If you notice persistent joint pain and restricted movement, you should seek medical attention as early as possible.

It’s not just cancer to look out for – our bodies are machines that get broken, but are really worth fixing.

Student Chat: “Top self care tips!”

Week three: the food market Emer O’ Hanlon Columnist

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ow you’ve been in Cambridge for a couple of weeks, you’ve probably orientated yourself enough to find your way to Mainsbury’s and back. You may even have made your way to some of the takeaways on St. Andrew’s Street. You’ve likely heard of the far-off places known as The Grafton and Mill Road, but you’re not quite ready for that yet. There is, however, one place you can go to up your shopping game, while staying firmly within your comfort zone.

We’re all grown-ups now, so if you want to be seen as a real foodie, getting a falafel wrap for lunch doesn’t really cut it anymore. Luckily for you, the market is the perfect destination for those seeking avant-garde points. For the less adventurous, eager to branch out, there’s the more comforting, yet firmly ‘cool’ territory of the Thai and Goan stalls. For those wanting to really experiment, there’s the less conventional Brazilian stall, or the pricier Nigerian stall, where omnivores can eat goat, and herbivores can splash out on yam.

But the market doesn’t just serve as the perfect destination for a treat lunch. The wealth of vegetable stalls means you can do most of your weekly shopping there, too. Yeah, I know, you’re probably living off hall food and Dominoes vouchers at the minute, but give it another week and you’ll have vegetable cravings like

If you want to be seen as a real foodie, getting a falafel wrap for lunch doesn’t really cut it anymore.

none you’ve known before. If you’re seeking to impress others, what are you waiting for? And if you’re looking for indie points, there’s no better place than the market to source samphire, fresh turmeric, interestinglymarinated olives, and the two-avocadoes-for-£1 offers.

The cream of the crop, however, is the tea and coffee stall, which has a nice selection of loose leaf varieties to keep your taste buds amused for at least a few months.

But there’s more – the market can deal with all your entertainment needs too. If you’re one of those who prefers vinyl, look no further than the market to find reasonably priced music with better sound quality than Spotify can ever hope to achieve. If you thought “Have a solo party with my “Sleep, walk, listen to music and eat “Dance party in the shower. that bringing a record player to Cambridge might be Make sure you wear flip flops.” a bit keen, a couple of the second hand bookstalls do disco lights.” chocolate.”

Leila, Queens’ Keir, Emma Taqwa, Clare CDs – it’s still fun to browse through physical music once in a while. You can also pick up novels so cheaply it seems like a travesty not to (or maybe that’s just my inner tsundoku voice coming out). If you’re of a more bibliophilic disposition, I will let slip that one of the stalls has a good collection of rarer books (still at reasonable prices, I hasten to add) which could suit someone who enjoys books as much for their aesthetic as their content.

There is a serious point to be made in all this (the market is a really fun place to shop!) but let’s avoid being earnest. Later on, others will start to discover “Pretend you’re Bridget Jones and keep “Reach for your colouring pencils and it and when they do you can put on a smug, knowing a diary/sing alone.” colour your worries away. ” smile in full confidence that you liked the market Joanna, Pembroke Merlyn, Queens’ ‘before it was cool’.

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03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Interviews

Sophie Walker on “making politics about women”

Sriya Varadharajan

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hen I met the leader of the Women’s Equality Party over, scattered on the table were leaflets for their current campaign ‘What Women Want’. Serving as a follow-up to a similar campaign in 1996 as well as a crowdsourcing exercise for this relatively young political party to determine what its electoral base is looking for, I ask party leader Sophie Walker what she wants?

One of the things she wants for the WEP is an intersectional approach.

“Let me be very clear: the Women’s Equality Party aims to represent all women. Because women are not a homogeneous mass, and we can’t be effective as a political party unless we represent the diversity of all women’s experiences.” However, while recognising the WEP’s need to be representative, she is proud of its success in this area, explaining how the What Women Want campaign intends to increase appeal to different communities of women, BME women in particular. Her belief in progressiveness for her party is clear.

She explained why she thinks party politics is the way forward for women.

“It’s only when you threaten the votes of the other political parties that they will actually do anything about it.

There have been pressure groups and organisations aplenty over the last 20,

“Men outnumber women 2 to 1 in the House of Commons”

30 years, and they are brilliant and many of them are doing exceptional work, but they don’t get listened to, ultimately. They get listened to up to a certain point, and then it’s a ‘thank you very much, goodbye’.

“I think that you only have to look at the events of 23 June to see the impact a very small political party can have right through the whole political landscape. What we are aiming to do with this is to get our agenda to the top of everyone else’s agenda by doing the same thing that UKIP did, by doing the same thing that the Greens did. Once you put an electoral force around your agenda, it forces the other parties to sit up and listen. And I really want to challenge the idea that our votes somehow already belong to the other political parties. They don’t, they really don’t – they have to earn them.” She adds to this by talking about the barriers to women in the current political system.

“There is a major problem when men outnumber women 2:1 in the House of Commons,” she says flatly.

“It was very funny, we went to the Electoral Commission after the campaigns in spring and asked them about childcare support, and whether it counts as election spending, because you have to tally it up, and they didn’t know what the answer was because nobody in the history of politics has ever offered childcare support before.

To me, that absolutely blew my mind.”

On top of this, she thinks that women are disenchanted with politics on an ideological level. “One of the really essential things we can do to get women into politics is to start making politics about women, to start putting a gendered lens on all the policy work we do, to say ‘there’s 50% of the population here that we’re not seeing and we’re not hearing, we have to listen to them’. And that combination of practical support and lifting those structural barriers, and creating a movement for change that reflects our

“They’re tired of oldfashioned slugging it out politics.

Nobody enjoys that”

lives, will I hope go a significant way to changing that.”

Ultimately, what she wants is the ability to collaborate in creating a better future. “A good thing that’s come out of the referendum is a statement from the electorate that they want politics to be done differently. This is an opportunity for politicians who want things to be done differently, to properly represent the needs of the electorate. They’re tired of old-fashioned slugging it out politics. Nobody enjoys that and it doesn’t achieve anything. We are far better when we all work together.”

ARTICLE BELOW: JONTY LEIBOWTZ; JOSH JACKSON; EIREANN ATTRIDGE; ROBERTA HULDISH; FREDDIE DYKE. HERE: KATIE BLACKWOOD

Profiles: The NUS delegates vying for your vote

Jonty Leibowitz – Sidney Sussex Vote Jonty Leibowitz for NUS Delegate to send a message loud and clear to the NUS – Cambridge students demand action on antiSemitism. [...] I voted to stay in the NUS last summer because I believe that it can be a campaigning force for change and action. But only if we hold it to account. Vote for me and I promise to: [...] demand action on the anti-Semitism crisis. The leadership has failed to represent the legitimate concerns of Jewish students, and we demand action; help take the fight to the government on Prevent; stand up to the proposed rise in Tuition Fees; make the NUS credible and meaningful in student’s lives once

again. We cannot afford to let the NUS go on as it is. Vote for me, and I’ll make your voice heard in our fight for a sane, credible alternative.

Josh Jackson – Queens’ College Students of Cambridge need an NUS delegate to be a champion for their concerns, I’ll be that champion.

There’s a lot of talk about we can change the NUS, well we can’t change the NUS until we change the type of people we send to the NUS. I’ll stand up for free education and stand up for maintenance grants for all students.

As a delegate I’ll fight for mental health rights, oppose all racism and discrimination including the Prevent strategy. I’ll be the strongest defender of the rights of EU students. I’m

optimistic about our success and in elections optimists win and pessimists lose[...]: we are the optimists. Éireann Attridge - Homerton College I have represented students on a college level as a JCR Target and Access Officer, on a university level as the CUSU Access and Funding Officer; I have attended both NUS Lead and Change and NUS Higher Education Zones conferences. I will consult students about policy to put forward at conference; further support CUSU’s belief in free education, CUSU’s opposition to the Teaching Excellence Framework, [and] support initiatives important to universities with different structures as well as [...] for our collegiate university.

Roberta Huldisch – Education Officer at CUSU I am experienced, engaged, and committed to making your voice heard and the NUS more representative. I was a delegate at the NUS Conference last year and know how its works [...]. I’m interested infighting harmful Education reforms, curriculum design, and liberation, sexual harassment in universities, supporting EU and international students, making NUS democratic and accessible. I want Cambridge students to play an active role in efforts to make the NUS more representative; [...] I will make an NUS Delegates Twitter and Facebook page and build a social media presence throughout the year.

Joe Toovey – Trinity College My priority is to help Cambridge fix the NUS. I’ve been to Conference before, I know how to get things done, and I want Cambridge to have a voice in the NUS’ future. Both sides in the affiliation referendum talked about the need for democratic reform, and we should work with other delegates to hold the NUS to their promises on this.

I want to prioritise action on student mental health, an issue affecting so many students at Cambridge and elsewhere. And I’m against the bitter political factionalism that makes Conference so hostile – I’ll represent Cambridge and nobody else.

Compiled by Will Tilbrook. Unabridged manifestos can be found online.

15

The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016

Interviews

Campaigning for the US election in Cambridge Stevie Hertz

M

ary McLean is almost a cliché of an American political campaigner: covered in a star spangled scarf, proudly wearing a Hillary button, enthusiastic and loud. But Mary isn’t pounding the streets in her native Maryland: she’s hoping for a decent turnout for her debate watching party at the Cambridge Union.

“We filled the room we had last time… but that was Obama. I think a lot [of people] can’t bear to watch these debates.” I comment that in the Union chamber, with its ornate carved wood and 200 years of debating history, watching a debate with this much shouting seems sacrilegious. She doesn’t seem to enjoy the joke.

Mary is a member of the Cambridge branch of Democrats Abroad (DA), a group that she assures me is “a wing of the Democratic Party.” She is proud to say, that “for example the Democratic National Convention, this summer, we sent delegates like a state.” DA briefly

went viral when their representative, Larry Sanders, tearfully declared their delegates for his brother, Bernie, saying that their parents “would be immensely proud of their son and his accomplishments. They loved him.” In the DA primary, 69% voted for Bernie.

Indeed, as she is quick to tell me, DA Cambridge played a role in the nomination: “We had a primary that was held in [the Union chamber] back in March, on Super Tuesday, so the people of Cambridge could come and vote in person… About 130-something [people], I think, voted in Cambridge.”

Globally, 34,000 people voted.

Like many of the members of the Cambridge branch, Mary first came to Britain to study, and because of jobs, marriages and family, never left. I ask if she feels disconnected from the rest of the US, particularly during such a divisive and emotive election.

“It is strange. It’s hard to get a grip on what the mood of the country really is.

It’s difficult to know how much to trust the polls … You expect there might be

a lot of people who are going to vote for Trump but are a little bit afraid to admit it,” Mary laughs loudly, “because you know obviously a lot of people find some things about him worrying, so you suspect that the support for him is stronger than it appears. Because he won the nomination of the party so comfortably…” she begins to trail off.

As the conversation inevitably turns to the Republican nominee, she tells me the tide is turning for Americans in Britain: “It’s been quite fashionable to be American for the past eight years. I think that will change.”

She comments that “during the George W Bush years, there was a real noticeable phenomenon […] They used to have a stupid American slot on the news. Like, the last five minutes that’s always something a little bit light hearted on the national news would, quite often, be something about some weird American cult or strange aspect of American subculture that made me feel slightly targeted. It might come back, yeah, if there’s President Trump,

you never know.”

The Chamber begins to fill with people, who drift more towards the screens than the lurid voter registration table. Judging by their stilted interactions, it looks like most of the attendees are voyeurs rather than voters.

Mary is optimistic about turnout.

She is certain that international voters can influence the result of the election.

“We can make a difference, I think.

There are a lot of close borderline states that have people living abroad.”

DA members are fond of bringing up the 2000 election results in Florida, where a victory by just 537 votes put Bush in the White House.

She also makes the quintessentially American argument that they have a duty to campaign and vote, because as citizens, they have to file tax returns every year, regardless of where they live. “We shouldn’t be taxed without representation! We fought a war about that a couple hundred years ago!”

I ask her what the big issues are for

overseas voters. Mary again jumps to taxation, but it’s less clear whether such issues have actually been addressed in the campaign. “I don’t know that Hillary has gotten directly involved … it’s on the Democratic platform, I think.” This flippancy is explained because, for all the members of DA I speak to, although they talk about tax a lot, it’s not why they are attempting to recruit Democrats. The same issues drive them in Cambridge as drive their counterparts in Ohio.

“A lot of us are also concerned about the world and things like invading other countries, and gun control within the states, as well, is an issue close to many of our hearts… things like that and you know, different issues matter to different people, I suppose”, Mary suggests.

They begin to broadcast the debate, to an audience almost entirely composed of non-Americans. Mary once again fulfils the stereotype, immersed in the debate, cheering, and wincing at each comment and rebuttal.

STEVIE HERTZ; GAGE SKIDMORE

Tim Farron on leading the charge against nationalism Lewis Thomas

T

im Farron is one of those people who bounce when they enter a room. It’s not just the fact he wears Doc Martens, it’s the fact that he seems constantly buoyed up by an immense sense of his own righteousness and optimism about the future of his party.

Following the Brexit result and the Lib-Dems’ second place in Witney, Farron is on a mission. He’s angry, he’s energised, and he’s optimistic. Will those three things be enough to get the Lib-Dems into power? Probably not.

Talking in the Union Chamber, Farron is bullish about the current situation. He recognises the result of the Brexit referendum, and agrees that the Government should respect the wishes of the electorate to leave, but is opposed to those who support the idea of a hard Brexit.

Instead, he supports a referendum on the terms of leaving, with the option

“He’s angry, he’s energised, and he’s optimistic”

to go back to the drawing board and get a new settlement if the electorate disagree with those terms.

In particular, he takes issue with the “narrow, fact free nationalism,” which he sees as having poisoned the debate since the referendum, arguing that the Lib-Dems should lead the charge to “escape the narrative which is now being imposed upon us.”

He has little patience for Brexit voters themselves, describing them as being led by “the English Nationalist wing” of the Tory party, with the vote being either an anti-immigration statement, or an expression of discontent with the political system.

His speech seems suffused with a sense of agitated bitterness, of anger at what he seems to see as the fundamental irrationality of Brexit.

In the Union Library afterwards, he is optimistic about the Lib-Dems’ chances going forward, having

compared them to the SNP and Trudeau’s Liberals in his main speech.

When asked what his route into Government was, he argues that every election starts nil-all, with the implication that the Lib-Dems have the same chance of winning as any other party.

He hopes that the party will make gains in the South-West (where they held numerous seats before the 2015 election) and other former strongholds, before pushing into Tory and Labour heartlands to mount a serious bid for major party status.

To get those heartland seats, he seems to be banking on a major crisis, arguing that there will be a moment of truth for the Government when “petrol rises above £1.50”.

To support this, he cites the 2000 fuel protests, which caused the Tories to rise in the polls at Labour’s expense.

In the absence of an effective

“Farron’s talk of a fightback may prove to be nothing but hope and faith”

Labour party, he sees the Lib-Dems as the beneficiaries of any such crisis, although he seems to have missed the fact that in spite of that bounce in the polls, Labour still won the election back in 2001.

Farron is an optimistic politician with a real sense of conviction – he is enthusiastic, pleasant to talk to, and articulate.

However, it remains to be seen if this optimism about the Lib-Dems’ future is supported by reality.

Like David Steele telling the 1981 Alliance conference to “go back to your constituencies and prepare for government”, Farron’s talk of a Lib-Dem fightback may prove to be nothing but hope and faith.

Whether voters will reward him with charity in the voting booth is another matter.

16

03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Comment

Debate: should we abolish class lists?

Yes: they promote social inequality Nadine Batchelor Hunt and Freya Sorrell

W

hen we first raised this issue, we, like many other students, saw Class List publications as a burden on mental health, as well as a gross infringement of personal privacy. However, we came to see that we had underestimated the scale of the problems Class Lists posed to the student body. There is already a system in place which allows students to be removed from Class Lists if their presence is judged by the University to be “likely to seriously endanger a student’s health or mental well-being”. In such an event, medical evidence, a student declaration form, and a Senior Tutor’s declaration should be submitted to support removal.

However, this remains problematic: firstly, there is an expense involved in requesting medical evidence and doctors’ letters. Secondly, if a student suffers from mental illness, bureaucracy can induce unnecessary stress. It might seem that all these problems would be resolved by an opt-out system. It might seem that all

these problems would be resolved by an opt-out system. This is not the case. Any form of Class List publication, opt-out or otherwise, does not allow the provision of contextual information alongside the results, an aspect which is hugely problematic. For example, an opt-out system does not address the discrepancy in attainment gaps. It is inappropriate to publically celebrate individualized results, when the structural impact on results is unequivocally acknowledged. For instance, women were two-thirds less likely to get a first across all undergraduate degrees in 2013/14. In the same year, 91% of all Firsts in Part I History were awarded to men, despite almost equal gender distribution of candidates. This trend is still present across years. In 2015, 21.9% of white undergraduates achieved a First, whereas this figure drops to 9.9% for Black or Black British African students and to 8.1% for Mixed-White and Black Caribbean university students. Cambridge should not display this on the front of Senate House and on the internet.

We should not publically celebrate individual results, without providing context.

Online Class Lists, although protected

by Raven, are used by employers to choose future employees, providing just one example why they are problematic for societal equality. Even with an optout system, there may be employment advantages to choosing to publish your result, even though this may not really be an independent choice.

If people feel that there is an advantage to seeing how other people performed, using methods such as anonymised statistics is a more compassionate and considerate means for all involved, and one which respects the privacy of all. Indeed, as a campaign we are in favour of anonymised statistics. They can be hugely helpful in allaying fears around exam time and managing expectations.

This is just another reason why an opt-out system is not good enough. It seems fair to presume that most people who would be happy to have their result published would have achieved well. An opt-out system may well mean that Class Lists become nothing but an inaccurate indicator of general performance, creating unnecessary stress.

MIKE DASH

Why do we about green T Lili Bidwell Comment Editor

No: the Class Lists are not the cause of stress

Anonymous

I

have no doubts about the good intentions of the students campaigning to abolish the Class Lists. These students care deeply about student welfare and, like all campaigners, face a relatively thankless task.

But where I think they have overstepped the mark is in attributing to Class Lists a totemic significance that grossly overstates their actual impact. Get rid of class lists – they say – and Cambridge will become a more welcoming place to candidates. Get rid of class lists – and we are removing a major source of mental health problems in this University.

The trouble is that neither of these claims stack up. The real life impact of class lists is far more nuanced, and a significant number of students have had experiences that directly combat these claims. I can speak to this as a member of a minority that, year on year, faces a dramatic attainment gap and a low percentage of Firsts. I should

feel outraged that the Class Lists lay bare this attainment gap, right? Wrong. When I got a First last year, it was my proudest moment – and validated my right to the Cambridge experience. There’s no better slap in the face of history than getting your name up on a board that never wanted you there in the first place. There are very few moments in Cambridge that I’ve felt like I’ve been accepted – but seeing my name on the class list ranks was one of the few.

Likewise, the link between Class Lists and mental health problems has been wildly overstated. It says a lot about Cambridge that the past 12 months for me – a slow lapse train wreck into severe depression, withdrawal and self-harm that I thought I’d gotten over in my teen years – are not atypical in any sense of the word. Cambridge is, without a doubt ,the problem. When I left this summer, I recovered, almost instantly. But a piece of paper with my name on it was never the problem. I, and others, can testify to the real issues: chronic underfunding of

Everyone experiences class lists differently, for this reason, we need choice

counsellors, poorly-trained tutors, and the inescapable stuffiness of the bubble. The Class List, on the other hand, was always a relief. I don’t want to tell other people my grades – and thanks to the class list, I’ve almost never had to do this outside of a job interview. I don’t want people feeling like they have to ask. I was always grateful that grades were something we could push off to the side, to Senate House. No, I’d rather have the choice to put my name up on a piece of paper that people can choose to look at and, if they so desire, pass on a kind word to me.

I recognise that my positive experience of Class Lists is not universal. This underscores, though, precisely the point that campaigners for the Yes side are trying to make. Your experience of Class Lists is not my experience of Class Lists. For this reason, we need choice. The claim that having to choose whether or not to publish our grades is a source of “stress” is irrelevant. I think that students are capable of knowing what is good for them.

he environment is arguably the most important issue of our time, something which our generation should be fighting to protect. University students should be the core of this movement, but instead they are busy fighting for other things, and studying for their degrees. I am by no means saying that the environment is more important than women’s rights, LGBT+ concerns, and combatting racism for example, but it is worth remembering that if we do not do anything to protect our planet and reverse the damage we have already done, then we will not have long to live. That is to say that all too often this fundamental issue is overlooked in favour of the seemingly more pressing problems that we face in daily life.

The environment does not seem relevant to many students. They cannot connect with this issue on a personal level, which makes the campaign much less attractive.

The difficulty is how can we encourage university students to participate when there is so much else going on in their lives? Green officers in Cambridge college JCRs have their work cut out. Even trying to get people to attend a meeting can be challenging. People respond much more to issues relating to homelessness, for example, than to the boring ways of trying to make our electricity use more efficient. It seems that, in spite of being an integral part of our future as humans on

17

The Cambridge Student • 03 November 2016

DONALD BAIN

Comment

Debate: should lectures be compulsory?

No: They waste everyone’s time Lili Bidwell Comment Editor

L

ectures. Possibly the worst way both to teach and be taught. The tension in the room as fingers speed across keys and people frantically scribble down the words of the lecturer whilst simultaneously trying to listen and understand the concepts being explained.

And that is assuming it is a decent lecture with a small element of structure and form.

Many a lecture will have the most basic of PowerPoints to support the droning of a professor reading from a flimsy piece of paper. Undoubtedly, the people giving these lectures are highly intelligent, often experts in the subject. However, unfortunately, this does not mean that they are capable of explaining their complex research in a mere hour’s lecture.

Furthermore, should they even be required to do this? As academics, the idea of reducing their intricate research into a base form simple enough to teach to students is potentially offensive. So perhaps

Perhaps part of the objection to these workshops is caused by fear.

it is no surprise that so many do not do this, and instead overwhelm students with long words and complex theories that they cannot possibly absorb in the crowded, steamy lecture halls.

From the perspective of a student, it can often seem a waste of time attending a lecture, especially when the same information could have been obtained much more easily from a book. Moreover, as an arts student, it is not unheard of to attend a lecture which offers little to no material that is not in the most basic of secondary texts. The order of lectures rarely coincides with the topics covered in supervisions and the essays written in arts subjects, leaving students scrabbling for two month old notes and hazy memories when they are questioned on the lecture by a supervisor.

Consequently it is not surprising that many students feel they can achieve more work by studying rather than attending a lecture. Not to mention the essay deadline

e forget n issues?

this planet, nobody can find the time in their lives to help combat climate change.

It seems such an impossible and daunting task that students would rather seek instant gratification from other campaigns than less popular green issues.

This lack of involvement from the student body also seems to be part of a wider phenomenon in Cambridge. At Cambridge University you might expect to find a whole host of students ready and willing to fight for their beliefs, to protest about the important things in life.

However, this all seems a little stifled by the academic and social pressures of university life. There are undoubtedly many students running societies and schemes and they should be celebrated, nevertheless there are still so many students who do nothing but their degree for fear of not having enough time to cope with it all. I am not saying these people are weak, in many ways they are doing the most sensible thing and putting their well-being first rather than overworking themselves, but the fact remains the same: Cambridge is not a place conducive to student-run projects and extra-curricular activities. There are many options, but no time to get fully involved in anything in order to make a substantial difference. From this perspective it is even less surprising that many people forget almost entirely about environmental issues, given everything else that they have going on in their lives.

days. Any lecture that falls on those days can be written off completely, there simply is not time in the day to risk wasting time on a lecture. Maintaining concentration and focus in a mind-numbingly boring lecture can be a challenge at the best of times, let alone when you have been up late the night before and are still groggy in your 9am. Sometimes you know when a lecture is irrelevant, or being given by somebody you simply cannot understand, and at university level, making lectures compulsory would only waste students’ time. Students should have the opportunity to be responsible for their learning and therefore attend the contact hours which they view as beneficial.

Lectures don’t bring out the best in university, but rather its worst; professors are at their most inaccessible and the information is at its most irrelevant. We do not pay our student fees for contact time, but rather for an education; if this is better with a book, embrace it.

CHRISTOPHER SESSUMS

Yes: We need to ensure teaching equality Stevie Hertz

F

or many arts students, lectures are a running joke; no one goes to them and they’re pointless when you do. I say this as somebody who, for the entirety of my second year, went to an average of one lecture a term. I justified this to myself with a series of increasingly elaborate statements of how well I was using my time outside of lectures, with student journalism, mental health and passable essays.

But the fact that I could write adequate essays without attending lectures is a weakness of the Cambridge system, not a strength. It allows teaching to diverge massively, both in content and in quality, and encourages students to pigeon-hole themselves.

We don’t need the Tompkins table to know that there are massive divergences in teaching in Cambridge; students at certain colleges are given far more contact hours than at others, while some students get PhD candidates for supervisors, and others

get emeritus professors. To some extent, this is an inherent part of the Cambridge collegiate system, but lectures provide a unique equalising opportunity. We can get all students in a course, in one place and ensure that they at least start in one place, even if they don’t end up in one.

Lectures also ensure that students actually see all of their course, rather than the narrow selection they get supervised and examined on. Too often in arts subjects we pick the eight topics we’ll write essays on and then couldn’t care less about the rest of the course. By attending lectures, we could gain connections between our individual essays. All too often, context is all that is needed for all the pieces of a subject to fall into place. We would actually understand our subject much more – and this would surely be reflected in results.

Medics are required to attend lectures for this very reason, other subjects should be held to the same standard.

A common complaint against lectures is that it often feels like lecturers aren’t even

Lectures mean that students could actually see all of their course

trying, and that people don’t connect with it as a teaching style. Too often, the solution to this is simply not to attend them.

However, if lectures were compulsory, students could put pressure on lecturers, to make them worth both our time and money. By not attending lectures, we give faculties an excuse not to focus on them, rather than make them worthwhile.

Lectures can similarly ensure that students take our subject seriously.

Although extra-curriculars can be useful and a great deal more fun than lectures, getting sucked into them does not necessarily make for the best student. A lack of contact hours engenders a ‘race to the bottom’, where we see how little work we can get away with. A mandatory morning’s work outside of college would provide structure to our week and ensure that even the most exhaustive of procrastinators would be tied down to do some work.

Lectures do not have to be the weakest part of the Cambridge curriculum; they have the capacity to be central.

18

03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

Comment Editors-in-Chief: Stevie Hertz and Jessie Mathewson Founded 1999 Volume 18

On ending class lists

Women still being shamed for menustrating Sarah Wilson

R

ecently ‘meninist’ student Ryan Williams found his 15 minutes of fame in a series When tradition meets modernity of tweets crying against abolition We are already in an environment of the tampon tax, and calling for Cambridge is currently teetering, in which exams and results menstruating women to ‘just hold it as it always seems to be, on the edge monopolise a term a year, as societies in’. Whether Mr Williams was tweeting of modernity versus tradition, as stop running, clubs close and libraries in absolute earnest or simply trolling students vote in a referendum on whether to keep class lists, the posting become all too crowded. By allowing the Twitter’s selection of [sic] “mad bitches on the blob”, his ignorance of tripos results outside Senate House class lists to be available online, we have allowed them to become all the is depressing precisely because it is and, crucially, online. more significant in student lives. so believable.

This is one of those strange This is not a Cambridge tradition It should outrage every single occurances where technology has that has stayed stagnant for years and one of us that an educated man of actively aggravated a Cambridge only becomes an issue when students 19 years has absolutely no grasp of ‘tradition’, rather than rendering it basic anatomy other than his own; obsolete. Instead of traipsing to Senate remember, but rather one which has claiming that someone’s urethra and House to look up what your exes and worsened in recent years.

The campaigners to keep the vagina are the same thing should frenemies got in their exams (at the seem as ridiculous as suggesting we risk of being spotted by said exes and class lists have stated that they hope individuals can chose to ‘opt-out’. But can breathe through our ears. And frenemies) you can now do it alone, as with CUSU affiliation, as brought yet, it comes as no surprise when sex online, after a few glasses of wine. It up in Peterhouse’s Pexit debate, education remains non-compulsory is now all too easy to keep referring sometimes an individual act is not in schools; places where the penis back to class lists and remember for enough. Students must collectively rules in both a literal and figurative too long what people got – or failed sense. Fancy a girl in maths? Draw a to get. Rather than a passing phase in declare that some practices are not acceptable, especially when they hurt giant penis on her work. Vandalising Cambridge life, it is easy to become us as a group. a desk in detention? Put a dick on it! defined by them.

Teacher said something that sort of half rhymes at a push with ‘erection’?

Yep you guessed right; turn it into a dick joke! Of course, I’ll concede that a vulva is perhaps a more challenging All is not fair in love and science

Animal testing

The University is once again coming under pressure over its uses of animal testing, of which it is amongst the leading performers in the UK. To some extent, it appears that animal testing will always be somewhat inevitable – there are some drugs, which, regardless of computerised tests and lab grown organs, should never be first tested on humans – the

artistic endeavour for the budding young artists of secondary schools, and often this kind of behaviour appears harmless in itself. Yet it is a very apt expression, or perhaps even symptom, of the deafening silence that shrouds any productive conversations about vaginas and vulvas whilst growing up.

In school, ‘masturbation’ for me was defined in reference to a penis.

The same with the idea of ‘coming’.

For me, and many other girls my age, sex was conceived of as a thing that men did, and men enjoyed. One rainy afternoon, the nurse told us that ‘sex’ was a penis in a vagina and ended when the man ejaculated, and we spent the remainder of the lesson doing what every other UK school kid remembers so well: putting a condom on a banana. ‘Do you finger yourself ’ was an ugly, crude question, shot at you accusatively by boys who wanted to embarrass you in front of everyone in the room. You would flame red, and fervently deny that you wouldn’t ‘dare’ do that, while the boys’ conversation ebbed back into what kind of porn they’d watched last night. And God forbid any of those boys got even a hint that you might be menstruating.

In essence, we were taught to

associate our own anatomy with embarrassment and shame. We waited years before learning that women could ‘come’ too, or that ‘vagina’ and ‘vulva’ don’t mean the same thing. It makes me sad to think that women go so long without wanting to understand how their own bodies work, and inevitably, having unhealthy relationships and sex with others and ourselves.

It might seem trivial that Williams is so obviously ignorant about menstruation, but we must remember he is one of many. It is not just that his comments were retweeted thousands of times over, but that there are still places in the world where women are punished or ostracised for menstruating. Every day there are thousands of homeless people on the streets of the UK who have no access to sanitary products, and up 20% of women suffer menstrual cramps that interfere with daily life, without feeling able to speak up. The very problem that Williams was refuting, of tax on tampons, is an obviously gendered one, whereby women are forced to spend extra money monthly for products that are basic necessities. Whilst ‘just hold it in’ might be swept aside as trolling, it is clearly the tip of a very large iceberg.

SALOONA.CO

risks are simply too great.

But this isn’t a blank check; alongside the current tests, we must continue to ask ourselves whether each individual experiment is worth it, and not just for the potential for results in generations time, but here and now, whether it must be done. We should also look more personally for animal cruelty, with each bacon butty.

London’s new runway means the whole country loses

Noah Froud Columnist

F

inally, the Government has made a decision on airport expansion.

It has been on the cards for years, but the fact that any expansion would upset residents meant that the issue has been so toxic that successive governments have avoided a decision like the plague.

Yet, the argument runs, airport expansion is desperately needed.

London is a centre of global commerce, arguably second only to New York. If it wants to continue as a place where workers, businessmen and tourists flock from across the globe, London needs this runway.

Except all this attention on London reveals a problem with the way we think about our country and our economy. Look at other big government projects like High Speed Rail 2. Currently estimated to cost £55 billion, with the first phase to Birmingham only finished by 2026.

For all that, it will shave off about half an hour in journey times between Birmingham and London.

Yet it’s not just HS2 or Heathrow, our whole transport system is centred around getting to and from London.

The modern equivalent of the phrase “All roads lead to Rome” is “all railways lead to London”. Of course, London should be easier to get to than a tiny Yorkshire village, but our obsession with the capital has meant the areas like the North of England have been completely neglected beyond economic sense. The Government has ignored calls from think tanks to prioritise HS3, linking northern cities together. Planned northern infrastructure projects have double the estimated rate of return as the big sexy London projects like Crossrail and HS2.

Politicians, Brexiter and Remainer alike, are now lining up to declare that the UK is open for business and should remain so. Brexiter’s declare

that leaving the EU will make us more open to the world, Remainers have established the group “Open Britain” to try and fight an isolationist Brexit which might stop free trade and movement. For some areas of Britain, like the 3km2 of The City of London, this is vital, as is the infrastructure to allow it continue to suck in talent and money from the regions and the world.

But what is the point of London being a global centre of capital if this doesn’t benefit, to borrow a phrase from the politicians’ phrasebook: “hard-working people”? At the moment, it doesn’t.

To answer the obvious criticism: I’m not anti-free trade. I understand comparative advantage, how free trade between nation makes each and every

nation wealthier. But it is a fallacy to pretend that the current situation works for the whole country. Giving the North decent infrastructure, allowing the cities to pool their skills and resources, would not only help the North but help London too.

If the magnetic pull of London for people like us has a counter, then the massive demand for housing in London might be abated, prices might fall, across the south east. Or, at the very least, we would have the option to live and work in a city where rents won’t annihilate any hope of ever buying our own homes.

If our generation can’t live decent lives, with jobs and homes we can afford, what is the point of being a global country?

19

The Cambridge Student • 03 N0vember 2016

Sport

Cryptic Crossword

by Cameron Wallis

When attack is defence: Martial arts as self care Stevie Hertz

T

Across 1. Hungry puppy is meringue dessert without vinegar followed by deity in mirror (7, 3) 2. Meeting of Harry’s friend, 24 hours and your french side (10) 3. Inflection covers skin to nationality: (10) 4. Always decapitated not at all (4) 5. . Immense arrangement of deer’s mount (10) 10. Cat starts to ingratiate goats, enter rabbit (5)

Across 1. Hungry puppy is meringue dessert without vinegar followed by deity in mirror (7, 3) 2. Meeting of harry’s friend, 24 hours and your french side (10) 3. Inflection covers skin to nationality: (10) 4. Always decapitated not at all (4) 5. Immense arrangement of deer’s mount (10)

hat exercise is good for your mental health is a common refrain in Cambridge.

However, it might seem paradoxical that fighting people – expressing anger in its rawest form – should help you to relax. However, many people argue exactly that.

Taekwondo is a South Korean martial art, invented in the wake of the Korean War (1950-53) that seems surprisingly widely practised in Cambridge. The University club practises six times a week and is open to people of all skill sets.

A half blue in Taekwondo, Thomas Prideaux Ghee said that it’s particularly useful in Cambridge because it “relieves stress – you can channel it into something productive and useful, rather than dwelling on it.”

Boxing has long been used for a similar purpose, with Victorian school boys being taught the sport in order to transform aggression into a skill.

Similarly, Taekwondo is not simply

about attack and self-defence, but is closer to an art such as fencing. In practice, this is expressed in patterns, a routine of skills. Two of the tenets of taekwondo are perseverance and indomitable spirit. The art teaches students to control both body as well as mind and as such can lead to much better control of stress.

Additionally, in competitive bouts, points are won when a kick lands, and lost when you go out of the arena or fail to attack. As Taekwondo bouts are so simultaneous, it teaches mental flexibility and fast thinking, ideal for removing mental blocks.

While there is some risk involved with Taekwondo, as with any martial art, kicks to the face are banned and some padding is provided.

Additionally, while martial art training might seem like a ‘male’ hobby, classes are also around equal in gender balance and you won’t be expected to spar with anyone of a different gender.

UCLU PHOTOSOC-3276.JPG

Sudoku

by Thomas Prideaux Ghee

PhD Student rows for over 81 hours non-stop Kelly Brendan

L Solutions from Volume 18, Michaelmas Issue 2

ess than a day after submitting his PhD thesis, Tim Tito Rademacher, took to the rowing machine to attempt to break the record for the world’s longest continual indoor row.

After starting rowing on 29 October, he finally broke the record three days and eight hours later, in the evening of 1 November. The row took place in his college’s, Clare. boathouse.

Rademacher, a Geography student specialising in plant ecology, was allowed only ten minute breaks every hour, as he rowed. In the course of the challenge, he also broke the heavyweight and lightweight records., This is not Rademacher’s, 28, first sporting success; he has also represented Cambridge in Rugby League, lacrosse and handball. Earlier

this year, he broke the world record for the greatest distance rowed on a machine in 24 hours, for his age range.

He rowed over 284 km, further than the distance from London to Cardiff.

However, his rowing was not just for fame and glory, but is also to raise money for the Students of Cambridge Scholarship, which aims to give funds to a Master’s student with refugee status to study in Cambridge.

Rademacher’s work has raised an estimate £550 out of the £10,000 so far raised. The funds are split between the 31 colleges and so far 19 have held fundraising events.

Rademacher’s sporting feats with be preserved for posterity in a documentary, Unkaputtbar (German for unbreakable), which will be released later this year. It will follow Rademacher as he mangages to both train and study.

Sport

20

03 November 2016 • The Cambridge Student

www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/sport

JOHANNES HJORTH

Women’s Rugby: Home victory ahead of Varsity Cambridge 22–0 Oxford

T

Jessie Mathewson

he Cambridge Women’s Rugby Club had reason to celebrate after defeating main rivals Oxford with an impressive 22–0 home victory at Grange Road yesterday.

The win was the first British University College Sport victory for the light blues, and a hopeful indication of their form ahead of the Varsity match.

Cambridge opened the scoring after a difficult start to the match, with a corner finish from Laura Gibson.

The score was unconverted, and Oxford’s defence rallied, fending off further attempts from the Light Blues.

Cambridge approached the halfway mark with a 5–0 lead, until Laura Suggitt broke Oxford’s line in the fortieth minute, pushing the score up to 10–0 in time for the whistle.

The second half saw the vistitors rejuvenated, with Catherine Willcock in particular putting pressure on the

Cambridge side with some aggressive play.

The Light Blues has to fall back on strong defending to prevent Oxford from scoring, but tight-knit teamwork succeeded in keeping the score at 10–0.

Cambridge struck back with a break fifity minutes into the game, which saw a forty metre break from winger Lara Gibson.

She scored the first try of the second half, with Cambridge captain Alice Middleton converting, to extend the Light Blues’ lead to 17–0.

Substitutions to the Oxford team seemed to strengthen their play, with Princess Ahilokun making a decisive impact in attack and defence.

But despite the best efforts of a refreshed team, the Dark Blues struggled to break through to score.

An hour into the game, Middleton broke through to score: her first touch-down brough Cambridge’s tally to four, and sealed a comfortable 22–0 victory in the

match overall.

Commenting on the win, Cambridge captain Alice Middleton was positive about the result, and confident that her team can capitalise on it.

She said, “It was great to gets our first BUCS win of the season with a brilliant team performance.

“Every game against Oxford is obviously important, but we’ll be looking to build on this and keep working together as we continue to prepare for the Varsity Match at Twickenham in five weeks’ time.”

Last year’s Varsity match saw Women’s Rugby make its first appearance at Twickenham – and the Light Blues showed themselves to be on top form, claiming a thoroughly impressive 52–0 victory over the Oxford side.

This latest result puts the Light Blues in a good position going into the match: they ‘ll face Oxford in this year’s Varsity on 8 December.

Cambridge University: Katerina Sanchez-Shilling, Emma Pierce, Laura Nunez-Mulder, Livvy Probert, Emily Pratt, Molly Byrne, Chloe Withers, Alice Elgar, Alice Middleton, Lara Gibson, Lauara Suggitt, Jess Charlton, Sophie Farrant, Kate Marks, Lydie Thorn Replacements: Louisa Pittman, Gabby Johannson, Tabitha Burgess, Fiona Shuttleworth, Jacqueline, Bramley, Cat Brickel, Sophie Evans, Katherine Monks Oxford: Jenny Smith, Pat Metcalfe-Jones, Cecilia Peker, Sophie Taylor, Elmarie Van Heerden, Leanne Robinson, Anna Gibson, Sophie Behan, Carly Bliss, Catherine Wilcock, Gemma Robson, Millie Rose, Affi Bunting, Iona Harrap, Sophie Trott Replacements: Carolina Matte-Gregory, Harriet McCay, Gwen Cartwright, Imogen Duffy, Princess Ashilokun, Susy Rees