There are six full-time paid Sab batical roles: Association President, Director of Wellbeing (DoWell), Di
Who will represent you? The polls open today for the 2021 Students’ Association elections
rector of Education (DoEd), Direc tor of Events and Services (DoES), Director of Student Development and Activities (DoSDA), and Athlet ic Union President. Whilst each of these Sabbaticals are responsible for managing a different area of the stu dent experience, all of the candidates require similar traits– namely, dedica tion, leadership, and a steadfast com mitment to student representation.
Responsible for providing entertain ing events and delivering high-qual ity services is the Director of Events and Services. They must also man age subcommittees including Mer maids, Design Team and STAR.
The Director of Wellbeing is the lead representative on matters of mental,
Continues on page 4
The independent voice of St Andrews students since 1997
As the public face of the Students’ Association, the Association Presi dent is responsible for representing students’ interests on issues such as accommodation and widening access, as well as sitting on the Uni versity Court. Extenally, the As sociation President is expected to manage relationships between the Students’ Association and the lo cal community, media, and alumni.
Category is: Werk From Home QueerfestEvents2021
Voting closes on Friday 5th March. In a year which has posed many chal lenges, The Saint hopes that it will pro vide illuminating, objective, and in formative election coverage, particularly through its manifesto analyses beginning on page 4, in order to help you feel confident when it comes to casting your votes.
The Athletic Union President is re sponsible for students’ sporting op portunities. They must oversee the development of University sport and advocate for the interests of the AU to both the University and, externally, in the BUC (British Universities and Col leges Sport) and SSS (Scottish Student Sport) forums. The AU president is fur ther responsible for coordinating the day-to-day operations of Saint Sport.
IZZY LOUBSER
The Director of Student Develop ment and Activities must lead and support Association clubs and soci eties. They work with other student officers, groups, and staff to improve both the accessibility and diversi ty of clubs on offer for students. .
News Editor
physical, and sexual health, as well as representation and equality. The DoWell works closely with many elect ed representatives in order to make St Andrews a safer student community.
Your Election, Your Choice
THURSDAY, MARCH 04, 2021 ISSUE 248
The Director of Education oversees academic representatives. They work to represent students’ issues regarding education, employability, and post graduate studies. The position also in cludes sitting on the University Court.
Try Something Old: In Defence of Staying in Your ComfortViewpointZone
On Saturday past, the candidates for this year’s Students’ Association Elections were revealed, alongside their manifestos, and campaign ing began. Today, polls open and the student body has the chance to vote for nominees to fill over 60 positions divided into three cate gories (Sabbaticals, SRC and SSC officers, and academic representa tives) and better our University expe rience through their representation.
In this election issue, The Saint provides you with a compre hensive analysis of the manifes to of each Sabbatical candidate.
For this year alone, students will be able to make their way to the library without locking eyes with an eager can didate; they can even lift their gaze, the intense eye-contact-avoiding gaze at the library’s gravel lane no longer necessary. However, your social media newsfeed will inevitably overflow with political verbiage that may, at first, seem easy to scroll through without the incentive of baked goods. But, we feel compelled to encourage you to halt your scrolling. Sabbatical Officers are elected, and paid, to enhance your student experience and address your concerns. The right ‘Sabb’ will make a difference to your time at St
In St Andrews, the spring weather also, in previous years, provided the perfect conditions for those Student Association hopefuls to stand outside the library, plac ard in hand. First years would wander by, dazed by the performances, wondering what even is a Sabbatical? Well, dear first year, this question need not go unan swered any longer as I implore you to read “Elections Round the Corner”, written by The Saint Executive team’s very own Ol ivia Bybel, available on our website now.
Just as lauding democratic elections con stitutes a staple of British culture, so too does talking about the weather. As if over night, March brought beams of sunlight to bathe Market Street and the checklist of “gloves, scarf, and doubled-up socks” to venture out for a morning (take-away) coffee was done away with. The tendrils of spring appearing all the more noticea ble this year thanks to the last-minute jet tison of winter weather. Hemingway once wrote of the season: “When spring came... there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits.” So, prepare for the limitless days of spring as the government of the pandemic mandates that you do not make such engagements with others – in person, at least. But, if Hemingway’s works don’t tickle your fancy for whiling away these Spring days, perhaps our Spring Playlist in Arts and Culture or even our selection of the best football podcasts in Sport will.
Democracy Springs Eternal
Like all other years – but perhaps, in many ways, not like all other years – we approach the Student Associations’ Elec tions. A time when candidates crowd the lane to the library with posters, stickers, and, of course, baked goods. We can at test, as a proudly independent newspa per, unaffiliated with the Students’ Asso ciation or University, that not once have we indulged in these baked delights for the sake of maintaining impartiality in our election coverage. Our manifesto analyses, which present the thoughts of our writers on candidates’ skills and pro posed policies, do not reflect the opin ion of The Saint as a whole. But having read each article that is published, as Editors-in-Chief, we can confidently confirm that these writers insightfully and intentionally cover student politics as objectively and fairly as they can. Unavoidably, we will reach an im passe regarding our coverage: some students may be dissatisfied with our reporting. We encourage you all to voice your opinions to both ourselves and the student body. After all, is that not the quintessence of politics and media?
Laura and Natalie
Andrews; the wrong ‘Sabb’, you won’t know the name of. That being said, we hope that the student body, alongside our selves at The Saint, gives each candidate’s manifesto the time that they deserve in or der to appropriately scrutinise and reflect upon the changes candidates wish to see.
The vaccine optimism brings with it hope for a return to in-person teaching in the upcoming academic year and prepara tion for an unexpectedly fond goodbye to the world of Teams tutorials. Gone will be the days of watching what you look like while speaking and subsequently thinking good grief, is this how others always see me? (I’m sure the Germans have a word for this experience). Gone will be the “sorry, that’s my doorbell”, “sorry if you can hear the rubbish collection outside”, and the errant flatmate wandering in and out of shot. The humanising experience of the merging of private and professional worlds will become a quickly forgotten memory in the post-pandemic world. For many of us, the pandemic will represent a chasm in the stream of our second decade of life, so why not reflect upon this expe rience by flicking to this issue’s Features where Hannah Comiskey ponders how we should spend our twenties. But, for now, happy reading – and don’t forget to vote!
This spring, while devoid of its usual badgering – whoops, campaigning –outside the library, has instead brought with it yet another phrase to add to the pandemic lexicon: “vaccine optimism,” where it joins the likes of “unprecedent ed times” and “epidemiology”. Vaccine optimism is, of course, but one aspect of the Government’s recently revealed “roadmap out of lockdown” – a cau tious map which, understandably, con tains less autobahns and more 10 mile/ hour, winding, country lanes in order to prevent any future spikes in the virus.
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot2 NEWS THE SAINT EDITORIALTEAMWhat’s Inside? 3 8 14 18 20 22 29 31 NEWS ViEWpoiNt FEaturES photoS EVENtS artS&CulturE MoNEy SportS Laura Beveridge Editor-in-Chief Olivia Bybel Deputy Editor Izzy Loubser News Editor Ally Addison Features Editor Erin Boyle Events Editor Sanjana Ramaswamy Money Editor Luke Simboli & Dylan Springer Saint TV Editor Illustration Chief Edward Emery Natalie Pereira Editor-in-Chief Linden Grigg Deputy Editor Sophia Brousset Viewpoint Editor Emily Silk Photography editor Milo FH Arts & Culture Editor Sam Mitchinson Sports Editor Hilary Chan Senior Copy Editor Henry Gamble Business Team Printed by Discovery Print 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL Advertise with The Saint saint.businessmanager@gmail.com Visit us online Facebook:thesaint.scotThe Saint Instagram: thesaintsta The Saint is an entirely independent newspaper, run by students of the University of St Andrews. It is published fortnightly during term time and is free of charge. The Saint is not affiliated with the University or the Students’ Association. The text, graphics, and photographs are under copyright of The Saint and its individual contributors. No parts of this newspaper may be reproduced without prior permission of the editor. The Saint Student Newspaper Ltd c/o St Andrews Students’ Association St Mary’s Place St Andrews, Fife KY16 9UX
Another way to think about OSL is as the opposite of radiocarbon dating.
AndrewsStofUniversityPhoto:
So people argue that Stonehenge, as there’s been burials around it, is where they worshiped the dead or a temple to the dead. There’s some context to it.”
Using a process called OSL, optically stimulated luminescence, Dr Kinnaird helped to definitively link the blue stones of a dismantled Neolithic stone circle at Waun Mawn to Stonehenge.
Dating Waun Mawn provided its own set of unique challenges. Both radio carbon dating and OSL were needed to prove whether or not the monument dated back to the Neolithic period. Thus, researchers turned to Dr Kinnaird, hoping he and his luminescence lab oratory could provide some answers.
Durrington itself is a small English village just over two miles from Stone henge, but more importantly, it’s the site of Durrington Walls, a large Ne olithic henge. Durrington Walls has been a point of interest for some time, but what Dr Kinnaird is interested in is the recently discovered 2km circle of shafts surrounding Durrington Walls.
@thesaintsta news@thesaint.scot News Editor: Izzy Loubser
In Focus: Dr Tim Kinnaird
NEWS thesaint.scot/news
two are linked in some way. It’s been sug gested that this could potentially be the site where the builders of Stonehenge lived, or that it was used for ceremonial purposes.
all these unknowns across that landscape.
Stonehenge is constructed of bluestones from Wales, and the location where these bluestones were quarried has been known for some time now. However, the quarry itself fell out of use long be fore the period in which Stonehenge was built, leading researchers to wonder where the original bluestones were used.
Then, in 2017, researchers revisit ed the site and discovered two stone holes. Immediately, they began search ing for more, although, as Kinnaird explained, it took a while for them to realise the full extent of their discovery:
“And the interesting bit is how these pits, or other subsurface finds, how they align because the scale that they’re en gineering this landscape is unbelievable and it’s fascinating, So it’s just whatev er we can do now to narrow in on that.”
While Durrington is not directly connect ed to Stonehenge in that none of the for mer’s stones were used in the construction of the later, it has been theorised that the
While Dr Kinnaird’s work does not take place directly at Stonehenge, his work with luminescence dating remains a vi tal part of unraveling its many mysteries.
“It’s unlikely that all the bluestones at Stonehenge came from Waun Mawn. So we know that they’ve come from a lot of other monuments. So, yeah, there’s probably a lot more stone cir cles yet to find” Kinnaird explained.
“The longer [the quartz]’s been bur ied, the longer it’s been receiving radiation, so the bigger signal accu mulates. And it’s that signal that’s ac cumulating that I’m interested in.”
“They’ve found, like, 60,000-80,000 holes just dotted around that landscape. So they’re pits. They might be tree throws, they might be natural, but there’s
“I think there have been some exca vations at Durrington by Mike Park er Pearson that have identified a vil lage complex. So we know that people were living in Durrington, whereas they weren’t doing so at Stonehenge.”
Eventually researchers concluded that the original stone circle at Waun Mawn had a diameter of 110km, and was perhaps originally constructed of up to 50 stones, though more study is needed to determine the exact number.
ALEX MOONEY Deputy News Editor
Illustration: Alexandra Lehrell
Dr Kinnaird sat down with The Saint to discuss his recent work on Waun Mawn, it’s connection to Stonehenge, and his upcoming research at Durrington.
“The interest at Waun Mawn is there are all these stone circuits that are in filled by sediment. You can’t date them
“Wherever there’s sediment that con tains quartz, I can potentially date it. So I’m dating the last time that sediment was exposed to daylight,” he explained.
“It was only when I joined them in September of 2018 that we discov ered that there was a wider stone arc.”
As an undergraduate at The Universi ty of Saint Andrews, he never imagined that nearly two decades later he would be a researcher at that same university. And it was in the luminescence labo ratories at St Andrews that Kinnaird made one of the most important geo logical discoveries of the modern age.
Deputy Editors: Emma Gatrell, Lea Kvadsheim, Iona Mitchell, Alex Mooney, Kirsten Taylor
“[With] radiocarbon dating, we’re dat ing the decay of the Carbon-14, whereas in OSL dating we’re dating the accu mulation of the energy,” he continued.
“The Stonehenge landscape is kind of divided into different spaces. So Stone henge would be the temple for the dead, whereas Durrington is potentially the temple for the living. And it’s how they divide the landscape up. That’s kind of where the focus in research is now in the Stonehenge landscape, is looking at how they’re dividing space, how they’re engineering space. If you look at where all the stone circles are in the South of England, they kind of form a NorthSouth corridor. So that’s potentially di viding two different [Neolithic] cultures.”
“We found some large pits that are on the surface about 10 meters, but we know from geophysics that they are about 5-6 meters in diameter as you go down. So these are massive structures that kind of span the ridge. And we haven’t seen anything of that scale or size before. But nobody’s dug them, so we know nothing about them. So the plan is to core them so that we can look at the sediment through them, see if we can find any artifacts etc., and start trying to place them in the landscape.
“So, there’s a space that they’re living in because they’re worshiping Stone henge as this temple of the dead, they wouldn’t want to live in that same space. So they have to live somewhere else. And they also have a monument or something signifying that, potentially.
The entire Durrington landscape is a point of interest, largely be cause of how impressive the degree to which the Neolithic peoples man aged to engineer their environment is. Elaborating on this, Kinnaird said, “There’s a lot of work being done about if you’re standing at Stonehenge, what can you see? And they call that the Stone henge envelope because this monument to them has significance in all that area. And then Durrington Henge, which we’re working to the north, that has the same, so it has its own envelope. Be tween them there’s a large earth mound. And there’s some talk that Stonehenge or the earth mound...was positioned so they could look at where the sun came up, and then when the sun comes down. So they’re engineering this whole land scape. And that’s what we’re interested in. Any control we can have on that.”
Dr Kinnaird was once a student at St Andrews, and graduated in 2002 with a first class Bachelor’s Degree in Geolog ical and Earth Sciences/Geosciences. In 2008, he earned his PhD at the Univer sity of Edinburgh, and immediately after, took a job as a geologist at CASP. In May of 2010, he became a research associate at the Scottish Universities Environmen tal Research Centre (SUERC). Then, in 2017, he accepted the positions of Direc tor of CERSA Luminescence and Honor ary Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews where he works to this day.
The result of the Waun Mawn explora tion opens up an exciting new world of possibilities. The initial discounting of Waun Mawn as a site of importance, and subsequent discovery that this assumption was false, indicates that there are other sites which may be worth re-examining.
On 12 February, 2021, Antiquity, a jour nal focused on archeological studies, published “The original Stonehenge? A dismantled stone circle in the Preseli Hills of west Wales”. Among the con tributors listed was Dr Timothy Kin narid, a Research Officer in the School of Earth and Environmental Scienc es at the University of St Andrews.
As Dr Kinnaird said, “They’re mon uments, so they’re there for a purpose.
In 2010, the Stones of Stonehenge Pro ject identified a Neolithic stone circle at Waun Mawn as a potential source of Stonehenge’s bluestones, but early exam ination failed to provide any evidence of stoneholes, and the site was never studied.
by the standard approaches, where as with OSL, we can look at that sed imentary infill, and I can date it.” OSL has the capacity to date any sediment as long as it has been exposed to light. Dr Kinnaird used the analogy of a recharge able battery to explain how it works.
Stonehenge is a Neolithic stone circle located in England, most notable for its precise alignment with the sun. There is evidence it was used as a burial site, but questions still surround its exact purpose.
Dr Kinnaird is not yet done examin ing all of Stonehenge’s mysteries. In March, he will be heading to Durring ton with the Stonehenge Hidden Land scapes Project to film for a documentary commissioned by Discovery Science.
He said, “The emphasis is looking at the wider landscape now. It’s how were the neolithic communities dividing up that land, how are they engineering it?
“Daylight...takes that battery down to zero, so then what you have to do is re charge it. And the longer it’s been re charging, the more energy is stored in that battery. And it’s that that I can quantify.
Student Life
Her concerns regarding accessibility - largely, although certainly not exclu sively, financial - presents a notable through-line of the manifesto. But, perhaps, one of the manifesto’s most distinguishing elements is its discus sion of the possibility of affiliation with the National Union of Students - a possibility, Ms Doherty states, that
Ms Smith’s focus on getting sport go ing again after COVID-19 is vital, and her aim of clarifying guidelines and supporting clubs’ use of equipment will go a long way to aid this. Along
side this, her plans to encourage in creased collaboration between sports clubs and societies, as well as setting up ‘sport swaps’, are admirable, al though it remains to be seen wheth er clubs will take up these options, and it won’t work without significant participation on the part of the clubs.
will be thoroughly analysed through consultation with the student body.
“through local government for there to be housing price caps imposed”. It is both unclear and unstated if Mx Percival’s “housing price cap” is refer ring to the creation of a Rent Pressure Zone. They also refer to the creation of “luxury licenses” for landlords who think their property is “worth the money”, in either an attempt to create new, or a misunderstanding of existing, Scottish Government pol icy and mechanisms of rent control.
Ms Smith brings her experience as Bad minton Club President to the fore in a manifesto focused on achieving results.
Communication and Transparency
Editor-In-Chief
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot4 NEWS
WeimannDohertyLottieLéaJessSmithSpencerPercivalDylanClunie
Ms Weimann states that she aims to build on the work of her pre decessors in order to provide af fordable accommodation and a clear accommodation guide for stu dents. Notably, she does not pro
Accessibility is a key concern of Ms Doherty’s manifesto’s discussion of accommodation. Indeed, she cites her involvement with the Campaign for Affordable Student Housing (CASH) and states that she will “en sure” that the University considers the “needs of all students” when building halls of residence. She ex tends her discussion of accessibility to commuting students, promising a campaign for the provision of ex tra funding to cover travel feeds. While the manifesto presents a detailed
aid what is an inevitably busy and somewhat intimidating environment.
account of of University-run accom modation accessibilty, her discussion of private accommodation remains less specified as she states that she “will work with both the University and our local councillors to find solu tions to the problem that benefit the St Andrews community as a whole”.
Mx Percival’s manifesto – whilst pas sionate – is regularly ambiguous and often falls into the remit of DoWell, DoEd, and AU President. Mx Per cival often proposes solutions which have already been implemented by the University such as the reduc tion of Microsoft authentications. In summation, Mx Percival’s proposed policies contain the “what” and the “why”, but almost never the “how”. Accommodation
overlap with the mandates of other sabbaticals (mainly, the DoEd and DoWell), such as working to diver sify and decolonialise reading lists. Student Experience
Athletic Union President
position of a Postgraduate Sabbatical officer – a policy which highlights her commitment to ensuring that all voices are heard and represented.
Mx Clunie presents a manifesto fo cusing on effective utilisation of their great experience to help sport get back on track after the pandemic.
Student Life
ties available. Policies such as a ‘you asked, we did’ section of the website are encouraging, and a simplifying of the contact process is well overdue.
tral bathrooms on campus appear to be both positive and achievable poli cies, Mx Percival is extremely vague when referring to the University’s need to publicly condemn “transpho bic laws.” It is unclear which Scot tish laws Mx Percival is referring to, and specifically which amendment to the Gender Recognition Bill they determine transphobic. Furthermore, many of Mx Percival’s stated policies regarding Got Consent and SGBV on campus appear already to be in place. However, it is hard to decipher wheth er the manifesto’s statements are commitments to ensure these mecha nisms remain in place or whether Mx
Mx Percival states their aim to use Union funding to subsidise some academic families. To utilise the Un ion’s budget in this way, especially in the face of the many new challenges presented by COVID-19, may ap pear unfeasible or, simply, non-es sential. However, they aim to work with societies to explore alternative platforms to Facebook to promote events, and their proposed plan for doing so, appears innovative, nec essary to the expansion of inclu sivity on campus, and achievable.
An AU manifesto without a prom ise to improve AU communication is like St Andrews without golf, the two go hand in hand. True to form, Ms Smith has promised to improve transparency, helping students to access the support and opportuni
Inclusivity
LAURA BEVERIDGE Editor-In-ChiefAssociation President
Ms Weimann presents a passionate manifesto which balances building on previous initiatives and estab lishing further policies. Regarding a post-COVID climate, Ms Weimann’s vision is clear: we are not returning to a time before the pandemic but mov ing forward. Perhaps, one of her most intriguing policies is the development of a Postgraduate Sabbatical position.
Accommodation
Whilst the manifesto’s ambition to en courage staff to include pronouns in their correspondence with students as well as the expansion of gender-neu
Ms Doherty has produced a compre hensive, compassionate, and well-or ganised manifesto. She possesses a background of relevant experience as a member of University society committees and through her work on the election campaign of Uni versity Rector, Dr Leyla Hussein.
commend Mx Clunie for presenting what is clearly a well thought out and achievable set of goals, and they’ve not fallen into the trap of over-promising and thus, inevitable under-delivering.
Inclusivity
SAM MITCHINSON Sports Editor
vide a specific approach regarding how she intends to implement this. However, Ms Weimann places great er emphasis and clarity on her envi ronmental approach to accommoda tion issues, stating that she aims to discuss “issues such as lack of insula tion, sustainable heating, and difficul ties of recycling in private accommo dation” with letting agents and Fife Council. Furthermore, Ms Weimann proposes to “[raise] the profile of the StAndReuse scheme” by ensuring that second-hand items are exchanged, and the “throw-away culture” is min imised. Ms Weimann’s commitment to this aspect of accommodation is
Access and Participation
NATALIE PEREIRA
Membership restructuring is a pop ular topic this year, and Mx Clunie seems well placed to achieve this goal, having worked as AU treasurer this past year. They seem well aware of the size of the task at hand, and the importance of it being a success. Mx Clunie’s focus on disability access is also noteworthy, and I was impressed by their dedication to improving an area that obviously requires some
Ms Doherty discusses, in-detail, the continuing impacts of COVID-19 on the student community. She high lights issues of accessibility the pan demic has brought to the fore and her intention to use her voice as president to raise them with the University. For example, she notes the need for essen tial class resources to be accessible on line and for lecture recordings to re main when in-person teaching returns.
Percival is uninformed about the ser vices currently available to students.
Accommodation
Despite the other strengths of Mx Clu nie’s manifesto, I would’ve liked to see more consideration given to the per formance side of Saints Sport. None theless, their focus on improving St Andrews’ community links with taster
The student experience of current first years who have faced challeng es due to the coronavirus pandem ic is of paramount importance to Ms Weimann. She plans to increase in-person opportunities for them in order to make friends throughout the upcoming year. Ms Weimann also plans to support EU students “in the transition away from free ed ucation in Scotland” by developing scholarships and support systems.
reworking. Now more than ever Saint Sport needs more people to be participating, and focus such as this will be a great help. While addition al intramural and recreational sport competitions are commendable ide as, I remain unconvinced of their ef fectiveness, and I’m equally unsure how many clubs will get involved.
Performance and Wellbeing
sessions and local club assistance is a novel idea that could bring great ben efits to both Saints Sport and the local community, and I would love to hear more about their plans in this area. Communication and Transparency Mx Clunie also has a focus on im proving AU communication. Their personal experience of the Saint Leaders programme gives added cre dence to their focus on this, alongside their desire to see further use of the existing committee forums system. While I would’ve perhaps liked to have seen some more ambitious policies in this manifesto, one must
refreshing and points to a new fo cus on accommodation priorities.
Inclusivity
In order to make private housing more affordable, Mx Percival states their intention to continue to place pressure on Fife Council’s stance on HMOs. However, they also propose
Access and Participation
Ms Smith clearly brings a lot of pas sion to this area of her manifesto, promising to fight discrimination by implementing sport-focused diver sity training and helping clubs write anti-discriminatory clauses into their constitutions. Policies for widening access such as encouraging clubs to publicise what equipment and clothing players should be wearing is unique, yet it is unclear if her pol icies regarding gym accessibility will
It is clear from Ms Weimann’s poli cies on inclusivity that she is well-in formed about current initiatives and bodies of the St Andrews com munity. She aims to change the Stu dents’ Association Council meetings into a forum for students to raise key issues, as well as “asking stu dent newspaper representatives to join” these meetings, pointing to her commitment to enact institutional change and accountability. Perhaps her most exciting policy: Ms Wei mann’s long-term goal to create the
Performance and Wellbeing COVID-19 has shined a spotlight on mental health like never before, and Ms Smith’s policies of promoting the mental health benefits of sport and ensuring all students have a place to meet new people reflect this. These plans need to be fleshed out slight ly more, but show great promise.
Ms Doherty dedicates a section of her manifesto to “inclusivity” and presents clear and specific goals, such as simplifying the Universi ty process for changing pronouns and “known as” names. She covers a broad array of subject matter in this section, including areas which
Mr Winton proposes more com prehensive bursaries and scholar ships, and one can only hope that he has enough resources to accom plish his lofty goals. His suggestion for increased transparency in mem bership payments and where costs are going is welcome, but he may have to be careful not to intervene and confuse finances at a time when club and AU budgets are already ex
However, it is decidedly light on specifics, particularly when it comes to adjusting to the post-Covid era and occasionally suffers from a lack of innovation. For example, she pro poses a “phased return” to in-per son events, without an outline of what this could potentially look like.
Performance and Wellbeing Planned reforms to Performance Sport, such as identifying clubs striv ing to achieve ‘performance status’ and creating a support program for this is a sterling first step. Yet, while he is right that not every club is aim ing at performance level, he must be careful that his plans don’t in terfere with the incredible success Saints Sport has had in recent years.
gown relations, but it remains to be seen whether this will be popular.
Collaboration
LINDEN GRIGG Deputy EditorDirector of Education
Mr Winton’s manifesto maintains great focus, presents a powerful force for change, and his plans clear ly reflect this passionate beliefs.
Mr Winton aims to improve both rep resentation and financial accessibility throughout Saints Sport. His plan to create targeted and tailored strategies to improve representation is refresh ing, showing a directness that is often not found on this particular issue. He is clearly buzzing with ideas in this area, proposing transgender facili ties, alongside greater signposting of resources, and campaigns to raise
Wellbeing will be more important than ever after the pandemic, and policies such as improving well being officer training and support, and expanding volunteering oppor tunities can only be an advantage. Communication and Transparency Mr Winton continues with many of the textbook promises regarding improv ing communication, such as continu ing the role of club forums. His idea for a Saints Sport blog to share the expe rience of staff and students is a prom ising one, but it remains to be seen whether actions such as this can truly improve what is a classic AU issue.
Employability
to explain how this might be arranged. More compelling is the idea of estab lishing a fellowship of activists with the help of the current Rector. Stu dents might find Ms Malin’s sugges tion that Schools should work closer with Careers relevant to the address ing of any employability concerns. Communication and Transparency Increased participation and trans parency are the central tenets of Ms Malin’s manifesto. The manifesto contains practical ideas for further digitisation of academic resources and lectures. She hopes that her clar ification of the role of DoEd will give
Other strong ideas involve improving the sexual assault reporting scheme, and a raft of training for students.
Events
pressure off volunteers and maximise the accessibility of the Union to socie ties. The implementation of this policy would certainly be feasible and would help maximise the use of the Union. Incorporating Student Feedback
a Union Events Committee is a par ticular standout and would be a wor thy goal to pursue. It would certainly go a long way in re-engaging the St Andrews community in the after math of a particularly isolating time. Overall, while Ms Snook tackles a wide range of issues and her focus of student involvement is commend able, her manifesto would benefit from greater detail regarding how specific proposals will be imple mented and, perhaps, a more ambi tious vision for events post-COVID.
CaitlinGrovesTomSnook
Incorporating Student Feedback
Mr Barker has written an optimistic yet practical manifesto for the role of DoES. Though there is no mention of past experience in a leadership role, Mr Barker seems to know where the student experience can be improved vis a vis the Union, and his mani festo largely concerns its revitalisa tion once coronavirus restrictions are lifted. Most suggestions seem simple, but the fact that they have not yet been realised may suggest Mr Barker will find them more diffi cult to implement than he envisions.
DirectorLeonieMalin of Events and Services
rise to greater student participation in University affairs. She claims that greater utilisation of social media and collaboration between different members of University strata will help this. While undoubtedly impor tant, it remains to be seen whether this would result in tangible im provement within the University.
Collaboration
Mr Barker is unambiguous in his as sessment of Union Events – clarity is key. He suggests that an overhaul of the archaic, in his opinion, room booking system and increased clar ity over deadlines should go some way to achieve this. Mr Barker’s most radical idea, however, is to create a new sub-committee under Ents, which, he claims, will democratise Ents, and result in greater student input and ‘bigger and better events’.
Mx Groves is the current Director of Events and Services and is standing for re-election this year. In their ‘DoES festo’, they outline the progress they have made over the past year, having already accomplished 63 points from last year’s manifesto. Mx Groves once again presents a lengthy manifesto as they aim to implement further change through focusing on maximising the effective use of Union space and im proving multiple aspects of the stu dent experience in relation to events.
Mr Winton produces comprehen sive plans regarding the role of sport in improving the student experience and helping to bring about a change.
Overall, Mx Grooves provides a largely convincing strategy for next year: sensible, achievable, and well thought through. Their detailed and forward-thinking manifesto is backed up with a year of experience and a thorough understanding of what can be realistically achieved. As a re sult, there appears to be little doubt over the strength of their candidacy and their eligibility for re-election.
Ms Malin states that she wishes to apply an intersectional lens to all mat ters related to academic representa tion. Her idea is that all students will benefit from her using the Sabbs’ voices to lobby both the Proctor’s and
CharlesBarker
Ms Snook recognizes the importance of open communication between stu dents and their DoES. She proposes targeted feedback surveys, increased reliance on student opinion, and Can Do office hours where students can meet directly with her to discuss their ideas and suggestions. These would be welcome changes to the current status quo. Her proposed creation of
awareness. Nevertheless, he states that these ideas are not finalised, and I hope that after his planned consulta tion these ideas continue to show the promise they hold at this nascent stage.
Ms Malin has written a compassion ate, topical manifesto. She highlights her experience serving as a Class Representative in the School of Geog raphy and Sustainable Development, roles on the Environment Subcommit tee, and work under two Rectors. Her manifesto is well-meaning, but some ideas are not yet fully formulated.
The reintroduction of in-person events occupies a large chunk of their
manifesto. Through developing out door spaces (for example, creating a beer garden outside Sandy’s), Mx Groves demonstrates the feasibility of capitalising on underused are as of the Union. Proposals to create a whole range of new and exciting events, including encouraging local DJ collectives to perform at the Union, are interesting. They also refreshing ly explains where funding shall come from for many of their policy points.
ALEX MOONEY Deputy News Editor
Ms Snook’s manifesto does offer a promising vision for the future of Union events, proposing class-specif ic and post-graduate specific events.
tremely limited due to the pandemic.
Collaboration
Access and Participation
Ms Snook’s manifesto provides a comprehensive overview of her pro posed aims if she were to be elected as Director of Events and Services (DoES). There are some great ideas embedded in Ms Snook’s manifes to, but a lack of concrete policy rais es some concerns over her ability to restabilize the student commu nity after the unique academic year we’ve found ourselves faced with.
Participation and Voice
IONA MITCHELL Deputy News Editor
Much space is given up in Mr Barker’s manifesto to planning an extension of themed weeknights in the Union. A ‘Society Monday’ and ‘Live Mu sic Saturday’ sound like genuinely promising ideas to boost footfall. Mr Barker also has ideas to improve the Friday BOP, but acknowledges that it is not a ‘one stop solution’, and instead declares that the remit lies within student collaboration on the matter. Daytime events involving small businesses around St Andrews, similar to the Vintage Fair, may also be a good way to garner town and
Chiefly, they want to better promote societies during Freshers’ Week and raise greater awareness of the Union’s events calendar. This would certainly create a more efficient and cohesive system which would make events both more diverse and more accessible. Incorporating Student Feedback Mx Grooves also aspires to increase communication with students and maximise their involvement, by en couraging students to vote on is sues and by expanding the DoES subcommittee. They provide detail on how to increase student engage ment with Councils – they propose
SamuelWinton
students use the website to vote on issues. This proposal constitutes a simple, yet effective, method of en hancing student representation.
Ms Malin’s strongest ideas concern alumni networks. She hopes to set up a more coordinated programme of alumni engagement, citing Fiona Hill’s desire to continue connecting with St Andrews, but goes no further
There is a focus on collaborating with other Sabbs, societies, and Student Unions in order to organise Union sponsored events, encouraging new social connections. Ms Snook also proposes collaboration between Ents crew and societies in order to relieve
Events
Mr Barker’s manifesto is keen to stress the importance of incorporating stu dent feedback. Student DJs are a par ticular concern of Mr Barker, as is the postgraduate experience and replac ing the Barron Theatre. All of these will in some way involve student feedback.
54 March 2021 · thesaint.scotNEWS
Events
Principal’s Offices so that a practical method to implement intersectional ity might be formed. She also hopes to highlight voices urging change to “decolonise” the curriculum. Overall, many of Ms Malin’s wish es rest on the formulation of policy ideas with the collaboration of others.
The increased collaboration between societies and the Union is another focus of Mx Groves’s ‘DoESfesto’.
comes to supporting those who ex perience sexual harassment and vi olence. She plans to better advertise Report and Support, as well as up date the Union and Student Services websites. Ms Barclay aims to clearly outline the options available to stu dents who have experienced sexual violence, and make available infor mation for friends, family members, and partners. These goals are justi fied, and well explained. Ms Barclay does not include, however, compre hensive plans to prevent sexual vio lence from occurring in the first place.
Mr Kitchens has plenty of experience in engagement with the St Andrews Student Association, working as a Stu dents Association Board Trustee, SSC Societies Officer, and Student Rep resentative Council (SRC) member for First Years, as well as working on the Equal Opportunities Committee. Societies and Subcommittees
Mr Kitchens states a long-term goal of making online banking an op tion for societies’ membership and
re-affiliation. He backs this idea up with the fact that a trial peri od has seen success with this sys tem and has benefitted societies.
and comfortable accessing them. Her ideas to implement a compulsory module “in which the services and support available from all aspects of the University are displayed”, and feedback form for Student Services are practical ways to improve upon accessibility to wellbeing services.
COVID
Mr Avery Kitchens has produced a clear and comprehensive man ifesto, focusing on student so cieties and subcommittees, in clusivity, spaces, and finance.
He is eager to make use of availa ble space, for example, utilising the Can-do Marquee. He also promotes space for the Performing Arts and insists on collaboration with the Uni
Ms Lee’s manifesto recognises the need to both improve pre-existing wellbeing structures and advocate for services which have previously been overlooked. Her involvement in the Wellbeing Subcommittee has given her a comprehensive understanding of the current system and will equip her well to implement the change that she seeks. Her proposals are well thought-through, realistic and com prehensive. As a result, her overall goal to streamline and expand the system to create more effective well being initiatives appears convincing.
Ms McDavid uses the concept of online support packages to underpin many of her plans to enhance accessibility and inclusivity. She includes compre hensive plans to build packages, with the support of various other groups, for LGBT+, BAME, First Generation, and Disabled students. While her aim to streamline information is practical, it is somewhat unclear what types of information or resources would be available in these support packages. Sexual Violence and Student Sup port Plans to combat sexual violence, and
COVID
Accessibility
Mr Kitchens’ manifesto is positive and reflects a commitment to putting stu dents and their needs first, although, it sometimes lacks robust explanations with regards to how he will execute his ideas. Yet, overall, his persuasive and thoughtful manifesto is backed up by experience and dedication.
online activities and social opportu nities for isolating students, as well as adapting traditions such as May Dip and Raisin for those who missed out this year, could improve student wellbeing during and post-COVID. A discussion group for students experi encing bereavement, health anxiety, or isolation is also mentioned. Yet, it is unclear how this will be coordinated and, as a result, this proposal could benefit from further development.
Accessibility
Ideas for tackling wellbeing issues re lated to COVID are well-detailed. Ms Cockerham suggests that increasing
Ms Barclay provides an extensive and in depth manifesto where she outlines her primary concerns. Many of her plans are focused on the individual student experience, showcasing her personal knowl edge of navigating wellbeing sys tems in place, and her intention to mold wellbeing in St Andrews to the wants and needs of the students.
Accessibility is a key point in Ms Bar clay’s manifesto. Many of her goals revolve around changing wellbeing systems currently in place so that students are both aware they exist,
Ms Lee intends to work alongside the Director of Education to, throughout
Sexual Violence and Student Support
versity moving forward, following the closure of the Barron Theatre.
The proposal to expand the scope of issues addressed in the current con sent module, as well as educating students on recognising the signs and patterns of abusive and toxic relationships, constitute pro-active solutions to tackling the problem of sexual assault at university. Howev er, Ms Lee does not provide a way to improve the current methods of reporting abuse when it does happen – this would have been a welcome addition to her policy proposals.
viding support to students quar antining, isolated, or in lockdown. These objectives, while well-de signed do not address the concerns of a student body transitioning back into ‘normal’ life in the vaccinated world we hope to find ourselves in come the next academic year which will likely be different than now.
IZZY LOUBSER News Editor
OLIVIA BYBEL Deputy Editor
EMMA GATRELL Deputy News Editor
Accessibility and inclusivity are key threads which run throughout Mr Kitchens’ manifesto. He mentions that he will create an Accessible
Spaces and Finance
Director of Wellbeing
Whilst some policies could benefit from further explanation with regards to practical implementation, the pas sionate vision provided in this man ifesto shows that Ms Cockerham has thoughtfully considered how to tack le a wide range of wellbeing issues.
Ms Cockerham recognises the long-standing problem of sexual vi olence within St Andrews. She pro vides a myriad of potential solutions
An emphasis is placed on accessibility and equality throughout Ms Cock erham’s manifesto. The proposal to run campaigns focused on equality and inclusion in St Andrews appears promising. Yet, the idea of a campaign to “tackle hate crime and exclusion” is an ambitious goal and there is lit tle explanation of how this campaign will be effectively implemented. Sexual Violence and Student Sup port
Director of Student Development and Activities
– these include collaborating with Stu dent Services to clarify the reporting process, improving safety on nights out by introducing a quiet room in the Union and providing training to society committees to help them deal with instances of harassment within their society. These proposals con stitute simple, but productive steps towards enhancing understanding of sexual violence within the com munity and implementing change.
A focus on making healthcare more accessible forms a significant part of Ms Lee’s manifesto. She proposes that the University itself provide some basic level of medical service for STI testing, first-aid, and a medical advice hotline. If implemented, this would reduce both the practical complica tions and anxiety associated with hav ing a current lack of NHS resources within St Andrews. Yet, there is a lack of explanation about how this would be financed which could constitute an obstacle to realising this policy. Sexual Violence and Student Sup port
Ms McDavid provides a well-or ganised, personable, and in-depth manifesto, covering a wide range of her wellbeing goals, while focusing on her key policies: Got Confidence, Sexual Violence, Support Packages, Academic and Wellbeing, COVID, Student Services, and Eco-Wellbe ing. Her manifesto displays an en thusiasm for the work, and a grasp on the wellbeing concerns of the students she hopes to represent. Her manifesto is varied and extensive, but, perhaps, with more goals than can realistically be accomplished.
Accessibility
Ms McDavid outlines three clear ide as to support student wellbeing dur ing the COVID- 19 pandemic. These plans are detailed, and collaborative with other groups, focusing on pro
Accessibility
Mr Kitchens speaks of his desire to in crease the number of electrical outlets in Union Spaces; however, he does not mention how this will be funded.
the pandemic, keep S-Coding acces sible, push for deadline extension measures and facilitate resource dig itisation in order to improve COV ID-related academic wellbeing con cerns. She further proposes to plan inclusive events for students who are both in and away from St Andrews. Tackling both the social and academic implications of COVID shows a ded ication to taking a holistic approach to improving student wellbeing.
McDavidKitchensAveryEmilyBarclayKatyLeeMaisie
Events Guide and, overall, appears extremely committed to making stu dent activities accessible. He intends to make Access Hour a standard practice for all Fayre-type events –this could constitute an important step towards increasing accessibility.
COVID
CockerhamAnna-Ruth
support survivors are a priority in Ms McDavid’s manifesto. She identifies sexual violence as the biggest safety issue in St Andrews, and details six objectives to be implemented in the Union and in societies. Her plans are thoughtful and attuned to the work of previous DoWell’s, existing sys tems, and outstanding needs of the student body when it comes to safety.
COVID
Ms Barclay often uses student ex perience to justify her accessibility goals, and while her aims are worth while, it is unclear which students she is referring to besides herself.
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot6 NEWS
He highlights his desire to fairly allocate subcommittee budgets and propose other budget cuts before cut ting subcommittee budgets. While this may be a good idea, it could have benefitted from further elabo ration regarding the possible diffi culties of this proposal in practice. Inclusivity/Accessibility
Ms Barclay does not specifically ad dress the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on student wellbeing in her manifesto. While many of her plans would no doubt improve upon strug gles caused by the pandemic, the ab sence of proposals to support students through circumstances which are espe cially hard on wellbeing is noticeable.
Ms Barclay’s plans revolve around information and awareness when it
Ms Cockerham has produced a com prehensive manifesto which intends to enhance the student experience through tackling issues of harassment, discrimination and inequality. Her past experience as the Disability Of ficer on the SRC will no doubt aid her in effectively implementing her goals.
The topics to be surveyed include em ployment, finance, education, econom ic wellbeing, health, housing, policing, identity, and experiences of discrimi nation and racism. It will target the full range of ethnic and religious minority groups, including Gypsy, Traveller, and Roma people and Jewish communities, across England, Scotland, and Wales.
The private halls in St Andrews have pre viously been criticized by the President of the Students’ Association at the time, who pointed to many rooms in private halls remaining empty despite demand, due to them being “unaffordable” and advertised “after the accommodation rush” leading to them being “of no use to students.”
to inequalitiesgrowingmitigate “ “ moreinequalitiesmadehaveLockdownsvisible
clearly to accessibility, devoting an entire section to “equal opportunity.”
Her aims to provide diversity and equality training, support widen ing access initiatives, and continue out of semester contact, are realistic and built off of services already in place. Much of the third goal, how ever, is dependent on other bodies of people, rather than clear action. Sexual Violence and Student Support Ms O’Donovan noticeably does not include specific plans to combat sex ual violence in her manifesto. She does, however, include thorough ex planations to her goal of instating a well-being officer in union affiliated
These analyses do not reflect the opinion of The Saint, but rather those of the au thor(s). We encourage all readers to look at the full manifestos for each candidate before voting. All information was ac curate at the time of writing. All pho tos used with permission of candidates.
Researchers from The University of St Andrews will lead the UK's first and largest survey on how COV ID-19 has impacted the lives of eth nic and religious minority people.
will run until May 2021. The analyt ical work will look at a cross-cutting topic area. The subjects it will cover include: demographic characteristics, socioeconomic characteristics, eth nicity and migration, racism and dis crimination, health, black lives mat ter, social cohesion, attitude towards the police, political participation.
It is hoped that the results of the survey will transform the policy landscape, in form work and campaigns for racial jus tice, and create a data legacy by provid ing robust evidence on a comprehensive range of issues facing ethnic and religious minority people during the pandemic.
for the support we have provided to stu dents since January 2021 as a result of the further national lockdown, revenue occupancy has reduced to 65% to date.”
Ms O’Donovan includes multiple, well thought out, plans to address the effects of the pandemic on stu dent wellbeing. She emphasises the importance of continuing to pro vide online support and services to students, even after restrictions do not require them. Her goals, while clearly explained, and achievable, are not developed into feasible ac tions, and do not specifically address the mental health and wellness dif
Duncan Garrod, the chief executive officer of Empiric Student Proper ty said, “We recognise that these are again particularly challenging times for all students, and we remain com mitted to supporting and doing the right thing by each student on a caseby-case basis, whilst also protecting the long-term value of the group.”
Ms O’Donovan’s manifesto speaks
In partnership with the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity at the Univer sity of St Andrews, the University of Manchester, and the University of Sus sex, the Equality National Survey is being conducted by Ipsos MORI and has been translated into 13 languages. The survey takes about 30 minutes and
The Equality National Survey is also partnering with a diverse range of vol untary and community sector organi sations. This includes Operation Black Vote, the Muslim Council of Britain, The Ubele Initiative, The Stuart Hall Foundation, EYST (Wales), the Mi grants’ Rights Network, BEMIS (Scot land), the Race Equality Foundation and Business in the Community, who will assist with the recruitment drive. is an urgent need
The company has committed to prioritising their residents’ wel fare as well as that of their em ployees and wider stakeholders.
KIRSTEN TAYLOR Deputy News Editor
The company informed investors that, “On 23 October, we announced revenue occupancy of 70% for the ac ademic year 2020/21, which included just under 10% of occupancy from students who were yet to check-in. Fol lowing further progress with the late checking-in of students and adjusting
Ayton House was purchased by Em piric properties in 2015 for £26 million.
Dr Finney stated that, “When published, EVENS will help place ethnic inequalities and racism firmly on the political and pol icy agenda in an enduring manner.” She also stressed that it will show “what the key problems of disadvantage and ine quality are for particular groups, we want people to be able to evidence the inequal ities and how they should be addressed.”
The company has further com mitted to supporting student well being by continuing critical servic es and assistance throughout the pandemic to ensure tenant and staff safety.
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Researchers will conduct the UK’s largest study on the impact of COVID-19 on ethnic and religious minorities
O’DonovanTrina
societies, and establishing a well-be ing feedback form. These plans are practical ways in which to improve upon, and expand student support.
Dr Nissa Finney, the Equality National Survey lead, and reader in human geog raphy at the University of St Andrews, stated that, “EVENS will give us a unique and authentic representation of the lives of ethnic and religious minority peo ple in Britain during the current crisis.”
This pledge was made despite Em piric Properties experiencing fall ing occupancy rates, with only around half of its 9,401 beds across its 92 properties being occupied.
ID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need to act to mitigate growing inequalities.”
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Accessibility
Ayton House Offers Students Rent Help
The University of St Andrews Leads Groundbreaking Research into COVID and Equality
It is just over a year since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United Kingdom, and in that time the virus has affected people across the world. In the last year there have been multiple lock downs and restrictions in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus but which have also made inequality more visible.
ficulties caused by the pandemic.
Ms O’Donovan has produced a clear and comprehensive manifesto where she outlines her plans to enhance stu dent wellbeing in St Andrews. Her experience serving as the St Andrews Sailing Club Wellbeing and Commu nity Relations Officer would provide her with the experience of leading in wellbeing, albeit on a much small er scale. O’Donovan’s goals are well thought out and explained, with plans focused on societies, wellbeing events, and lobbying. She fails, however, to address certain crucial issues such as sexual violence, and mental health.
LEA KVADSHEIM Deputy News Editor
Empiric Student Property, the own ers of Ayton House, the 233 bed pri vate student halls in St Andrews, have pledged to “look favourably” on student requests for help with rent. This will apply, on a case by case ba sis, to those who are unable to occupy their rooms due to the current COV ID-19 national lockdown restrictions.
VaitkevichNataliyaPhoto: There
74 March 2021 · thesaint.scotNEWS
COVID
According to Dr Finney, “Disadvantag es of ethnic and religious minorities have been highlighted and exacerbated by the period of austerity, followed by the COV
The halls of residence on Abbey Walk is one of only two privately owned student halls in St Andrews, alongside East Shore. It offers a range of properties including studio flats and five bedroom apartments.
NinhamBeaPhoto:
The Equality National Survey (EVENS), launched on 16 February 2021, aims to address this. It seeks to shift the narra tive of ethnic and religious inequalities.
The company also said that, “It is not possible to provide further guidance on revenue for the current academic year.” It said this was due to the uncer tainties surrounding COVID-19 guide lines and national lockdown policies.
Ayton House has previously been the subject of controversy within the student community after charging over £10,000 for some studio apartments. Prices now range from £169 to £247 per week af ter utilities, depending on the property.
ViEWpoiNt
As the SNP’s website makes clear, qualification for further study “should be based the ability to learn not on the ability to pay.” “Should” is an interesting word to use: it frames the tuition issue as a moral one. I agree: ultimately, putting aside ar guments for and against tuition, one must make a values-based judge ment as to whether fee-free educa tion is worth the cost to the treasury.
this threshold, but by discussing
my motivations this may become more defined, if not exactly spec ified. One of the main issues with Higher Education, as I see it, is this: students whose parents are in the middle income bracket are left be hind. For the poorest students, there is a good deal of financial support through scholarships, grants, bursaries and the like.
On top of that, their student loan may be insufficient and they may be ineligible for scholarships. All things considered, what support is available for these students?
pushing out hardly “advantaged” upper-working- and lower-mid dle-class Scots in favour of fee-paying English and non-EU students who can help them balance their books.
Not much, by my estimations.
Where opponents of free tuition are to be found, they don’t support a reintroduction of a direct charge; instead, they argue that a graduate tax, levied after students have com pleted their studies, would be the best way to reimburse the taxpayer.
to be recouped further down the line.
My proposal is not dissimilar from the current system: as before, Scots would have to apply through the Students Awards Agency Scotland (or SAAS) if they want their tui tion paid by the Government. Un like before, this option would not be available to all Scots: only those below a certain income threshold.
I do not have a cutoff in mind for
A seemingly small drop, unwor thy perhaps of any headlines. Yet this 1.5 per cent represents 16 un dergraduates — the equivalent of a tutorial group worth of students not making it into our institution. And, this drop means even more in comparison to St Andrews’ targets.
Deputy Editors: Alex Beckett, Jess Burt, Rebecca Holmes, Kate Lau, Jamie Locke-Jones, Cara Shepherd, Niamh Yates Viewpoint Editor: Sophia Brousset
But for those in the middle, mon ey is, perhaps, more hard to come by: for a lot of these prospective students their household income will be above the £34,000 cutoff for grants, and yet their parents may
toprosperitywillforTuitionsomegiveall
However, this, in itself, is why I take issue with the current system: to me, these rankings read perfect ly as St Andrews giving otherwise free Scottish students’ places over to fee-paying students. For this rea son, I believe wholeheartedly that tuition fees for Scots and more gen erous bursaries would be a better solution for socially mobile Scots.
However, this graduate tax is but a clever political workaround; keep ing tuition “free” at the point of use whilst still allowing for those costs
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St Andrews is the epitome of this problem: we now have both the sec ond-most privately educated and sec ond-most international student body in the UK. Neither of these is an issue in and of itself—I am, in fact, a huge supporter of diversity and inclusion.
I myself have benefited from these, and owe it to the generosity of these programs for my being at St An drews. Symmetrically, there is a good deal of support for the richest stu dents—household income, personal holdings, income-generating assets.
The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions.The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions. @thesaintsta
Clearly, most Scots agree: the SNP have remained in power ever since and, it seems, have won the ar gument—in this year’s upcoming Scottish elections, all major parties support continuation of the poli cy. (Yes, even the Tories now be lieve it too despicable to charge students for education.)
Scottish universities already of fer contextualised admissions, but these can only help so many stu dents. A reintroduction of tuition fees, however, could meet our uni versities’ class problem with the addition of a mighty programme of bursaries—funded by the tuition in come—which would support those Scots-domiciled students who oth erwise could not afford to take out four wage-earning years to study.
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viewpoint@thesaint.scotJACKthesaint.scot/viewpointCAMPBELL
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be in no position to offer support.
The Case for Tuition Fees for Scots
Like the SNP, my argument comes from a moral imperative. Yet, un like the SNP’s, my argument is of equity, not equality; of free edu cation for those who need it, not free education for all. That is be cause, whilst I agree with the SNP’s contention that access to education should be based on intelligence and not income, I believe it is their sys tem which propagates the problem. That is because in order to make the free tuition policy affordable, Scot tish universities are forced to cap the number of places for Scottish-dom iciled students. As a result, the Scot tish Government is inadvertently
Yet there exists a better, simpler alternative to the graduate tax: a reintroduction of tuition fees in their full, unexpurgated unpleasantness.
Unlike the SNP, notisargumentmyofequity,equality
The benchmark for state and col lege-educated entrants is 77.1 per cent for the University. Our actual perfor mance is an abysmal 13.2 points be hind, at 63.9 per cent in the 2019-20 intake. That difference represents 145 students. That is, there is a small lecture theatre’s worth of Scots and Scots-domiciled students let down by our unwillingness to meet targets.
Is that really so morally repug nant? When private institutions produce more than half of our country’s senior judges, diplo mats, and other major professions, whilst only educating 7 per cent of our country’s students, I think not.
By taking the heat out of the debate can it seem anything but rational— fair, even—to levy a tuition charge on those who can afford it? Tuition for some will give prosperity to all. I dare you to disagree with the maths—or with the morals.
In the past academic year, the number of incoming state and col lege-educated St Andrews stu dents dropped 1.5 per cent, ac cording to recent figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
To understand the root of this prob lem, one must go back fourteen years to the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) historic victory in the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections. In their mani festo, the SNP laid out a bold plan to scrap tuition fees for Scots, a prom ise they upheld upon entering gov ernment and supported ever since.
In essence, this would be a means-tested tuition charge. Whilst I have yet to work out the income at which fees would be introduced, I suggest, as a rule of thumb, that par ents who put their children through private education—where the av erage cost of tuition is £17,125 per year—should be prepared to make a much smaller tuition payment.
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An argument for equity, not equality
In focusing on ‘levelling the play ing field’ through a blanket free-tu ition policy, it is these students who are inevitably left behind. In any new system, then, it is imperative that these students would not pay tuition, and that some of the income generated by the policy would go to supporting them—through stipends, bursaries, direct living costs support.
Photo: University of St Andrews
My argument is that Scots should have to pay for Higher Education at the point of use. Well, some Scots at least.
I have problems with the present British government – anyone who doesn’t is either not paying atten tion or is as intellectually potent as a dead fly. Numerous are the prob lems that they ignore or actively par take in; think of the British education system, or of their cronyism with regards the outsourcing of PPE pro duction. But, to give them their dues, they do do some things well: consid er their COVID vaccine roll-out, or their incredible capacity to U-turn.
To those who sympathise with my opponents on this topic, let us look to the vote: that great mechanism by which any adult can voice their opin ion, freely and unobstructed, entirely in secret. It is a marvellous thing, the vote. The vote is freedom. For too long, the vote was held out of arm’s length for masses of fellow human beings. But then it was given to the poor er men; and then it was given to the adolescent men; and then it was given to the women who comprised a majority of the population, but who happened to be born one way rather than another.
55% Yes ALEX BECKETT Yes! 45% No CARA SHEPHERD No!Do you support the UK Government’s proposal to oversee free speech at whatchooseIhypocrisy,Iuniversities?rejectwanttoIhear
The relationship between mankind and freedom may be one of the most toxic ever known. Mankind has waged wars for freedom. Mankind has lost lives for freedom. Mankind has decimated itself for freedom. The offer of freedom – the very pos sibility of it is, will be, always has been, an offer of transcendence.
I don’t know whether the new actions being taken, to introduce more freedom of speech in Brit ish universities, under threat of fi nancial impediment, is being done in good faith by the Government.
The policy proposed by the Govern ment displays their misunderstand ing of the concept of free speech and their detachment from the reality of academic discourse within uni versities. Whilst they suggest that they are protecting the freedom of academic discourse and intellectual development, in reality, the policy protects hateful agendas and makes the university space less welcom ing and less accepting of diversity. The first thing to establish is the rela tionship between speech and action. The suggestion in this policy that free speech does not equate nor lead to harmful action is either entirely naïve or utterly misguiding. All speech has direct actionable consequences: if one expresses a strong dislike of a particu lar minority group, for example, that has a direct negative impact on indi viduals within said group and risks the spread of that irrational opinion.
To the campus silenc ers: one day soon we shall acknowledge your suppression of speech as unjust, arbitrary, and unfair. This new policy mightn’t be perfect, but it’s the path that will bring us to that great day.
the Government’s desire to promote academic discourse and intellectual development. Obviously, the major ity that attend university share this desire: we pay our fees, attend our classes, and engage with material in order to further our own intellectu al development. However, in order for all to access such education, it is necessary for there to be restrictions on certain language. Until we live in a world where compassion and acceptance are universal, it is neces sary for universities to put restric tions into place to allow for equal access and thus allow for intellectual progress. Whilst this does result in individuals being penalised for hate ful language, it makes higher educa tion more accessible rather than less. Indeed, the government fails to dis tinguish between legitimate scrutiny and intolerance. The former is what the policy is stripping universities of: by preventing actions to be tak ing over reprehensible behaviour, the government prevents legitimate scrutiny. It was suggested by Gavin Williamson in his proposal that the pressure exerted by students on ac ademics to alter their reading lists “for ideological reasons’’ is a terrible thing. This is concerning. Students pressured academics to diversify their reading lists and decolonise the cur riculum in order to allow for a less biased analysis of truth. As a history student, this has been incredibly im portant to understanding my subject. The diversification of sources allows for broader narratives to be discussed. The policy’s opposition to such devel opments is contradicts its supposed desire to protect intellectual progress. It seems as if scrutiny over hateful ac tions and individuals is to be removed and that there is to be no capaci ty for the university to take action. Thus, the policy from the government poses a distinct harm to the life and composition of the university student and academic bodies. Rather than pro tecting students and the importance of a diverse and respectful curriculum and discourse, the government seems to be pandering to the hateful minor ity who feel a need to make spaces less inclusive. The supposed crusade against free speech is, in reality, an attempt from students and faculty to enshrine a value of tolerance within academic communities – something that has lacked throughout the ma jority of history. It seems that the government either fails to understand this crucial facet of university life or, more worryingly, actively opposes it.
Devil’s Advocate
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Prodigious French essayist Éti enne de la Boétie fretted, in 1576, over the misfortune that had been so able to “denature man, who was born to live freely, and to strip him of the memory of his natural state, and the desire to take it back!”
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it’s begun. It’s of little importance how harshly it affects universities’ pockets, or how arcane its implementation. I do not care, quite frankly, how “con cerning” it is for students who have, for years, crowed that “diversity is our strength” until the concept of diversity is extended to freedom of speech. I reject hypocrisy, I want to choose what I hear, and I refuse to have privileged, pretentious snobs tell me what is worth listening to - I desire freedom, and so should you. Why do we come to university? Why do we have human conversa tions? Such questions are basic and fundamental; their answers, even more so. We do so to learn. We do so because we recognise that knowl edge is not just a pool within us, into which we can dive as and when we please to discover more about the world. Others bring knowledge to us. Others give us knowledge. Without others, we know nothing. How dare well-off academics, who have none of my lived experience, tell me what I cannot know? How dare Oxbridgian bohemians deny their fellow classmates the right to glean knowledge from former Brit ish ministers of state, as was the case with Amber Rudd? Regardless of the speaker in question, such an attitude, and observe closely my friends, for you shall see, is never justified.
“ It is onrestrictionsthereessarynecfortobelanguage “ “
Today we acknowledge that to deny these peo ple their voice was un just, arbitrary, unfair.
Catharine MacKinnon’s Only Words essay expresses this idea much better than I can: all words, even if not explic itly advocating action, directly impact individuals and groups within soci ety. It is self-evident that speech has an actionable or emotional impact. In the instances that fall under the pur view of this policy, the speech that the government desires to protect would, as they suggest, have a substantial negative impact on student bodies. Understanding this, I must note the responsibility of universities to facil itate a diverse student body and the duty of care held by the University and Students Union over students. Whilst the main responsibility of universities is education, universities also must ensure the student body is free from active or passive discrim ination. This responsibility extends to ensuring that students are free from hate speech and the spread of dangerous or discriminatory ideas; ensuring racial minorities don’t have to face hateful language; female stu dents are free from verbal harass ment; and protection from any other form of discriminatory or hateful behaviour. In exercising this respon sibility, it does become necessary for universities to take action against those who make the university com munity an unsafe place. Similarly, the elected Students’ Association serves to represent student interests and highlight failures of the University in various areas. Thus, the Association absolutely has the authority to se lect speakers and moderate societies. This policy supposedly comes from
The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but areThe views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions. 4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot ViEWpoiNt 9
I think a “Free Speech Champi on” sounds clunky and useless. However, the Government may try to frame it – an elusive, dis course-liberating golden snitch, perhaps –, imagine it the opposite. Yet, whether it works as proposed or not, whether the policy is effective or not, I don’t care. All that matters for me and my side of the argument, is that this reckoning is happening, that
Almost 500 years later this misfor tune, as prevalent but ungraspable as ever, seems to pervade our society still. Too many fear freedom: they fear the evils it reveals; they fear the respon sibility it puts onto us; they fear the most unstoppable force of the truth.
CommonsWikimediaPhoto:
Following the wedding however, the media began to increasingly at tack the couple excessively for trivial topics which Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was celebrated for. The contrast in headlines is quite shock ing: tabloids heralded William and Kate’s wedding for its grand flowers but accused Harry and Meghan for possibly putting Princess Charlottes life at risk with theirs and, while the press supported Prince William for being open about mental health is sues, they bashed Prince Harry and Meghan for doing the same. Even Meghan’s experience of pregnancy
On Long Reading Lists
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I am not, for instance, trying to say that we should be given abridged versions of books like Anna Kareni na in English – as much as I might want to, the night before my tutorial. So why do I think we should trim down reading lists? Two reasons.
was spun into a negative headline when Kate was said to be “tender ly cradling” her baby bump while Meghan was accused of “virtue sig nalling” for doing the same. Consid ering this, it does make one wonder why the coverage of the couple is so negative and helps understand complaints of racist undertones. The headlines continued to spin out of control over trivial issues such as royal protocol errors, and more seri ous personal matters like Meghan’s relationship with her father and the couples parenting skills. For Harry, this likely was tragically reminiscent of his mother Princess Diana’s bom bardment by the press following her divorce from Prince Charles. Harry said in an interview that “I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mum” and merely two months following that interview, in the beginning of 2020, the couple announced they would be stepping down from senior royal duties to the surprise of many. Even that caused media hysteria vilifying Meghan for breaking up the Royal Family and for disrespecting the Queen which like ly solidified that it was the correct decision to leave the media frenzy. Following their final royal engage ment, Harry, Meghan and their young child, Archie, moved to Meghan’s hometown of Los Angeles in California where they have signed deals for multiple projects and en deavours. Then, last week they re vealed that they are expecting their second child which caused media uproar for alleged hypocrisy. I disa gree with that sentiment because the couple have for so long had head lines written about them and their privacy breached regularly. This is news that they wish to share on their own terms and there is a differ ence between this and the Daily Mail publishing a personal letter between Meghan and her father. Besides, I’m sure if they had kept the pregnan cy secret, it would have caused up roar too because, as this article has shown, the couple will always be portrayed as villains by the media.
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Deputy Viewpoint Editor
Well, I can’t be alone in feeling that some read ings are much, much, much more helpful than others. Students who want them can always find the sec ondary readings with next to no difficulty, but it should be seen as desirable that some weeks have less read ing and more analysis.
The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions.
I should also clarify that this mainly applies to subjects like international relations, where the weekly reading consists of several academic articles.
As most will know, last week the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, made headlines across the media as they announced they were expecting their second child. This comes following the couples retreat from their public life in the monarchy. While many were pleased to hear the announcement, especial ly considering this is their “rainbow baby” following a miscarriage during lockdown, the UK media attacked the couple for being too selective with their privacy. The Daily Star front page the following day was ti tled “publicity-shy woman tells 7.76 billion people: I’m pregnant.” This is merely one headline among many from the tabloid newspapers vilify ing and invading the privacy of the Duke and Duchess, one of which led to her suing The Daily Mail. I am not a monarchist myself but, in light of headlines like this, the question does come: can we blame the couple for stepping back as even a positive news story has been turned into a negative?
But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate it a tiny bit less when I hear them regurgitate - at length, despite the 1.75x speed - the Donnelly article I’d just read in “preparation” for the lecture.
The statement worked for a peri
In other weeks, we broadly discuss the read ings for the entire tutori al. It would be cynical, if largely accurate, to say that I liked this ap proach at the time large ly because it meant less work. But on the other hand, the balance be tween close analysis and broader synthesis really was helpful, especially since that balance is val ued so much in essays. Other tutors may cover all of the readings, every week, which is under standable – they must be there for a reason, right?
Deputy Viewpoint Editor Harry and Meghan: Victims or Villians?
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot10 ViEWpoiNt
Module coordinators should not be afraid to trim the fat a little – es pecially if it leads to more variety in tutorials.
The first is that they’re often not saying anything new, or rather the lectures aren’t expanding on what they do say. I really do appreciate all the hard work our lecturers do, espe cially under difficult circumstances.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
NIAMH YATES
The couple will always be portrayed as villains by the media
The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions.
I am not writing this article be cause I’m lazy – the fact that I am is a complete coincidence. I am also not writing it because I think reading academic articles, long chapters, or essays is a bad way of learning. On the contrary, I think it is better to cover the basics on our own and save our precious con tact hours for awkwardly stum bling through the trickier stuff.
The easy response is that we shouldn’t be reading everything with excruciating closeness, or perhaps that synthesising large amounts of text is one of the main skills we must learn at university. I would tentative ly agree, with the qualification that we should be reading at least some things with excruciating closeness.
JAMIE LOCKE-JONES
when it comes to difficult texts. I do so because I know I’m not the only one, and I also know that no-one is going to devote their full attention to the in tricacies of a difficult argument when they have another 50 pages to go.
It seems that too often the temptation is to try and cover as much ground as possible in reading lists and tuto
The second reason is that giving students a hundred pages of dense scholarship to read every week sends the wrong message. Now, I freely admit to being a fairly slow reader
No one is going to de vote full at tention when they have 50 pages to go “ “
rials, which can mean that nothing gets explored in any great depth. This is obviously largely depend ent on the individual tutor. In my International Relations tutorials, for instance, I have had tutors who have told us to focus on one reading for some weeks and given out specif ic questions to answer.
Let us cast our minds back to 2016 when the couple announced they were in a long-term relationship to the delight of many who had been rooting for Prince Harry to find love. The hap piness continued when in 2017 they announced they were engaged. The prospect of American actress and phi lanthropist Meghan Markle joining the Royal Family created a sense of optimism of a possible new age for the Royals. It was also the first time that a mixed-race woman was set to assume senior royal duties. Even before their engagement however, the press saw Meghan as a negative, a Daily Mail headline at the time wrote that Mar kle was “almost straight outta Comp ton”, among other headlines. So much so that, Prince Harry released an unprecedented statement that con demned the press for their coverage of Meghan and stated that their articles featured racist and sexist undertones.
od; however, it was short lived as rumours of Markle being a so-called “bridezilla” and of causing a wedge between Harry and Prince William swirled across media outlets in the run up to the wedding. Days prior to the ceremony, there was controversy over Meghan’s father Thomas Mar kle posing for paparazzi photographs and speaking to the press which, in combination with health issues, led to him dropping out of attending the event leading to further headlines. The wedding went ahead smoothly in the end with Prince Charles walk ing her partially down the aisle and over one billion people tuned in to watch Harry and Meghan tie the knot.
“Up, down, strange, charm, top, bot tom”; this is a coherent set of words, the seemingly arbitrary names giv en to quarks that make up anything and everything that surrounds us. History, context, place, all allow us to decimate meaning as we wish. We Brits have effectively blown to smith ereens what it means to say “sorry”, given that some will apologise mere ly for breathing in your vicinity. The Americans too, whose “what’s up?” is often no longer a question, more often a greeting, and is most often asked when nothing may be up at all! Think of your own communi ty, let your mind run wild, find all the words and phrases of which the meaning is totally artificial, and the original words but a mere carcass.
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When real life socialising is illegal, it’s fictionalwederstandableunturntothe “ “
Ironically, this is a slightly pro longed way to say, “Ensure your point gets across”. It is possible these two modern giants are right. Long gone are the days of the prolix Marcel Proust and Oscar
say this in fewer words”. Not only are we neutering our own linguis tic powers, we’re creating programs that will further limit them for us! So, in the modern day how do we write well, or best? Maybe we’re trapped. Maybe the only way out is to discov er our own personal style, one which represent us, and ride it out as best we can. Authenticity as the answer. We could follow guidance. Or well was clear. He disliked dead clichés, he disliked unnecessarily long, foreign words or jargon if an Anglo-Saxon synonym could replace it. He explained: use few words, and make your language active! Hem ingway echoed him. Craft short sen tences, build short first paragraphs, use “vigorous English”, he said.
Of course, passing on that joy in volves the inevitable pressure on the other purpose to love whatever you show them and be judged forever if
According to the New York Times, neurologists have found that the brain does not make much of a dis tinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life, meaning that the experience of re-reading an old book can be similar to that of seeing old friends (some thing we have all been unable to do for months, outside of a walk in the park). When real life socialising is il legal, it’s understandable that many turn to the fictional to get our fix. We return to the familiar because why watch anything new when you risk subjecting yourself to a slightlyless-good version of something that you already know that you love? Es pecially if it’s a book. If I’m going to dedicate hours of my life to reading, it better be worth more than a threestar rating on Goodreads (especially when I should be reading things that I’m actually getting graded on for).
The bittersweetness of longing for the past but feeling comforted by getting some of it back in the present, is much needed. So, no, I will not be watching any of the series that you’ve recommended me in the past year.
views
We destroythem,them,belittlewordstakeandbullyutterlythem “ “
stories providing an essential release from the paradoxically chaotic and monotonous reality of lockdown.
Wilde, whose sentences could roll on for hundreds of words. Prominent now are the styles of Bukowski’s of
It’s a great time for a bit of nostal gia, and the easiest form for that to take in lockdown is in re-ing. To add to re-ing’s defence, nostalgia has been psychologically proven to be beneficial for our health.
Historically, its negative conno tations with longing for an un attainable past have given it a bad reputation, but more recent studies have revealed its unique power to relieve loneliness and alienation. Its use in treatments for Alzheimer’s and clinical de pression, as cited by the ian, are demonstrations of the benefit of returning to old things, rath er than constantly seeking for the new.
In a culture that continuously encour ages us to try new things and expand our horizons, there’s a strong argu ment for doing just the opposite. Nos talgia, comfort, and the familiar are just as valid a source of joy as novelty and excitement; especially when we have limited access to either current ly. Though the pandemic is my excuse at the minute, I’m sure there’ll always be another reason to justify re-ing.
ten blunt, crazed, poetry, or of Berton Braley’s few, but impactful, poems. I’ll end as I began: briefly. I want to propose that we no longer write very well. I have no solution; I don’t think guides help. Nor do I think my own writing escapes the issue, even I find it at times hard to understand. I would like to think comprehension isn’t everything, sheer force and ambient beauty should be considered too. We just need to write as if it were so.
We say a lot about words, and words say a lot about us. We hear endless ly of words’ power and profundity. They are mankind’s greatest weapon. They are mankind’s greatest unifier. They are a fundamental filter through which we see the world around us.
Shows too are a big commitment. At this point if the two-sentence syn opsis doesn’t entice me, I’m out and back to watching Gil more Girls for the eleventh time. One slightly more origi nal element of re-ing can be introducing new people to your favourite things, avoid ing the criticism that you are
nipulating the pandemic to suit one of my favourite pastimes: re-ing.
stuck in your ways by claiming to be enlightening someone else.
Acting as a familiarmediablanket,comfortculutraltheseare
re-reading, or re-listening. Essential ly, re-visiting books, films, shows, and music of your past to avoid the risk of disappointment with anything new. It’s particularly useful in times of personal (in this case global) up heaval, when life is uncertain and all you want is to relive something that is a guaranteed source of joy.
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot ViEWpoiNt 11
Sheer force and ambient consideredshouldbeautybe
Try Something Old: In Defence of Staying in your Comfort Zone
Historic figures tell us so, or more likely, historic figures write us so. Yet, we waste words. We take words
David Garfinkel describes vigorous English as “the difference between putting in a good effort and trying to move a boulder … and actually sweating, grunting, straining your muscles to the point of exhaustion … and moving the freaking thing!”
ALEX BECKETT Deputy Viewpoint Editor
“ “ Photo:WikimediaCommons
Acting as a cultural comfort blanket, these media are familiar and predict able, adjectives that definitely haven’t been much use in real-life in the past year. Switching on that show you’ve seen a thousand times before means you know how it will play out; you can recite the lines, name the charac ters, and list off the actors in alpha betical order. But they never get old.
The expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions.
Add ed to this is the always
The Importance of Writing Earnestly
JESS BURT Deputy Viewpoint Editor
they don’t feel the same emotional attachment to it that you do. But ei ther way you get to enjoy yourself.
The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions.
Illustration: Sarah Knight
Re-ing involves re-watching,
It’s hard during these difficult times not to link everything to the COV ID-19 pandemic. This doesn’t just apply to our lives right now, but to pretty much anything anyone has said about pandemics in the last decade. From Bill Gates to The Simpsons, anything and everything can be adapted to fit into the sto ry that we’re (hopefully) on track to resolve the pandemic right now. Thus, I feel less guilty about ma
and belittle them, bully them, utterly destroy them. We allow our words to be changed, twisted, warped. We question certain words’ necessity, and cer tain types of words. The atenounsbietheOthersutablymilitantsanti-adverbareirrefunrelenting.aredemandingremovingofzomwords:makeshift‘-ing’thatanglophonescrewhentheycan’tthinkof the noun’s true form, such as ‘removal’.
Social media destroys what set phrases mean: to tell someone that you love them (or the contrary), for example, given the vapidity and speed with which such feelings are
The billionaire Bill Gates recently claimed that solving coronavirus was “very, very easy” compared to solving climate change. The difficulty with the climate, he maintained, is in uphold ing a comfortable living standard in developed countries, and improving living standards in developing coun tries, while lowering the fifty-one billion net tonnes of greenhouse gases that the world emits yearly.
Last March, The British Museum an nounced the appointment of curator Isobel MacDonald. She was charged with exploring the history of “con tested objects” acquired from the co lonial era. Significantly, she was giv en the power to remove some of these objects from the Museum altogether. Although the curator has since been furloughed, many believe the new roadmap out of lockdown has given renewed hope to this project which is set to start very soon. Within the past week however, the Culture Sec retary Oliver Dowden has rightly expressed doubts as to the direction of this research. This article will seek to substantiate Dowden’s doubts and argue that instead of remov ing these artefacts, we should em brace them as part of British history. Among the objects included in this review are those accrued as the result of British military interventions in Ethiopia in 1868, Ghana in 1874 and Nigeria in 1896. A large number of artefacts also come from one of the first collections of the museum in the 1750s. Strikingly, this belonged to the physician Hans Sloane, a figure who directly profited from the slave trade. Some have suggested that the display of these objects is intrinsically wrong. Why we should continue to celebrate objects which embraced the slave trade, or indeed buttressed the sub jugation of oppressed people? When we visit the museum, why should we
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the guilt of the nation and turns a blind eye to the more truthful facts. The guilt, disgrace and brutality of certain historic individuals have masked their more positive contri bution to their contemporary socie ties. This was fiercely contested with the statue of Winston Churchill. To protesters who defaced his statue at Parliament square, his malevolent role in the 1943 Bengal famine was used as fodder for branding him a racist. For a brief moment, this tar nished the fact that he was a unifying figure and hero for the nation during World War II. The same principle ap
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sinister Pringles can — dubbed a “recycler’s nightmare”. Can the tube be recycled? Can the lid be recycled? Can the card that surrounds the tube be recycled? Who knows, which ul timately leads to, who cares? Stick it in the bin, and it’ll be rolling around a
appreciate objects which have signi fied the violence in the British empire?
LINDEN GRIGG
How St Andrews Can Combat “Recycling Laziness”
At the least, Fife Council might supply inconspicuous, non-pri vate bins for students who don’t have a car, or whose flat doesn’t provide specific recycling bins. Secondly, it must be made absolute ly clear what can and what cannot be recycled. Take, for instance, the
Deputy Editor
plies to the British Museum’s project to review and remove. Just because there are artefacts which are indic ative of the empire’s more brutish side, it does not mean they are lack ing in other cultural values. Only a few days ago, Oliver Dowden has suggested to the Museums Associa tion to set up a “retain and explain” policy with regards to these artefacts connected to slavery and empire. In stead of removing these objects, we need to retain them and explain, rath er than dismiss, their place in history.
are provided that it’s difficult to keep up. Coronavirus has only added a del uge of unfamiliar plastics and card board and vegware. Students don’t want to be bothered thinking about which of the multicoloured bins these go in — in the dining room and pri vate kitchens. Make it easy for them.
The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions.The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint but are individual opinions. 4 March 2021 · thesaint.scotViEWpoiNt12
British Museum Artefacts: Remove or Remain?
ro-scale nature of climate change it self. Instead of taking time to separate out rubbish and distribute it into the appropriate bin, for example, it’s far less energy exhaustive to just dump it
The way to do this is twofold: by lobby ing governments to make investment in green technology more attractive, and using our voices as consumers to influence companies’ practices.
landfill site for the next few millennia. Recycling transparency is especially a problem in halls, where so many bins
From a moral and ethical standpoint therefore, this research and the sub sequent removal of various objects is considered necessary. Proof of this consensus lay in the Black Lives Mat ter protests last year; the most striking case was the unseating and dumping of the statue of Edward Colston, the slave-owner, into Bristol harbour. Similar action has been taken on an in stitutional level too. In November just gone, Jesus College Cambridge took the decision to remove the memorial of Tobias Rustat, a major patron of the college who was involved in shipping slaves to the Americas. The V&A mu seum and the National Trust have also addressed these issues with regards to their own collections and property. It is clear that individuals and institu tions alike are wanting to stigmatise historical actors for their alleged con nections in the slave trade or their involvement in the violence of impe rial dominion. This seems to be the aim of the British Museum’s project under the leadership of MacDonald. It is right to recognise that the slave trade should be condemned by our modern standards. However, there is a major problem in the Museum’s pro ject to stigmatise specific individuals and their artefacts, and perhaps erad icating them from history altogether. Why negate a course of history which helped shape the present? Further more, if the Museum is so intent on in vestigating the colonial context of ob jects, then surely the very removal of these same objects seems counterpro ductive. Removing objects disguises
It’s far less exhaustiveenergy to just dump it all in one bag
With universal participation in sim ple recycling practice, combined with the University’s more eye-catching projects such as the Eden Campus pro ject, St Andrews can earn a national reputation for being particularly pro gressive in matters of climate change. With reputation comes responsibil ity, but should we all get on board, our University can be an exemplary model of green higher education.
when the weather is cold, wet, or, as is frequently the case in St Andrews, both. Whilst, however, it seems a price worth paying for the continuity of planet earth, when the time comes to pluck up the energy to organise re cycling, that logic quickly dissipates. That being said, there are certain recognisable factors that might encourage “recycling laziness”. The first is the distribution of recy cling centres around St Andrews. There are five recycling points in town, but three are located deep into the Badlands, and one is peculiarly situated past The Old Course Hotel, beside West Sands. To boost recycling uptake (in which Fife is already high ly ranked among Scottish councils), more recycling points might be in troduced around the centre of town.
St Andrews students are unique ly placed to undertake both in the future — but the effort must also be made closer to home. There are easy steps that students can take to do this, but some do not take the issue seriously. In all likeli hood laziness is the villain, probably as a result of the slow-moving, mac
to remove artefacts and objects con nected to slavery and the more bru tal effects of empire. However, such a view is misleading and dismisses the richness and more positive el ements and facts of British history. On this topic, the philosopher Thom as Sowell recently condemned “the most grotesque distortions grow ing out of this carelessness with the facts”. If the British Museum are to pursue their investigations to the extent of removing “contested ob jects”, then they must be sure not to distort the broader facts of history.
The British Museum has fed into mainstream consensus that it is right
REBECCA HOLMES Deputy Viewpoint Editor
Illustration: Edward Emery
The pressurepeerrecyclingweapongreatestofis
Lastly, the greatest weapon of recy cling is peer pressure, and it isn’t used enough. Whilst calling out anyone who isn’t a friend probably isn’t justi fied, it certainly is among friends and flatmates. University is where living habits are formed, and it’s important to fall into the habit of recycling as climate change becomes an ever more pertinent and pressing global issue.
all in one bag. This is common sense. It’s also not fun carrying bundles of cardboard, sticky plastics, and suspi ciously full bags of glass bottles across town to a recycling point. Especially
In some cases, other students replied by saying that: “Impostor syndrome is very real in academia and you are not alone”, “It happens to every one” and “You earned this place. You wouldn’t have an offer from the University if they did not believe you deserved it, it is not a charity”. These few examples simply show that
Impostor Syndrome: The Strange Fear of Capable People
Sofia Gerace Deputy Features Editor
Deputy Editors: Alexandra Baff, Hannah Comiskey, Sofia Gerace
In short, there are many factors trig gering the imposter syndrome and it is very common to be affected by it. However, this idea that we have to pretend to be someone else or else we will be ‘discovered’ is counterproduc tive. Indeed, it affects our well-being and our perception of ourselves. Being aware of our past successes (and fail ure) is important for recognising our true strengths and weaknesses. Think ing that everything is a big ‘bluff’ may
ute to the impostor syndrome. For example, a family that values highly achievements can trigger feelings of inadequacy. In many cases, it is also linked with the beginning of new ex periences such as university courses, jobs or internships. Life at university may be very stressing and may lead students to think they are not smart enough for their studies. The work place, too, may be very challenging and competitive, and some people may fear that their colleagues and su pervisors expect more from them than they can manage. It also particularly affects women and minorities, who do not feel valued enough by the current society and tend to think that they are not good enough. Sometimes, the syn drome also depends on personality traits linked to anxiety. Even our prof it-oriented society contributes to fue ling this sense of inadequacy, because it promotes the belief that our value is linked only to the professional or eco nomic results we are able to achieve.
prevent us from improving ourselves. So, is there a way to overcome it?
I am sure that some students have been asking themselves the same questions. Amongst the student com munity, there are freshers that think that they do not belong in St Andrews because other students seem to be cleverer. There are also students that have been in St Andrews for some years and still struggle with acknowl edging that they deserve their place here. Or even students that get good grades but feel that this is all due to good luck. In any case, they should know that they are not alone in this.
Impostor syndrome is real: there are studies, interviews, academic re search, newspapers articles on the subject. After reading that experienc ing such feelings is more common than I thought, I realised that I was not alone in this. However, no stu dents around me ever mentioned this syndrome. Indeed, during my own university experience most people preferred not to talk about it. That is why I felt the need to write some thing on it. In particular, I came up with the idea of this article by reading some anonymous comments on the University’s Facebook pages, like St Fessdrews, where students were con fessing their feeling of being a fraud and of not belonging in St Andrews.
First of all, many psychologists and researchers have emphasised the fact that people that do not feel like im postors are no more intelligent, com petent or capable than other people. And this means that we only need to learn to think like non-impostors.
@thesaintsta
“Anyone else could do it”: this is what I have often been repeating to myself over these past three years of University. My undergraduate ex perience started at the Sorbonne in Paris and it is now coming to an end here in St Andrews. Two important universities in which students earn their place by working hard. We are all in the same situation: there are difficult exams, a lot of course work, tricky interviews, long person al statements, and the list goes on. Yet, a voice in my head has been trying to convince me that I was just lucky and did not belong in these places. I was telling myself that my classmates were smarter than I am, that they deserved to be there more than I did and that they were go ing to achieve much more than I ever could. I started wondering if I was the only one feeling like that, if there was a way to feel proud of my achievements and if at some point I would stop questioning everything.
Ally
features@thesaint.scotthesaint.scot/features Features
these feelings are real and frequent
tions, or being in the right place at the right time. Today, this phenomenon is also known as “impostor syndrome”. Recent data have shown that this syndrome does not affect only high-achieving women. Indeed, re cent research indicates that about 70% of people, regardless of their achievements and jobs, will experi ence the impostor syndrome at some point. Those that have these feelings commonly feel unworthy, incompe tent and inadequate. They consider themselves as a fraud and they are afraid that sooner or later other peo ple will discover that. However, it is important to point out that impostor syndrome is not self-doubt. It is very common for people to feel insecure and doubt their ability sometimes, but usually achievement or accomplish ment can overcome these feelings. Therefore, the difference between the two is that impostor syndrome is pervasive regardless of all the ev idence that proves one’s abilities.
FEaturES Editor: Addison
Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who coined the term “impostor syn drome”, encourage people to make a realistic assessment of their abilities as well as of the abilities of others: it is important to understand that no one is perfect. Also, mistakes are in evitable, and they do not make a per son less worthy. Indeed, the world is not divided between capable and incapable people. We are all of mixed strengths and weaknesses. Sharing your experience with other people and realizing that others are in the same position is also a good way to fight the fear of being fake. People with impostor syndrome often do not accept compliments and tend to reply by saying that “everyone else could do the same thing” while a simple answer such as “thank you” could help not to devalue our achievements.
A student wrote: “my impostor syn drome is so bad that I think my tu tors are giving me good grades just to make it look like more people are doing well in their class”. While an other asked: “anyone else got major imposter syndrome about applying for internships? I look at everything and am just like nope can't do any of that, do people who do internships actually think they're fully qualified for the role?”. One poster claimed: “I've been putting in so many hours of studying but I'm still convinced I'll do terribly in coursework, regard less of how much effort I put in”. And also: “I feel fake or an impos tor or whatever, like St Andrews is full of ‘beautiful people’ and I can't get over feeling like I'm not that”.
An article published by Verywell Mind underlined that “if you are feel ing like an impostor, it means you have some degree of success in your life that you are attributing to luck. Look at what you have accomplished in your life and be grateful.” To con clude, those who suffer from impostor syndrome are never really imposters.
EmeryEdwardIllustration:
To have to pretend to be someone else is productivecounter
“ “ ofarejoked:“weSteinbeckJohnallabitafraud” “
Indeed, more than 40 years ago, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, two clinical psychologists, inter viewed many high-achieving women and found they were feeling exactly the same. These women admitted to feeling like they did not deserve their achievements and only attained suc cess via good luck, the right connec
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and it is important to talk about it. Actually, the impostor syndrome has also affected important figures such as Albert Einstein who affirmed that: “the exaggerated consideration in which all my work is held makes me uncomfortable and sometimes makes me feel like a cheater”. John Steinbeck joked about it by saying that: “we are all a bit of a fraud”. Even Meryl Streep, Melinda Gates, Emma Watson, Michelle Obama, Sheryl Sandberg, Lady Gaga, or Howard Schultz, affirmed that dur ing their career they have doubted their achievements and abilities. If you are wondering about the caus es of this phenomenon, here are some answers. According to some studies, certain social factors may contrib
and
Such changes in expectations and ca reer possibilities are particularly strik ing when comparing young women generation to generation. With mar riage remaining one of the key indica tors for how the role of a twenty-some thing year old woman has evolved over the past 50 years. Shifting from housewife expectations in the 1970s to the current dominance of young women in Universities across the UK. While in the mid 1970s over a quarter of women were married by the age of twenty and over ninety percent by the age of thirty, in 2019 it was revealed that only 1 in 3 women were married before they turned thirty. A fact fur ther pointing to the shift in young women using their early twenties to build careers rather than families.
We real ise too late what edreallywewantallalong.
Learning from mistakes can be as much of a catalyst for growth as plain sailing, but until we start to respect our twenties as perhaps the most impactful years of our lives, we risk an abrupt awakening at 30 after hav ing sleep-walked through them. Of course, our twenties should be fun and experimental, and the neurolog ical research points to the fact that, done in a constructive way, this exper imentation could be entirely positive for our development. But without any direction, a wholly untethered ap proach leaves us in danger of reach ing an end destination which doesn’t fit. With no groundwork to build the dream, we realise too far down the line what we really wanted all along.
Within a single generation, the twen ties have shifted from being a decade defined by making your grand de but into the adult world of marriage, child-rearing and career-making, to a decade characterised by an indul gent self-discovery reminiscent of “Eat, Pray, Love”, but with slightly less money and more slaving away in resented barista jobs. The traditional milestones highlighted by sociologists as defining the “transition to adult hood” are being reached later and later. With twenty-somethings today completing education, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having children older than their counterparts in the 1960s. This postponement points to the deep cultural shift in the expectations sur rounding people in their twenties.
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However, while commitment to career advancement is a factor driv ing many twenty-somethings delay to starting a family, there is also a huge cohort avoiding commitment to anything. Resulting in a stagger ing average of 7 jobs across this dec ade and a third of people in their twenties moving to a new residence every year. And with a further 40% moving back home with their par ents at least once, it is clear that many twenty-somethings are avoiding the ties of decisive action at all cost.
In the past 50 years we have seen dras tic changes in how young people are spending their twenties. Since the 1970s the age at which we are expect ed to have reached the traditional adult milestones to get married, settle in a permanent home, commit to a ca reer and have a baby has been rising further and further. Instead, we have seen a trend for gap years spent trav elling, resistance to being “tied down” by jobs or romantic partners, and more young people moving back home. However, we have now reached a point where some psychologists, such as Dr Meg Jay, are asking whether we have gone too far, and whether the growing lack of responsibility in what she refers to as the “defining decade” of our lives is coming at a price: for our futures, and even our present.
Jay also points to the agonising de cision in our twenties of whether to keep our options open, amid the sea of possibilities available to us, or whether to become fixated on a sin gle course. Such a fork in the road can rear its ugly head in our thirties when many find themselves equal ly lost after an untethered decade of drifting between careers, locations, partners and life-goals. And while Jay acknowledges that our twenties are some of the most uncertain and tumultuous years of our lives, she concludes that we should be capi talizing on them, avoiding excessive thinking, perfecting and stalling.
4 March 2020 · thesaint.scot FEaturES 15
While there is little doubt that the ex pectations for our twenties have been drastically transformed in the past generation, recent focus brings into question whether there is a need to re-think how we actually define these years. Psychologists like Jeffry Arnett take the view that we should see our twenties as a distinct developmental life stage, much like adolescence; we need this time of experimentation before slowing down and flattening out our trajectory in life. Coining the term “emerging adulthood”, Arnett points to the cultural shifts which have influenced changes in twen ty-somethings’ behaviour in the last generation. To name a few: the grow ing number of entry-level jobs requir ing higher education, acceptance of premarital sex and birth control, and reproductive technology allowing for greater delays in pregnancy. So ex ternal factors are at play in reshaping what we expect from our twenties.
What is more, many scientists are pointing to the fact that the brain is still completing its development well into the twenties. Research has found that profound changes take place in the prefrontal cortex, where emotion al control and decision-making are rooted, up until the age of 25. While our emotions are fully-charged from
the complete development of the limbic system, even into our twenties there is a tendency to override logic with emotion in our decision-making. As such, twenty-somethings are argu ably better-equipped to make major life decisions. This begs the question as to why society places so much pres sure on young people to make life-al tering decisions at such a young age. At the same time, the brains of twen ty-something year olds are also at their most sponge-like, with fMRI research showing that the synaptic shaping of the brain in our twenties is highly de pendent on how we use or challenge them. Although there is much empha sis on the role of environment and ex perience in the first three years of life in brain development, there is a wide spread neglect in considering how the environment of our early twenties shapes the brain. Yet, brain connec tions are pruned away at an alarming rate ‒ the “use it or lose it” mechanism kicks in ferociously in our twenties. So what we do in this time period mat ters greatly for the shaping of our brains, and by extension, our futures. Whether it’s the purposeful kick-start ing of a career, cementing important relationships or engaging in meaning ful self-discovery by travelling or try ing new things, however you choose to spend these years will re-shape and adapt the brain in its final large
never will be one universal solution to make that transition from student to adulthood any easier. But I think the key thing to take away from Dr Jay’s “defining decade” and the con tributions of other psychologists or sociologists, is that there is no per fect path in our twenties. Yet despite this, there is impact, consequence and meaning in these years where we sometimes assume there is not. Whether we decide to accept it or not, our twenties matter. The decisions we make, the people we spend time with and the way we spend our time all combine to build the foundations of our lives in our 30s, 40s and 50s.
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huge questions surrounding what this decade should be about. Is there a middle ground between embarking on some kind of spiritual mission to “find ourselves”, and the stifling mile stones our parents and grandparents had achieved by our age? Either way, in her book the “Defining Decade”, Dr Jay stresses the importance of our twenties as laying the groundwork for the rest of our lives, emphasising the fact that, with 80% of life’s most defining moments taking place before the age of 35, the twenties are crucial years which should not be wasted.
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Hannah Comiskey Deputy Features Editor
In a decade where we are uncere moniously dumped into adulthood, fresh out of school and often with no idea what we want to do, there are
wave of change. And given that twen ty-something brains boast greater adaptability than an older brain, the ability to quickly master something new or alter our brain’s capacity is not something we can take for grant ed. Crucially, a lack of conviction and aimless floating ‒ rather than decisive action ‒ has the potential to cause more harm than good in these crucial and defining years. With sustained reluctance to embark on your desired adult path or act in accordance with who you want to be, rather than what you necessarily want, standing as the most pressing short to long-run trade off we will face within our lifetimes. In light of this fleeting adaptability of the brain, personality also has the potential to change more in our 20’s than any other decade of our life. A finding which Dr Jay further draws upon to highlight the value of inten tional choices, which will have lasting influence on an both an internal and external level. Thirty is not the new twenty and we don’t get a second chance to capitalize on these valua ble years. So whatever it is we decide to do, Jay ultimately argues that we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that whether intended or not it is build ing the groundwork for our future. The question surrounding “what should I do with my life when I grad uate” remains unanswered. There
The Defining Decade: How Should We Live Our Twenties?
The work Frontline does changes peo ple’s lives. The charity estimates that throughout their short history they have worked with over 50,000 children.
vation in there and you have to put yourself in all situations, learn how people react” she explained, “I think but I think there's definitely an element of being able to make things tical in literature.”
“the rom com goeseverythingwherewrong “ “ Getting
The charity, which actively seeks stu dents and graduates looking to make a real difference to people’s lives, focus es on creating social change for chil dren who do not have a safe or stable home, by developing excellent social work and leadership skills for them.
There is a clear need for leaders.gent,intelli-driven for is More Graduates Into Social
similar experiences to me and when I was looking there was a kind of gap in the market and that's why I thought, well, you can kind of make this world and go with it and make your own statement.”
You
Olivia Bybel Deputy Editor
work on encouraging more gradu ates to get into social work, I knew the opportunity to represent them on campus would be an extremely gratifying and valuable opportunity.”
Ms Steel first came to St Andrews in 2009, pur suing an English degree, eventually switching to anthropology. “I always wanted to write really and I think I saw a Facebook post that even arrived in St Andrews asking for people to write in the features section” She described herself as having a “keen” and “type a” personality when she was a fresher, and was eager to get involved.
“Particularly in light of the pandem ic, where the importance of having a stable, safe and supportive home environment has been paramount,
quite a conscious choice on my part, I got to bring a lot of what I do in my day job into different spheres like marketing and self presentation”. Ms Steel stressed that “anyone who says they don't need an editor really needs an editor, you need someone who can edit and you need to be able to take on that criticism and re factor it into your work”. Self publishing means that decision making from mar keting to graphic design begins “begins months and months before launch day, and there's a lot of different elements go ing on that aren't just the actual writing.”
Bae for Pay is described as “the rom-com where everything goes wrong”. Much of the novel takes place in a small university town that might remind our readers of St Andrews. “for me there's an element of write what you know, I think if I decid ed to write about people who have gone to an inner city London University that wouldn't make any sense, I wouldn't know the first thing of what that was like whereas I do know what it's like to go to a small town university.” It means a lot to Ms Steel to hear “how much people relate to the characters, so an element is definite ly trying to provide something that peo ple recognise.” She expresses though that her novel is not strictly based on St An drews, “I think it could be any small uni versity town. I think there's definitely ele ments when you read it that are inspired by time in St Andrews, it's up to people to read that see what they draw, but at the same time there's so many small uni versities around world, so many places where people have had that experience, fiction is a chance to kind of make things more outrageous and more interesting.”
It is hard these days to write an arti cle without mentioning the p-word (pandemic) or c-word (coronavirus). This article has already failed in re spect of originality. It is easy to joke about the prevalence of the topic in the media, even in such prestigious media as The Saint. Yet the pan demic and associated lockdown has very serious consequences. There are many studies that report on the effect of lockdown on children, with one Oxford study reporting increased emotional difficulties, increased be havioral difficulties and increased restlessness among 4-10 year olds.
Ms McWilliams stressed the importance of social work to herself personally.
Even in more certain times than we find our selves in now, the future is often unknown.
Ms Steel’s novel, Bae for Pay came out in November. She told me a bit about the publishing process. “I actually
The publishing of Bae for Pay was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, but Ms Steel took it in stride. “It's a lot being respon sive and you know and being reactive to situations, I think for me it was about trying to seize the opportunities when we could.” She tried to get things done dur ing brief breaks in lockdown restrictions, “for instance we had a brief window of time we could get into the studio and do a photo shoot for the front cover and it was about going right okay now's the time to do it, we have to do it now”. In order to follow restrictions safely, she or
“ “ Ms Novembercamefornovel,Steel’sBaePay,outin “ “ Bae
The Rom Com Where Everything Goes Wrong
https://bymelissasteel.com/
ment to something”. She decided to do it, however, because “I wanted to write something that was sort of reflective for people who I think had been through
Linden Grigg Deputy Editor
es from a couple of them.” She eventually decided she wanted to have more con trol over the publishing, however, and self published Bae for Pay. “That was
al route of going to literary agents and
Pay
4 March 2020 · thesaint.scot16 FEaturES
Frontline's work is of increasing relevance and importance to dis advantaged children and families.”
Ms Steel gave some insight into the dif ference between journalistic and fiction writing. “when you study journalism one of the big questions is truth and how you represent your truth… whereas I think in fiction you can make much more of a statement of your own sort of worldview and how you've interpreted something and I think like they both compliment each other”. After doing both she thinks, “it really helps actually having come from a journalistic background cause
ganized a doorstop drop off with her dog instead of a traditional launch party. “I think people were just so excited because nothing has been happening for so long at that point they were like someone has come to my door, obviously I don't think it would have been like that had we not had Covid but at the same time it push es you to be a bit more experimental and creative with how you do things.”
Frontline aims to get young people into social care through their Front line programme. On this programme, graduates are able to earn whilst stud ying for a Masters in Social Work. During the programme, graduates will work directly with children and families. After the first year a Frontline programme participant will qualify as a social worker, and after the second will have completed a master’s degree.
Many university students may feel stressed thinking about what exactly they are go ing to do after graduating. Fortunately, that novel you are thinking of writing (I’m look ing at you English majors) may be a better plan than you think! I sat down with Melis sa Steel, St Andrews Alumna and former Features Editor of The Saint, to talk about her novel, and her career after St Andrews.
about pole dancing. “I submitted two pieces, one was a really in depth piece about the Leuchars air base shutting down, and the other was about trying pole dancing classes when it was a big thing.” Although she was amused at their choice, she found this very encour aging, and enjoyed working at an in ternship with the Herald after winning the award. She continued to be involved in student journalism throughout her time in St Andrews, serving as Features Editor of The Saint in her third year. After graduating, she pursued a masters
“When I was younger, I first discov ered what social work was through Tracy Beaker! I know that’s a strange thing to say, but the idea of children without parents or guardians hav ing someone to look after them and give the best chances possible really resonated with me. I would ask my parents, who both deal with fami ly law, lots of questions about how children in vulnerable situations can be protected. When I heard of Front line last year and their incredible
Whilst many St Andrews graduates may never have considered a career in social work, there is a clear need in the field for intelligent, persuasive, driven leaders. Frontline have even created a quiz where you can find out what skills you can bring to social change.
Against this backdrop of increased domestic tension, the charity Frontline has opened applications for various student and graduate opportunities.
Ms Steel is excited to continue writing fiction. “I'm actually working on the se quel just now, it's a great chance espe cially at the moment to have a world you have some control over in a world where you don't have much control over anything at the moment, it's been really nice during the pandemic to have writing as something that you can fall back on when times are tough.” can learn more about the book on the website:
Work
Social workers are key workers. They work closely with fellow profes sionals, including doctors, teachers and the police, to ensure the safe ty of the young people with whom they work. Over 700,000 children in the UK rely on the support of social workers every year, and this might be for reasons of abuse, neglect, fam ily dysfunction, disability, or illness.
On the Frontline
Frontline’s campus brand man ager for Andrews, third-year IR and French major Honor McWil liams, echoed this sentiment.
“Frontline gives individuals the means to help pave the way for young peo ple to have better life chances. To give them support they might not have. To offer advice that they need. To inspire them to reach their full potential.”
Bae For Pay: Novel of a St Andrews’ Alumna
In her second year she won an award from The Herald for a features piece
All this serves to achieve Frontline’s admirable vision - to create a socie ty where no child’s life chances are limited by their social or family cir cumstance. And they hope that St An
On the other hand, Ting’s workouts can be extremely beneficial. She offers a range of workout videos from plank challenges to full body workouts and the occasional video showing what her daily diet looks like. These vide os are perhaps better suited to people who are already adept at home work outs and do not need the extra guid ance. The workouts are also fun and provide a quick burst of energy, but as with any online fitness class, one should be wary of the promises of in stant change in one’s body. Instead of looking to change your body quickly, you should work out to feel good and help boost your mental health in these trying times, and Ting’s short, ener getic workouts certainly do just that!
yoga session, Pamela has you covered! However, once again, it is impor tant to bear in mind that Reif is not a qualified personal trainer or fit ness instructor. Furthermore, though Reif herself maintains perfect form throughout her workouts, she does not explain to her viewers how they themselves can achieve this. What is great about Reif’s workouts is that not all of them are your typical, hardcore workouts. She posts a range of dance workouts (some of her most popular include dancing to 80s songs as well as a special Valentine’s day dance workout) which are all a lot of fun, giving you that endorphin boost without the strain of a hard workout. It is very refreshing to see a fitness influencer who does not constantly feel the need to advertise their videos with promises of weight loss or gain ing abs, instead posting workouts that are fun and enjoyable, whilst allowing people to get in some form of exercise. Reif’s cookbook is also a great in vestment if you want to be more ad venturous in the kitchen, though, to reiterate, Reif is not a nutritionist or dietician. Some of her recipes are too complicated to make regularly on a busy student schedule, but others are certainly worth it. Like her work outs, her cookbook has something for everyone. The majority of recipes in the book are vegetarian but there
Pamela boasts an impressive 6.23 mil lion subscribers on YouTube and has even launched her own fitness app and published a cookbook, with plans for another underway. There is some thing for everyone on her channel: whether it is a ten-minute abs workout you are looking for, or a thirty-minute
“ “ EmeryEdwardIllustration:
Ting tells her viewers to engage their abs during core workouts, she is limited by the fact that she cannot correct or advise viewers who might be struggling with these instruc tions, leaving them at risk of injury.
When the United Kingdom entered its first national lockdown in March of last year, many of us turned to on line workouts as our daily form of exercise. An impressive 45% of people have been doing regular home work outs. For many, these are fitness hab its that we will maintain for years to come; some have even decided to can cel their gym memberships as a result of the pandemic. Over the course of this trying year, we turned to fitness fanatics such as Chloe Ting and Pame la Reif to get our hearts racing, and our skin sweating, and whilst these fitness influencers are certainly good for get ting us motivated, can we really trust these influencers with our bodies?
Alexandra Baff Deputy Features Editor
lifelinehaveandsuchInfluencersasTingReifbeena “ “ Be
Working out at home is also ex tremely convenient as there is no walk or drive to the gym which means that you can train whenever you feel like it. While it could be a drawback for those who find the gym a more motivating environment, for people who prefer the comfort of their own homes, influencers such as Ting and Reif have been a lifeline during the pandemic, giving us some structure to our days. Not only has this been good for our bodies, but working out at home can be immensely beneficial for our mental health too. Exercising often improves one’s mood, and so we find it easier to concentrate on our other tasks. Home workouts can be particularly good for lifting our moods when performed outside in the garden or even on a small balco ny, and this is definitely something to look forward to as the warmer weath er slowly starts to return to Scotland.
are plenty to suit vegans and those who need to follow a gluten-free diet.
4 March 2020 · thesaint.scot FEaturES 17
Fitness Gurus: Are They Really That Good For Us?
Chloe Ting quickly proved to be one of the most successful fitness influ encers during the first lockdown. Hailing from Australia, Ting has an impressive 17 million subscribers to her YouTube channel, which prom ises to help you get abs in just two weeks! This initially sounds great until you realise that gaining abs is directly linked to diet and genetics. This essentially means that no matter how many crunches you do, unless you implement a safe calorie intake in your diet (i.e. you gain more calo ries than you burn) your abs will not magically appear in the space of two weeks. Your genetics also have a part to play: since they dictate where in your body you lose weight first – un less your genes are such that you lose weight around your stomach, it will take a lot of time and effort to achieve the abs that Ting promises. This can be dispiriting for first-time exercisers drawn into Ting’s videos with assur ances of a quick and easy solution, so it is important to be realistic when set ting your goals with home workouts. Not only is it important to be realistic in our workout goals, but it is also vi tal to work out in a way that is safe. In the pre-pandemic world, we had the option of in-person fitness coaches to help us exercise safely and effectively, as well as posters on the walls of gyms that teach us step-by-step how to use the workout equipment. Ting par tially acts as a fitness coach and pro vides pointers along the way; but she often omits details during her work outs that are essential for safety and well-being. For example, although
There are wider benefits to com pleting home workouts besides the chance to get in some exercise during another national lockdown. Working out at home can be inexpensive, with a lot of Ting and Reif’s workouts not requiring any equipment except for a yoga mat. Even if some pieces of equipment are required to complete some of their more complex work outs, weights and resistance bands can be bought relatively cheaply online, giving you everything you could need for a basic home gym.
So, here is how we should approach home workouts: we must be mindful of the fact that fitness influencers are not all experts, and we should always check that we are performing exer cises correctly in order to avoid any unnecessary injuries. However, these fitness gurus have provided people with some great workout routines which, so long as they are performed safely, are an excellent way of keeping happy and healthy during lockdown. expertsareinfluencersthatmindfulfitnessnotall
Another fitness influencer who rose in popularity during lockdown is Ger many-based fitness guru, Pamela Reif.
@thesaintsta
It is winter in Madagascar, yet the sun beats down, causing beads of sweat to appear on my forehead. We are taking the sole paved road that exists from the SouthWest coast of the island, slight ly inland to Isalo National Park. The dusty, dry wind slips through the cracked windows of the Toyota Land Cruiser. As we drive, I notice a gradual change in the landscape that slips past us. The sandy cactus covered desert starts to fade and sweeping hills with scat tered plateau’s appear in the distance.
It is beautiful in its stark emptiness. The only signs of life are collections of small trees, prickly shrubs and the rare Malagasy house, constructed with an assortment of gathered materials. We pause and jump out of the car to take in every detail of the vast terrain. I inhale deeply as my brain attempts to grasp the full beauty that is before me.
Toliara, Madagascar
ABIGAIL MASON Staff Writer
thesaint.scot
It’s something that we all took for granted before 2020. This past year has been filled with pain and loss, but also feelings of isolation and confinement. I’ve found myself longing on multiple occasions for the freedom to wander, to gaze out into a seemingly endless distance and feel contentment in the spaciousness before me. For those of you who get easily restless, like myself, lockdown feels like an impossibility. It goes against my very nature and my insatiable wanderlust. However, with no alternative, I’ve had the opportunity to gain a new perspective.
I snap a photo so I can return to this moment in time, hop back in the car and we continue on our way -- the beauty immortalized in the small camera on my lap.
thesaint.scot
I’ve found myself filling my time by watching travel vlogs on Youtube and making lists of places I want to travel when we’re finally free to do so. I’ve also spent hours on end combing through old photos that I’ve taken during my travels, trying to relive those captured moments. Since we are all in this together, I’d like to take you back to some of these moments with me.
Photography Editor: Emily Silk Deputy Editor: Emily Muller
Travel in a Lockdown Era
photoS
I’ve
Florence, Italy
The thought of wandering excites me. The breeze today is chilly, but there is a warmth that is quite typical of a spring sun.
The air is hot and humid. My clothes are clinging to my body as I walk up the seemingly miles of steps to reach the Kiyomizu-dera Temple. The tiniest breeze gives me the motivation I need to take another step up the hill. I finally
Kyoto, Japan
The sacred nature of this spot is ap parent. Below me I see a long line
perspectiveatoopportunityangainnew “ “
of the surrounding buildings. I find myself mesmerized by the artistic creations that are scat tered over the old stone walls.
I’m winding through the aged and narrow streets of the city with no par ticular destination.
Vibrant red temple structures are nestled into the hill. It’s poignant in its beautiful simplicity. I take out my camera and capture this moment.
of people waiting to cleanse their hands in reverence, a practice that is new to me. The tall hillside looks out over the hazy city of Kyoto, and I can tell by the ominous low-hang ing clouds that it is about to rain. I don’t mind. The rain is a source of refreshment in the humid Japanese summer. had
March 4 2021 · thesaint.scot photoS 19
I love this city, so filled with history and creativity.
I feel as if the isolation of lock down and the devastation of this past year is per sonified through her. Even though my percep tion of this image has shifted, I can still feel the warmth and wonder of the moment that I captured her, and that’s what I cling to during this time.
arrive at the first lookout spot. There is a quiet stillness that rests over the lush green forest surrounding me.
I reach for my camera. Whenever I return to this mo ment in time, I find myself re lating even deeper to the girl.
I decide that I need to take her with me so I do this in the only way I know how.
I walk past a collection of small boutiques and touristy shops be fore rounding the corner onto a quiet street bathed in the shadow
I pause for a moment. There is something in the fold ed up black and white girl that reminds me of myself -- qui et and reserved but observant. She prefers to listen than speak. There’s great depth in this piece of artwork.
The first show I watched was Stine Goya's, which was composed of a short video of models wearing the latest collection while leading rural and calm lives. At the same time, a narrator motivated watchers to be lieve in themselves while navigating the ups and downs of life. Later on the same day, it was time for Samsøe Samsøe's show, where a beautiful forest became the stage of a fashion show. The models navigated between trees in a fast-paced dynamic while a mysterious-sounding techno song played in the background. Lastly, Munthe took the (virtual) stage, and models appeared walking a catwalk located inside what seemed to be an Ikea warehouse with pop mu sic played in the background, much like a pre-pandemic fashion show.
Events Editor: Erin Boyle
To understand how digital formats affect the whole fashion month expe rience, I had the pleasure to interview a fashion industry expert, Caroline Vazzana, creative director, style in fluencer, founder of the website Mak ing It In Manhattan and author of the eponymous book. In addition to these titles, I would say that Ms Vanzan
"I think that the brands are definitely trying. Putting together these beauti ful videos and pre-recorded shows, other than streaming for us to watch. It somewhat still feels like that magi cal moment. For example, yesterday, I watched the MaxMara show that
Sofia Balestrín Staff Writer
and, although digital, all three shows took entirely different approaches.
Ms Do answered my question on how FS is dealing with the current situation: "Our plans this semester re main uncertain as we are prioritising the health and safety of our commit tee members, models and St Andrews community (...) as the industry slowly moves online, we have taken the op portunity to create new digital plat forms to exhibit the collective student effort that goes into FS every year."
FS has established several digital pro jects to share the fashion experiences of students during the pandemic: the FS blog, where models and committee members share their FS experiences and creative insights, and the Fash ion 4 The Earth (F4TE) Week, a digital event in October of 2020 which high lighted sustainable fashion practices, up-and-coming designers and fea tured an E-Catalogue of environmen tally conscious fashion brands pieces. Whether you are deeply inserted in the fashion industry or just starting, fashion month and fashion shows continue to be a sacred time of year. However, as the pandemic context opens doors to new experiences, it is in our hands to make the most out of it and continue to immerse ourselves in these fashion experiences. After all, as Ms Vanzzana stated, fashion month has "some kind of magic."
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After talking to Ms Vazzana, I thought it'd be interesting to get the perspective of a fashion entity in St Andrews, as, after all, our town hosts the biggest student-run fashion shows in the UK. During this fashion month, I began to wonder what strat egies the shows in town were plan ning, whether it'd be a pre-recorded show or a video. I talked to Sophia Do, Creative Director, and Kaitlyn Lai, Co-Head of Public Relations of St Andrews Charity Fashion Show (FS), to resolve all these questions. Firstly, Ms Lai discussed her views on digital fashion shows and their impact, especially for creators: "Al
While fashion month is still manag ing to go on via digital platforms and innovative virtual experiences, it is not the same. Ms Vanzzana then com pared the feeling and impact an in-per son fashion show provokes and the digital structure in the current context.
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Deputy Editor: Ben Alderton and Anna Harris
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usually takes place in Milan. The way they put their videos together did, for a moment, make me feel that fashion week magic of being in the venue and looking around. It's very hard for brands, but I feel like they're trying their best and doing a great job, but there's nothing like the real thing."
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Ms Vanzzana's routine during fash ion month is usually composed of five or more shows a day in NYFW,
"September definitely felt more lively, in New York City at least, this season; it feels even quieter. There are really not that many in-person events going on. However, yesterday, I went to my only in-person show of the season, the Christian Siriano show, and it was really great: the chairs were very spread out and so cially distanced, which shows that it really is possible to make a safe and well done in-person fashion show."
New York and St Andrews Experts Discuss the Future of Online Fashion Shows
It is in our hands to make the most of it
2021 is already different, as it is right after the winter and with significant differences in the pandemic situation. Even with all the moment's adversi ties, fashion brands once again made it possible to innovate and showcase their latest collections, only this time, mostly in digital formats. At the be ginning of February, I enjoyed cov ering three shows at Copenhagen Fashion Week for my fashion page,
na is a fashion week authority and a must-have appearance for many fashion shows. Starting as an editori al intern for Teen Vogue and In-Style Magazine, Ms Vanzzana has worked her way up in the industry using her social media and love for fashion, eventually making a name for herself, becoming her own boss, and writing a survival guide for those who dream of working in fashion and don't know where to start. Right in the middle of fashion month's craziness, Ms Van zzana took some time to (digitally) meet with me and answer some of my questions. As a fashion enthusiast myself, I was excited to hear her per spective. Currently, Ms Vanzzana is finishing up her NYFW coverage, and with this in mind, I was curious to lis ten to her insights on how this fashion month compares to last September.
though digital fashion shows will never be the same as physical ones, I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing. Rather I think digitalisation, to a certain extent, removes a mould that fashion designers and houses thought they had to fit into. The pandemic has forced designers, media producers and marketers to convey the stories of their brands in an infinite digital space, and the lack of choice but to explore their labels and collections off the run way has actually, in my opinion, liber ated a lot of creatives in the industry."
As I write this article, Milan Fash ion Week is commencing, London has just finished, New York took place last week, and Paris Fashion Week begins in a few days. It is not hard to imagine how demanding fashion month is for those in the industry, especially those who attend more than one of the main shows. The idea of a fashion week taking a hybrid formula or even just fewer shows might not be such a bad idea, as it gives time for attend ees, stylists and models to recompose between shows, or if not, at least to do all of it from one place. Simulta neously, a fashion show is, above all, a sensory experience, and a digital version is likely to lose its relevance.
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Digital Fashion Month: The New Normal?
As innovative and glamorous as it can be, the fashion world has a couple of things that appear to be set in stoneand fashion month is one of them. For those in the industry, come February and September of each year, things start to get extra heated: outfits for all four weeks are carefully chosen, sponsors start to work day and night to guarantee appearances, influenc ers showcase gifts sent by different brands each day, models have to go left and right to get to every sin gle show booked… the list goes on. But that is only the peripheral view of what fashion month is. The actu al premise that makes February and September so crucial for the fashion calendar is that designers show case their seasonal collections. More than that, trends that will likely dic tate how both high and mainstream fashion will follow in the next few months make their first appearances. Although when thinking of "fashion week," most people may automati cally think of New York, Paris, Mi lan and London, there are in total 22 fashion weeks that take place around the world. The year 2020 was not only a rather peculiar year for all, but the impact on the fashion industry was gigantic, and massive events like fash ion weeks had to be reinvented entire ly in all 22 capitals. Last year, fashion shows adopted the format that is the epitome of the "new normal": hy brid—a mix of in-person shows with a select number of guests plus digi tal exhibitions. Although an atypical fashion month, September was slight ly optimistic: right after the summer, European countries had somewhat improved the pandemic scenario. The current fashion month of February of
switching outfits multiple times, hop ing in and out of Ubers, taking a flight to Milan to attend more shows and then Paris, right after. It is not hard to imagine that the fashion month expe rience she usually has is very different from the one she's having right now. After experiencing the "pandemic" fashion month, Ms Vazzana says that, although a part of her doesn't mind this quieter version, as it is much less stressful. The chaotic aspect of fashion month is just part of a bigger scheme that is very fun and a dream come true for aspiring fashion followers, including Ms Vazzana. Despite that, Caroline believes that, when things are back to "normal," fashion shows and brands will probably not go back to what they were before. As she stat ed: "we all know the year we had with the virus, so I really don't think that brands will jump right on it again," which suggests that the fashion in dustry will be leaving these testing times with some baggage to improve. Finally, in an analysis of the trends that have appeared this season, Ms Vanzzana sees a direct connection with the current pandemic situation, as she believes the use of colours and a mix of patterns to be a long ing for happiness and lighter times.
EVENtS
STAR, the St Andrews radio sta tion, will turn your Sunday af ternoon upside down with their baking class. The recipe for up side-down banana caramel cake is vegan optional and already posted on Facebook. Follow along on Teams for some whole some community baking.
If a history closer to home is what you're looking for, seek no further than QueerFest's Alumni Panel. This roundtable discussion on the 12th of March will delve into the experi ence of being a queer student at St Andrews and life after the bubble. Guests include Conservative peer Lord Ian Duncan and the fabulous founder of Drag Walk, Rujazzle. Before giving a more in-depth dis cussion at this panel, however, Ru jazzle gave insight to The Saint into St Andrews Drag Walk's roots. "Back in 2014, when I helped establish Drag
Perhaps a make-it or break-it for those who have yet to submit their entries, we asked for some pearls of wisdom from this St Andrews alum ni, now a professional Glasgow-based drag artist, to inspire you to victory.
may
A match made in heaven, Women in Work and St Andrews Coffee Soc, have teamed up for an es presso martini workshop. While cocktail ingredients are not in cluded, the colouring templates will be accompanied by a con versation with WIW’s network on uni life, internships, feminism and career tips.
The success of this fundraising ef fort is a testament to the St Andrews community. After setting a modest target of £200, the Feminist Society smashed through three additional targets. At the time of printing, the Feminist February JustGiving page has reached £2020 in donations. The month-long challenge has been an unqualified success and will sure ly continue for many years to come.
Erin Boyle Events Editor
I'd hoped that Drag Walk would al low students to open their eyes to raw queer expression, let go of their St An drews inhibitions and allow (them) to take themselves less seriously."
March 5th - 11th
To see more of these competitors, you can follow their drag journey on Instagram at @xavannahgram and @ scorpi_ho_. To hear more from them on their experiences, along with their other cast-mates from 2020, look out for their 2020 reunion panel during QueerFest when the queens will reminisce on Drag Walk past.
As submission deadlines draw near er for this year's competition, closing on the 5th of March, things are sure to be heating up. This year, coordinators Meg Jones and Kylie Lamb have nav igated the tumultuous restrictions by virtualising the competition. Submis sions will be photo and video-based and under three competitive cate
Erin Boyle Events Editor
More information on organisations’DennisPhoto:Mariah
Emma MacLaren accepted various dares, including dyeing her hair and creating a Sk8ter Boi dance video. All of these activities paralleled the Febru hairy challenge to grow your body hair for the whole month. The chal lenges pushed the physical and crea tive limits of the brave ladies, in ad
on what you can look forward to. Some of you may have already en joyed a taste of what's to come with seminars on LGBTQ+ history brought in collaboration with the History Department at the end of February. Featuring speakers from both St An drews and Maastricht University, the first seminars were a great start to the much-anticipated week of events. If you missed out, the semi nars were recorded so history lovers from any time zone, or disordered sleep schedule, can get their fill.
from a toe-dip to full swims in 6°C water. Committee Secretary, Taba Bevan, walked 100km in the month. Other members focused their chal lenges on creative pursuits. Caitlin Ridgway and Trish Tennant wrote poetry and performed songs to raise awareness of sexual assault. While
empowered me to follow my passion in life- now I'm studying textiles… In a sense, drag gave me the strength to pursue my actual passion."
With what started as a smaller scale show on the upper levels of the un ion and is now regularly a sell-out 601 event, the space for drag artists in St Andrews has grown exponen tially. Speaking to some of 2020's contestants, the importance and im pact of having this space are evident.
Co-Presidents Elena Ewence and Le onor Capelier tackled the North Sea in the coldest month of the year. The Co-Presidents were joined by other members in their daily dips, ranging
gories of Make-up, Clothing Design (made or sketched) and, of course, a Lip Sync Battle. Entries will then be posted on the Saints LGBT+ social me dia accounts, and voting will be down to viewers for the week of Queer Fest. The themes, inspired by the ever-present COVID-19 virus, give a space to creatively express the pains of the pandemic and serve sickening looks with a whole new meaning. Other events to watch out for include collaborations with the Inklight crea tive writing society, which will fea ture pound poems with queer topics in focus. The St Andrews Music So ciety will also be highlighting classi cal music from queer composers and Lunchtime concert sessions, allowing more opportunity for other forms of creative expression during this week. Notably, the guestlist for events will be entirely discrete from non-attend ees to create a safe space for every one. Keep an eye on the Saints LGBT+ social media pages for more exciting announcements and voting polls during the week to get involved. In the meantime, good luck to all the Queens or Kings performing this year and in the words of RuPaul, may the best drag queen win! the best queendragwin
Free
March 6th 11:00 GMT
March 7th 16:00 GMT
St Andrews Drag Walk is back, grac ing our screens this year, rather than the 601 stage. The headline event for the Saints LGBT+ week-long culture festival, QueerFest, has become a high light of the event calendar and is set to continue its great tradition. QueerFest coordinator, Lucy Hellawell, has or ganised an impressive line-up of vir tual experiences, ensuring this year's festivities will not be overshadowed by restrictions. While we all anxiously await week 7, when the events will go live, we have some inside information
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Fundraising for Feminist February
Cameron Willis, AKA Scorpi-ho, also revealed how his Drag Walk ex perience shaped him, "For me, it was such a safe space for me to start feel ing my femme without worrying that my gender would be up for question and gave me the chance to start danc ing again and in heels!... I still talk a lot to my fellow cast members from last year, and I look forward so much to when I can see them again. Drag Walk was probably the best thing I've ever taken the time to do and has honestly shaped who I am now and given me so much confidence."
Tickets £3 per talk
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BakerSTAR
4 March 2021· thesaint.scot EVENtS 21
Xavannah Savant XS began her drag journey in St Andrews and has now moved on to study in Glasgow, but detailed the lasting impact of Drag Walk on this evolution. "At the start, I knew nothing about make-up, I had four brushes and a single pal ette of glitter
dition to societal beauty expectations. All of these challenges were complet ed as a charitable mission. All of the sponsorship donations were given to FRASAC, the rape and sexual assault centre that serves the St Andrews com munity and wider Fife. The centre of fers free, confidential support services to anyone who has been raped or sex ually assaulted at some point in their life. FRASAC’s services are provided to anyone, regardless of gender or sexuality. As an independent, volun tary organisation FRASAC depends entirely on donations for its funding.
Walk, the events run by the LGBT+ committee were a bit bland and need ed a bit of sparkle and fabulosity!...
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For those who have escaped the many social media posts about Movember and Februhairy, they are months of fundraising during which individ uals take on challenges for charity. Movember’s popularity has grown massively in recent years as men grow moustaches to raise money for men’s health charities. This year women have claimed Februhairy. The brainchild of the St Andrews Feminist Society, Feminist February, raised funds for the Fife Rape and Sexual Assualt Centre (FRASAC). The society committee and mem bers undertook various challenges, and they were definitely creative.
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Queerfest’s Category is: Werk From Home
The St Andrews Africa Summit theme this year is “Global Prob lems, Local Solutions: Navigating Through the COVID-19 Pandem ic.” The panel will discuss the pandemic’s impact on African industries, cultures and influence not and in the future. The speak ers include WHO health experts and industryFreeprofessionals.
March 4th 18:00 GMT
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'This is the same advice I always give to all new drag artists: be your self and trust your instincts. Drag is about showing what you love about yourself on the inside and translat ing it on the outside. Don't try and fit within the box; look outside… Hard work, creativity, humour and kindness is always the way forward.'
The Lumsden Club’s Leader ship Summit (formerly Winning Women) returns for the sixth year. A plethora of inspirational women comprises a fascinating set of speaker events. This year’s theme ‘Defining our Decade’ guides talks on Law, Internation al Relations, Sustainable Fashion, and Defining our Decade. The summit raises money for Fife Women’s Aid.
Anna Harris Deputy Events Editor
gallery, but were moved online due to lockdowns: Calum Colvin OBE RSA, Sarah Longley, Alexander Moffat OBE RSA and Helen Bellany. “The or ganisers had this idea that each image of an artwork would be accompanied by an audio commentary. Hearing the artist’s voice in itself is compelling. It helps us to dwell a bit longer with each image and gives us new insights into the artist’s inspiration and pro cesses,” Ms Junor told me. The Lon don Art Fair is still online until 31
I volunteered with Ms Junor before she had to move her gallery online this summer, and was saddened to hear that she had lost the space she loved so much. “It was heart-breaking losing my gallery premises on South Street. I miss my gallery visitors, that social interaction with people from all walks of life and from all over the world. Simply by entering my gal lery we instantly had something in common—whether it was curiosity, a love of learning or a love of art and literature. The Saturday afternoon events that went with each exhibition were terrific too. Nothing online can replicate that magic, the dynamism of people coming together in the same room.” Ms Junor noted, however, “thankfully, human beings are very resilient—we have this tremendous capacity to adapt. For me, it’s been exciting learning new skills! The first thing I did was obtain training in film making and editing, to enrich my on line content. There’s lots more scope there, once we get out of this lock down. Having a presence at art fairs, also online, has helped too.”
Ms Junor is hopeful about the fu ture of the Junor Gallery, but under standably sees the artistic experience as difficult to replicate online. “It’s a model that works better for other kinds of small businesses, even within the cultural sector. For instance you can support your local independent bookshops pretty well online where you can browse new titles, read stand ardised descriptions of an old book’s condition, etc. and you know what you’re buying. It doesn’t work so well for art because that whole emotional connection of standing in front of a painting, in the quiet of a gallery, with knowledgeable staff on hand is diffi cult to replicate.” She maintained that there are some ways of enriching the online art world, however, in the form of projects like the London Art Fair.
March.MsJunor leaves us with some words of wisdom, “We will get out of this tragic, hugely challenging situation. But let’s not wish our present time away—how we act and adapt during a crisis is the real test. Planning for anything involving groups of people coming together in the social sphere is still a gamble but we will get through this.”
tion process, whether their work’s go ing to be shown in a physical gallery or online. When everything’s online, it’s even more important that I’ve seen the artworks in the flesh. Lucki ly, everything online so far are works known to me in reality. I can speak about each piece with confidence.”
…let’s not wish our isduringandhowtimepresentaway—weactadaptacrisistherealtest. “ “
artS & CulturE
Editor: Milo Farragher-Hanks
@thesaintonline
Of course, moving online has forced Ms Junor to totally change how she runs her gallery, “The main thing is to remain visible. When you’ve lost your footfall on the street, you’ve got to do everything you can to sig nal that you’re still here. In response, I’ve received lots of messages from my gallery visitors—that’s been very gratifying. I’m constantly grateful for having Dominic Walmsley’s St Andrews jewellery collection.” How she interacts with artists, however, is not completely different to before, “A gallerist has to be pretty unobtru sive in communicating with artists at any time—one needs to leave them to their work. Practical things are or ganised in the same way. However, a huge loss has been the studio visits, such an essential part of the exhibi
Pettway Bennett.”
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meetings. Two of my favourites were about the writer Naomi Mitchison’s art collection and the modern arts of Africa, with St Andrews Universi ty’s own Kate Cowcher and a superb Zoom meeting with two of the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers from Alabama , Mary Margaret Pettway and Loretta
Covid-19 and successive lockdowns have transformed many aspects of life over the past year. I caught up with Gallery Director, Beth Junor, of the now-online Junor Gallery (formerly of South Street, St Andrews), about how the virus has changed the art world, the way she runs her gallery, and her current projects.
Ms Junor’s most recent achievement is being accepted into that fair, which is occurring online this year. She is exhibiting four artists whose work was to be exhibited in her South Street
Deputy Editors: Sairaa Bains, Emilia Bryant, Paola Córdova, Addie Crosby, Mairi Alice Dun and Amelia Perry
You can find Ms Junor on Instagram @junorgalley and on her website https://junorgallery.scot
As for the art scene in general, Ms Junor was optimistic: “there’s an ac cessibility and international scope that’s grown during the pandemic. I’ve enjoyed some top quality online
How the Pandemic has Affected St Andrews’ Galleries
She wisely noted that, “we’ve turned to culture for sustenance—listening to music, watching films, reading, visiting theatres, museums, galleries and cinemas online as well as active ly participating in arts and crafts.”
MAIRI ALICE DUN Deputy Arts & Culture Editor
When asked her opinion on how the pandemic and successive lockdowns have affected the artists, Ms Junor stated that “by their nature and train ing, artists would seem to be a resil ient lot—after all art history is littered with examples of artists who’ve kept going regardless of circumstances.”
thesaint.scot/culture
There’s also the element of pure, un adulterated escapism. Ask any lock down reader why they started read ing again during, and the chances are they’ll say something along the lines of it being a welcome distraction from the mundanity of life during quarantine. And what could be a better distrac tion from everyday life than a dysto pian world? Moreover, in a dystopian world, morality is typically a black and white matter —there are no dilemmas to face and none of the pressures that exist in our world are similar to those faced by the characters in a dystopian novel. 25 years after the first success fully cloned mammal, in a time of designer babies and spinach that can send an email, Huxley’s take on genet ic modification seems more plausible than ever, without being too scarily realistic. Instead, it strikes a perfect balance between being so far out of the realms of possibility that it’s ridiculous and laughable, and being so close to home that it’s mildly horrifying. Finally, it’s worth bearing in mind
earlier filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and Francois Truffaut. Two of last year’s most fêted films, Portrait Of A Lady On Fire and The Lighthouse, as two-handed character studies set by the sea, both seemed to respond to Ingmar Berg man’s epochal Persona. By George Lu
surely our appreciation of the films we know and love can only be height ened by knowledge of the earlier films they are in dialogue with.
The notion that old films are obsolete,
Even acknowledging their continued influence, some might argue that the films of yesteryear are still bound up in the val ues of their time, unable to speak to the concerns of today—not to mention, they’re monolithically white, male, and straight.
haps, laughable.
Firstly, and without trying to sound like your Year 11 English teacher, I’ll start with the most obvious, and bor ing, point but it’s true, Brave New World is indisputably a classic novel. I can al most guarantee that on any given list of ‘classic’ novels, Brave New World will be on there somewhere, and it’s a well-deserved accolade. Written over the course of four months in 1931, it was Huxley’s fifth novel but by far the best known. Often compared to George Orwell’s 1984, Brave New World gives us a glimpse of life in the ‘World State’ in 2540, also known as AF 632 (After Ford, as in Henry Ford, found er of Ford Motor Company). Huxley’s London is one that relies on artificial
On February 15th, New York Times columnist Rick Rojas caused a minor controversy when he took to Twitter to declare that, as a rule, he never watch es films made before 1975. He had re cently broken this rule to watch Citizen Kane, which taught him that ‘these rules exist for a reason’, comparing trying to understand the film in 2021 to ‘looking at hieroglyphics’.
AMELIA PERRY Deputy Arts & Culture Editor
wombs, sleep indoctrination and a pre determined class (referred to as caste) system that dictates one’s intelligence, stature and occupation to ensure that ‘everybody’s happy now’.
Pre-pandemic, the majority of what I read could probably be found on a list telling you what to read on your next holiday, somewhere comfortably in between chick lit and the Waterstone’s ‘Best New Fiction’ shelf. Unsurpris ingly though, I found these books be came steadily less and less appealing when I wasn’t lying somewhere sun ny, or couldn’t tell myself that I could also drop everything on a whim and go backpacking (looking at you, Eat, Pray, Love). So, I turned to Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, comforting myself with the thought that despite corona, I wasn’t in the totalitarian and patriarchal world of Gilead. And it turns out I wasn’t alone.
Dystopian Novels: The Perfect Pandemic Read
sic you’d been telling yourself you’d read. But, like me, many also turned to dystopian novels to help themselves through quarantine. Most recently, I picked up a very old copy of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It was my grandmother’s copy, which in itself isn’t unusual but by sheer coincidence, I realised that she too had read it aged almost 19, during a period of huge up heaval, anxiety and uncertainty—just after the Second World War. And here is why now’s the perfect time for you to read it too:
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot artS aNd CulturE 23
Of course, one of the main reasons we ought to care about cinema’s past is that it isn’t really past at all. More so than other mediums, film exists in a perpetual present, with films from different eras constantly influencing and talking to each other. Even if you only watch films from the last forty years or so, you probably know more film history than you think. Wes Anderson’s mentstorieshyper-symmetricalunmistakablestyleandofsocialmaladjustdrawonhislovefor
cas’ own admission, there would be no Star Wars without The Searchers (also a key influence on Taxi Driver), and The Hidden Fortress. You don’t need to have seen everything a given film is influenced by to understand it, but
There’s some truth to both of those claims, more to the latter (although in the interest of consistency let us acknowledge that to day’s industry isn’t exact ly a model of diversity).
So, if you are in need of a break from Teams, Panopto, or lockdown in gen eral (or indeed, all of the above), you might find some enjoyment in Hux ley’s imagined World State. Brave New World combines the distractions and stimulating elements of most dysto pian novels minus the in-your-face, abrasively depressing plots of many examples of the genre.
The view of cinema advanced by Rojas is depressingly narrow—to cut yourself off from all cinema from be fore 1975 erases everything from The Passion Of Joan Of Arc to Brief Encoun ter, The Shop Around The Corner to To kyo Story, Cléo From 5 To 7 to 8½. Yet I would argue that his views are clos er to the norm than we might like to admit. Look at film culture today and you’ll see evidence of this kind of in curiosity everywhere. It’s there in corporations consigning their back cat alogues to vaults, in endless columns declaring that various older films don’t ‘hold up’ according to often shallow and arbitrary criteria, in streaming al gorithms which direct our attention to the next shiny new thing. It’s easy to mock Rojas, but he’s simply reflecting a broader trend.
But to wholly dismiss the cinema of past decades on these grounds is to sug gest that those who came before us were uniformly unenlightened, whereas we, today, have finally arrived at the pinnacle of moral and social development. The fact is, just as the present holds more di verse voices than dominant narratives would suggest, so too does the past.
By the time you’d baked your fiftieth banana bread, killed your sourdough starter, or lost yet another Zoom quiz, there’s a chance you were another one of the 45% of (young) adults who, according to the Reading Agency, started reading more. Predictably, we gravitated towards books about isola tion, re-reading an old favourite, or got round to finally reading that one clas
that Huxley’s works were all satires, and Brave New World is no different. While it should be noted that some of the dialogue and jokes made are antiquated and perhaps more suited to its original 1930s audience, there are moments that are still appropriate for a more modern reception. It’s paro dies could not be described as subtle—the World State’s religion, for example, sees people referring to ‘our Ford’ and making the sign of the T. Gone too are the morals of 1930s London, in which pre-marital sex with anyone, let alone multiple people, was frowned upon. Not only is Huxley’s female lead, Lenina, ostracized for practicing monogamy, but the state provides a steady supply of contra ception to all women to prevent any natural conception, preferring to breed its citizens from bottles and reserve sex for pleasure. While these ideas are by no means shocking or new to us in the present, by 1930s standards they would have been shocking and, per
Oscar Micheaux became the first Afri
Why We Should Watch Old Films
can-American feature filmmaker in the late 1910s, responding to Birth Of A Na tion’s glorification of the Klan with his 1920 Within Our Gates. In the 1940s and 50s, Anglo-American actress, director, and producer Ida Lupino fought the studio system to make gritty, socially engaged films. And as for the notion that older films have nothing to say to our times, well, can you imagine any contemporary mainstream film pars ing workplace misogyny, corporate culture and midlife loneliness with the intelligence and nuance of 1960’s The Apartment? Has the conflict between career success and personal stability grown any less relevant since Powell and Pressburger made The Red Shoes? Can you find many recent works of queer cinema as truly peculiar and defiant as Toshio Matsumoto’s 1965 Funeral Parade Of Roses?
But perhaps rather than exploring why we should watch old films, the real question is why shouldn’t we? Why don’t we? After all, cinema is a part of all our lives, so shouldn’t we want to broaden our palettes? There is so very much out there—shouldn’t we want to experience as much of it as possible? Even if we accept the premise that old films are akin to hieroglyph ics, don’t people learn to understand ancient texts and dead languages by studying them?
MILO FARRAGHER-HANKS Arts & Culture Editor
that they cannot entertain or challenge or enlighten con temporary viewers, is a false hood that has been allowed to predominate for far too long. Those of us who care about cinema ought to have an interest in its past—and not for academic reasons, or cultural cache, but because it has so much to offer us.
Pablo Neruda once asked the question, “In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?”
found at the dentist’s office growing up, and a massive stiletto shaped dis play for a miniature stiletto collection. Some of the explanations he gives for the shapes, why he likes them, and what they mean are pretty simple. A square, for example, is a square (relatively clas sic). When he picks up four paper cutouts from the conveyor belt, however, is an in-depth exploration of the mys teriously absent relationship between Betty Rubble and Fred Flintstone (and let me tell y’all, there’s some real beef there). His explanation of these shapes’ backstories is so random, his humor so ethereal, his timing so oddly perfect,
2020. He gives his hair colors different personalities, makes visual impres sions of a series of letters (yes, from the alphabet), and acts out different natu ral elements (thunder, rain, lightning, etc.). Space Prince Julio illustrates the world around him by giving it a per sonality, a world we haven’t perhaps viewed with wonder or interest in years.
terrorism prevalent in France, La Haine truly captures what it means to be a mi nority in a state that has no regard for them. In one scene, the camera zooms out from the Parisian cityscape onto Hubert, Vinz and Saïd, smoothly transi tioning from an impersonal shot to one that captures the personal and candid conversations of these characters. At times, the camera moves from close-up to a long-shot, making it hard for the au dience to hear the exchange of dialogue. This reversal between zooming in and out of scenes is an aesthetic effect where the protagonists are deliberately made to inhabit an environment where much goes on without their presence or even absence being felt. They can be equated to pawns in a game of chess, trying to protect the helpless king through their movements. In other words, the rest of the city is presented as the larger world they inhabit, of which they are but a smaller much insignificant part.
La Haine lays out a society where crossing one boundary is equivalent to a death sentence, the state’s word is as misjudged as the people’s word and
The Strange Genius Of Gen Z Humour
His Instagram feed follows through with the life stories of the shapes, with the chaotic Krisha (an orange oval with a coquettish smiley face) being described as a Scorpio with erratic ten dencies, reminding his followers to vote in the US elections in November
The nihilistic outlook of my generation finds no significance or purpose in the world of invented meanings handed down to us by our Gen X/Boomer par ents—so we find it in the randomness and joy of interpretation. Our memes get weirder, more deconstructed, and increasingly more based on humoris tic references from older memes. We seek inwardly to define our outside world in a self aware fashion, and cre ate a genre of culture based upon this introspection- and Torres’ comedy is perhaps a hallmark sign of this change, one of an innovative outlook hoping to expand the boundaries of chronologi cal narrative. His creative synesthesia makes way for a whole new realm of possibilities, granting a sense of embod iment to a world seeking to define itself anew in the face of a new generation.
any form of freedom exists only in the ory. This film is topical in its disruption of normalcy due to untimely intrusions and repressive policies. The plot fol lows Vinz (Vincent Cassel) who is from a Jewish background, the Arabic Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundè), who is black. This friendship brings to light the bitter intolerance and institutional racism against certain com munities. The idea of multiculturalism and assimilation of people from differ ent backgrounds into French commu nity was clearly seen as a threat at that time. Besides the prejudices attached to
Pawns In A Game Of Chess: ‘La Haine’
The conveyor belt brings around the shapes one by one, among them: a rectangle (having a really bad day), a diorama of the curtain separating first class from coach (who hurt you? why?), a cactus played by Lin Manuel Miran da (who is having a midlife crisis, mind you), one of those penguin toys you
La Haine intentionally creates a dis tinct boundary between those spaces that are accessible to the three protag onists and others that are relatively cut off from their worldview. By not allowing the camera to shift onto these spaces, La Haine subtly highlights the restrictions imposed by the state as well as the mechanized obedience desired
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot24 artS aNd CulturE
PAOLA CÓRDOVA Deputy Arts & Culture Editor
The nonchalance with which La Haine presents the inevitable makes it impos sible to turn a blind eye to such events— right through to its chillingly open end ing. La Haine doesn’t clear the chaos in the air but creates more conflict to inten sify the atmosphere and in turn, re-em phasises the truth that gets masked un der repeated manipulations and lies.
that it all culminates as an absurdist masterpiece. It makes no sense but is at once so very funny (I can’t really ex plain why, you’d have to watch it on HBO for it to make sense to you really).
Hubert, Vinz and Saïd can’t change their identities and they shouldn’t have to, in a space that constantly condemns them for being different. As Vinz states, he feels like an “ant lost in intergalac tic space” and even keeps a gun to de fend himself and his friends if need be. But then again, what does a person do when all their death requires is a mutual agreement over a dinnertime conversa tion or even the signing of a document?
My favorite comedy stand up routine of all time is rather different to what you would consider “normal.” The classic image evoked when you hear “stand up comedian” involves a person standing on a black stage with a microphone set on a stand before them, a glass of water on a stool a bit off to the side- but Julio Torres doesn’t adhere to those expecta tions. My Favorite Shapes sees him come up to the stage in a silver metallic outfit, resplendent as he takes a seat in front of a conveyor belt (the kind you would find at a sushi restaurant), his background in other-worldly purple and pink pastels. He kicks off his show in an unassum ing tone; “My name is Julio, I am from El Salvador, I am an Aquarius, and I am here to show you my favorite shapes.”
The fact that we find the existential ruminations of the inanimate objects examined by Julio Torres’ glittery hands under a camera close up so hysterical says a lot about Millennial/Zillennial/ Gen Z humor doesn’t it? He draws crea tively from a world full of visuals instead of merely isolating his words—as most comedians might—in what the New Yorker’s Michael Schulman calls a com ic synesthesia that anthropomorphizes
the colors and shapes of the world in a fresh and innovative form. Torres’ (or as he prefers to be called on Instagram— Space Prince Julio) epitomizes the desire that crosses the minds of younger gen erations to ditch old forms of construct ing humor and storytelling. It’s not that I can’t appreciate the one off Ali Wong special on Netflix, but Torres’ capacity to observe the world through the uncon cerned bounds of childish imagination by exploring and breaking the sensory bounds of the canonical comedic style feels… special. He tunes into the ineffa ble feelings that have a place outside of the concrete material world about which stand-up comedy tends to tell stories, and that makes all the difference in my appreciation of it. Perhaps he’s too niche and my observations are set too broad ly to cover an entire generation, but the fact that he writes for the behemoth of SNL maybe says something about our changing expectations of humor.
by the oppressive regime. In another scene where the three protagonists are drinking together before the light of the Eiffel Tower, Hubert casually talks about controlling the lights of the city. Eventually, the lights disappear, repre senting one small moment of authority and control that is theirs. This contrasts with the general powerlessness the trio feels in face of the ruling regime. La Haine translates into visuals the sense of some things being entangled beyond re pair while others are still in our favour.
Throughout the film, the three protag onists are fueled with anger and rage given the police violence and brutality that has put their friend, Abdel on life support. This is the common thread that runs along the entire story punctuating the movements and thoughts of the characters. Amidst the state-sponsored
Even though this statement seems to make suffering universal to all, it also pinpoints the root cause of such de spair. It’s easy to say that every city has its fair share of problems but this does not excuse the role of the torment that practically makes a nation uninhabita ble. Rain knows no language or barrier and pours on everyone with the same intensity. If rain does not discriminate based on race, sexual orientation, caste or even religion, why should the leaders of aNamednation?from the French for “hate”, Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine does more than talk about the ingrained hatred that the protagonists feel for their surround ings. In fact, it asks if it isn’t rather their surroundings that hate them. It’s not easy to dissolve a nation, but if the rul ers don’t respect their people—it’s not far from dissolution.
certain communities, La Haine also ex plicates the role of a state in propagating laws that marginalize large populations. At the same time, the unclear narrative structure of the film and aesthetic cam era techniques demand to be felt on a meaningful level.
SAIRAA BAINS Deputy Arts & Culture Editor
Though not a slow song, this poten tially the most melancholic of all the songs I have included on this play list (it is Angel Olsen after all,) but I could hardly bear to omit it. `Spring´ is a melodic manifesto of reminis cence and the potentials of lost time: `I´ve been too busy, I should´ve no ticed,´ Olsen wistfully sings. At its core, the song is one of rebirth.
The last week has seen the much belov ed villains Cruella De Vil and the Joker grace our headlines once again, this time side by side (and strangely colour-co ordinated). The duo are both heavily stylised and take to new extremes the emerging trend of attractive and sym pathetic villainy, showing that simplis tic heroes don’t seem to cut it anymore.
5. `I´d Rather Dance With You´ by Kings of Convenience I have long been a fan of the delight ful work of Norwegian band Kings of Convenience, and `I´d Rather Dance With You´ is a particular favourite for any time I wish the (literal or meta phorical) ice would melt. Also high ly recommended is the song´s music video, at once absurd and joy-provid ing.
1. `Come Monday Night´ by Emily Browning With God Help The Girl Hailing from the soundtrack of Stuart Murdoch´s (of Belle and Se bastian) 2014 film God Help the Girl, `Come Monday Night´ pairs har monies and orchestrally minded ac companiment with a strong bassline, creating a dreamlike world of move ment in under three minutes.
Songs for Spring
2. `Spring´ by Angel Olsen
ADDIE CROSBY Deputy Arts & Culture Editor
Much to the chagrin of my child-self, I am sure, my understanding of Jap anese is nonexistent. As such, most of my listening of ‘ ’ by Shintaro Sakamoto took place before I had any conception of the song´s mean ing. Nevertheless, cult star Sakamoto does not disappoint. His songs are beautifully layered, and while ‘ ’ appears light and frothy, it is infused with both profundity and a delicate simplicity.
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example of this is in the character of the Joker which has morphed through the decades to embody the evil of the times—in 1989’s Batman, Jack Nichol son’s gangster represented economic and political chaos, and while in 2008’s, Heath Ledger’s terrorist-styled incarna tion embodied the evil of anarchy and nihilism. However, like many villains which once embodied our worst anx ieties, the Joker has recently moved from the realm of antagonist to pro tagonist, bringing with him skepticism over the nature and justification of evil through sympathy for his cause. The villains we have grown up with are being humanised through backstories of tragedy and their actions stylised; even the archetypal figure of evil in Hitler has been deconstructed for co medic value in the recent hit Jojo Rabbit
From Sarah Beth´s (Tomberlin) 2020 EP Projections, `Wasted´ seems almost in contradiction with itself. Inherently anxious, and in the language of a dig ital generation, `Wasted´ maintains a pop-like tempo, indicative of an in ternal disparity, a desire to have an identity constructed by external forc es. She asks us, deliriously in need of feedback, ‘do you think this song´s sad?´ Whether it´s a sad song or not, I shall leave to you, but it is certain ly one of contemplation and relatable uncertainty, intermingled with pep, which I will be bringing with me into the coming months.
8. ‘ ’ by Shintaro Sakamoto
3. `Blue Coupe´ by Twin Peaks
Alice Phoebe Lou´s two most recent singles blend her characteristic lyr ical fearlessness with some of the most compelling current jazz, blues, and folk arrangements I´ve been ex posed to. In many ways Lou remains an enigma, unbounded by genre or label expectations. Having released her music independently since the start of her career, she often favours
In St. Andrews, icy soil has begun to succumb to burgeoning snow drops, and all is once again abuzz with a marginally less melancholy sense of awake. It is less that this spring feels different than other springs, and more that if we find ourselves more delighted, in awe, and attributing some otherworldly magnificence to the measured exquisiteness of sea sonal fluctuation, perhaps we are simply allowing ourselves to pay more attention.
6. `La Prima Estate´ by Erlend Øye Front man of Kings of Convenience, Erlend Øye´s career has been, in a word, prolific, with a propensity for the experimental and colourful. `La prima estate,´ is just one of his pro jects in the Italian language and with Italian collaborators, and while it is very much in the spirit of his own, idiosyncratic style, much influence is taken from Italian pop, rendering the song both fresh and familiar.
7. `Wasted´ by Tomberlin
Until now, it has been well-docu mented that the villains we find scary inevitably hold a mirror to the real-life threats we face, especially in Holly wood. On a societal level, this is trace able in the emergence of clear parallels between fictional villains and threats to cohesive national identities throughout history. Sometimes this is thinly veiled, such as the Cold-War era McCarthy ism of invading aliens indistinguisha ble from friends in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or the swathe of lone-wolf terrorist hits playing on post-9/11 anx iety. It is just as often undisguised; take the countless German, Japanese, or Russian caricatures of villainy on our screens following WWII and the Cold War period, as well as the all-Amer ican heroes they oppose. It must be at least in part due to prominence of these historical villains in film culture that the figure of Hitler, as opposed to any other pre-cinema megalomaniac, has become synonymous and interchange able with the concept of evil today. More broadly, our villains reflect who and what we view as evil so that its au dience can be united in rooting for the good which inevitably overcomes it. The villain therefore fits a worldview in which good and evil are objective and opposed, and in which we recognise and root for good. The classic modern
One interpretation is a potentially prob lematic shift in thinking away from evil as an autonomous decision but rather as the product of external pressures. We see Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur in Jok er imprinted by the vilest inclination of every possible individual and structure surrounding him, and judging by this week’s trailer we will likely see Emma Stone’s Cruella De Vil face a similarly justified and glamorised descent in Cruella. As the external forces of cor ruption drive the villainy of each, we are invited to feel sympathy for them
4. `Dusk and Dirty Mouth’ by Al ice Phoebe Lou
as the moral line dividing hero from villain fades into a moral grey area in which doers of evil are simply the vic tims or products of an unjust society. We can see the flip side of this as fic tional heroes are lowered from their pedestals. In recent films, DC’s Justice League and Marvel’s Avengers have been forced to deal with infighting and the complex ethical consequences of their material destruction, leaving us torn between their motives and those of the villains they face. It is perhaps a reflection of an increasing disillusion ment for the real-life establishment in which public idols have shown them selves to be far from the ideal our national heroes represent, whereas change has been prompted by public disorder and protest; empathy for fic tional villains’ intent to tear down such institutions then seems unsurprising.
EMILIA BRYANT Deputy Arts & Culture Editor
How We Learned To Love the Villains
the streets of Berlin to prestigious venues. Nevertheless, Dusk and Dirty Mouth feel as personal and vulner able as they do joyful and forward looking. We can expect a full album on March 19th, and a music video for each has been released in the mean time.
4 March 2021 · thesaint.scot artS aNd CulturE 25
This selection of songs, old and new, is hopeful, at times playful, and, shockingly for those who know me, predominantly up-tempo.
This week’s teaser for the new Justice League speaks powerfully to this as Jared Leto’s Joker assumes Christ-like pose, complete with crown of thorns, basking in white light. Whether this implies an ironic inversion of Bibli cal virtue or a genuinely Christ-like victimhood is debatable, however it reveals the extent to which this epi demic of villain-centric films is will ing to undermine clear-cut morality.
The villain in these films is not the Joker or Cruella, but the world in which they live. Here, evil is not a conscious choice of the will but rather incidental or the inevitable product of a hostile environment, if it exists at all. It is an idea which raises troubling questions of accountability, and one which points to a shift in our moral focus away from the internal evil of individuals and towards the external evils of society, for better or worse.
The instrumentals at the start of `Blue Coupe´ seem to imitate drop lets of cascading water, establish ing an ethereal tone and an upbeat blend of rock and pop. Its nostalgic, dance-provoking, and truly the best of their 2018 album Sweet ´17 Singles
Leto’s pose…Christ-likeassumesJoker
Sympathy For The Devil:
The post-pandemic economy is going to be different in ways we can never imagine. As the human race slowly re-emerges from the depths of lock down, there will be some significant changes to the way we live our day to day lives. I've recently started re turning to the small cafes and restau rants near my house as restrictions allow and there are some small but potentially significant changes I've al ready noticed. QR codes are nothing new and in many economies such as China are the cornerstone for mobile payments, yet they never seem to have been as influential in the UK. That's changed, with almost every es tablishment I now go to adorned with these black and white graphics. From merely a link to a menu to a complete payment and ordering infrastructure, I think this could lead to one of the largest labour restructurings we will see.
You walk in and get shown to a ta ble. Sit down, scan the code, see the menu, order, and then pay. No con tact needed. Sometime later your food comes, then when you’re done, you leave. Now, none of this is a new technology or a crazy new way of using it, purely a constraint-induced way of changing how we function and what is normal. A quick search found providers who from as little as $100 a month could offer full systems with menus, ordering, delivery and
analytics on all customers and what they use. To put into context, accord ing to PayScale (an American compen sation software and data company), the average waitress in the UK earns £6.87 an hour, and my local cafe of choice is open ten hours a day dur ing the week. So for around the same price, you can have a fully-fledged payments system for a month or a teenager for a day. Yes, you may do both, but from my personal experi ence, there doesn't seem to be that much work for these staff who have gone from continually attending to ta bles and many other tasks to now just showing people to seats and bringing food out. I admit this isn't sounding great for these staff, why would you pay someone expensive when you frankly don't need them.
Dr Margaret Alice Leighton is a lec turer at the School of Economics and Finance. Dr Leighton is originally from Canada and completed her un dergraduate studies at Mount Allison University in Economics. She joined the University of St Andrews in 2015, after receiving her PhD from the Toulouse School of Economics. The Saint sat down with Dr Leighton for an interview.
ML: I would encourage you to engage in research as early as you can. Seek out opportunities to do your own re search: definitely plan to do a disser tation in your fourth year, apply for the Laidlaw Scholarship when you are eligible, and remember that essays are research too – choose topics you are passionate about, and that allow you to dig deeper into your own interests.
money@thesaint.scotthesaint.scot/money @thesaintsta
TS: What do you enjoy most about teach ing microeconomics?
Economists speak of deflationary tech and how the technological rev olution has lead to the allocation of resources being more efficient and in sectors we thought couldn’t be im proved. Mhese massive supply-side shocks lead to lower prices and who doesn’t want a cheaper coffee? Although we won’t see new restau rants popping up everywhere, there are some significant impacts this could have. Restaurants and hotels make up 7.7% of CPI weighting in the UK, a figure which has enormous im plications from valuation modelling and government policy to how much your rent can go up. Humans are ad aptable and will need to shift to this new post-pandemic economy.
TS: What research are you currently working on/what would you like to re search in the future?
ML: These are both very applied topics in economics, meaning that research in these areas often informs policy decisions. Part of my motiva tion to work in these areas is to con tribute towards building better poli cies that allow people from all walks of life to flourish.
ML: My primary timeout is playing traditional Irish and Scottish music on the accordion. Before the pandemic, I used to play with other musicians every Tuesday night in the Whey Pat: I hope we can have a session there again soon!
Procrastination- From Odysseus to Freedom
MoNEy
Post Pandemic Predictions An Investment Analysis
Luckily,familiar?the solution is simple: make it impossible to get distracted. Completely and utterly, physically impossible. Willpower is not enough. We are too weak. Just like Odysseus’ men, we need to plug our ears with beeswax and lash ourselves to the mast of our ship.
TS: Do you ever incorporate information from your research into your lectures?
ML: Definitely! Depending on the module, I regularly use my own research as examples, or sometimes give a special one-off session to share what I am working on.
He ditched the Ph.D. and thus began his new career as CEO of Freedom.
Procrastination is nothing new. We humans have been procrastinating since Adam. Closer to home, I’ve been wrestling with it for a long time. But, this semester I think I’ve found a solution at last. Believe it or not, the secret lies with sorcery and a Ph.D. student called Fred…
One after another you knock out half the TikTok production of North Macedonia in half an hour. Your girl friend sends you her latest Instagram post. You better like that. Three hours later you find yourself on Reddit. You’re in a strange corner of the site dedicated to photos of TVs that are placed way too high. Yes, that does exist. Yes, I did end up there once… Sound
St Andrews Economists: Dr Margaret Alice Leighton
OLLIE GRIMES Deputy Money Editor
ML: Students often tell me that they see the world differently after study ing certain topics in economics – espe cially in first year. This new perspec tive is what drew me to economics when I was a student, so it is a real pleasure to share that with others.
TS: What has been your favorite teaching moment?
“That sounds fun. Isn’t there some thing a little less…extreme?” I hear youThat’ssay.where Fred comes in… In 2008, Fred Stutzman sat in the library at the University of North Carolina scrolling through social me dia. He was supposed to be writing his dissertation exploring the influence of social media on major life decisions. Instead, he kept getting distracted by the very sites he was meant to be writ ing about. Frustrated, he moved to the nearest place without Wi-Fi – his local coffee shop. At last, he started making progress. That was until the building next door got internet. And so began the cycle all over again… Passionate about the power of the internet but paralysed by his inability to work, he needed a middle ground. He didn’t want to live like the Amish and shun technology. Neither did he want to carry on down this path. Fortunately, Fred could code and wrote some software.
TS: What advice do you have for stu dents who are passionate about economic research?
While he worked, it blocked dis tracting pages. While he relaxed in the evening, he was free to roam as he pleased. When he posted it online, he didn’t expect much. But, people start ed downloading it in droves and he
ML: Like most researchers, I began publishing research by having my papers rejected from many journals! For the most part, this was after com pleting my PhD. I was lucky enough to do some research during my time in university, although it was not in economics. I spent the summer of my second year working on a dendroar chaeology project. In that project I collected tree ring samples from old buildings (the “dendro” part), which I then combined with local tree growth records to better understand the his tory of the buildings themselves (the archaeology side).
TS: I noticed that much of your research revolves around development economics and labour economics. What about these topics interests you?
ML: One of the current projects that I am most excited about combines both development and labour econom ics. The project seeks to evaluate an intervention that Save the Children are running in rural Tanzania to help families provide a stimulating home environment for their young children, eventually helping these children be ready for primary school. By evalu-
OWEN PUGH Staff Writer
On his journey home from the Trojan War, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus, lands on the island of Aeaea - home of the witch-goddess Circe. Half his crew set out to explore the land. They stumble upon Circe’s palace and hear her singing. The men decide to enter. Greeting them warm ly, she prepares a fine banquet for the sailors. Exhausted, they sit down to eat. In a dramatic twist, she secretly drugs their cheese and wine, turns them into swine and shuts them in a pigsty.Thegods look down from Olympus and take pity on the poor men. Back at the ship, Hermes’ gives Odysseus a special herb which makes him immune to her magic. Odysseus forces her to change his men back into human-form. Somehow, he ends up
ate, I mean understand if the project is working, and also how it is work ing. I have the opportunity of working closely with the project team for this research, which is really interesting and challenges me to make my re search accessible to people with dif ferent backgrounds.
TS: What are your hobbies outside of teaching?
SANJANA RAMASWAMY Money Editor
sleeping with the goddess and the next year is spent wining and dining with her. Eventually the time comes for them to continue their voyage. But, before sailing, Circe warns Odysseus: “Square in your ship’s path are Sirens, crying beauty to bewitch men coast ing by; woe to the innocent who hears that sound ... Steer wide; keep well to seaward; plug your oarsmen’s ears with beeswax kneaded soft.”
She then tells him that only he is al lowed to hear the Sirens. If Odysseus is tempted, they will be lured to ship wreck on the rocky coast of the crea tures’ island. To stop this, Odysseus must be lashed to the mast of his ship. They soon reach the Sirens. Odysseus screams and struggles. He cries “untie me!” Desperately, his crew wrap more rope around him. He nearly breaks free but they manage to restrain him. Disaster is averted.
Money Editor: Sanjana Ramaswamy Deputy Editor: Ignacio Ugalde
Now, I believe there is wisdom in these ancient tales. Humans are seri al procrastinators. We’re always up to no good, trying to do things we know we shouldn’t. In Odysseus’ day, it was singing Sirens luring us off course. Today, it’s the relentless cry of TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Let me paint you a picture.
ML: I love introducing students to microeconomic models: that’s why I enjoy teaching first year microeco nomics so much! These models take real world situations, many of which we know from our own lives, and re ally simplify them. It is like taking an x-ray of society. Once you learn these models, you start to see them in the world around you.
It’s a Thursday evening and you’re working hard - that pesky essay is fi nally coming together. Life is on the up. And then you hear the ping of a text. Your friend has sent you a cat video that’s been making her giggle. You can’t help but look. “The essay is coming along so well – you deserve a break”, you tell yourself. “Alright, let’s look at one below, it’s only 30 seconds.” Then it begins. “Let the scrolling commence!”, cry the social media gods.
I use Freedom every day. From eight in the morning until four in the after noon, it blocks distracting websites on my laptop. From then on, I’m free to do as I like. I’m not claiming to be a productivity guru or a model student. In fact, this article was “Ten Productive Ways to Spend Lockdown” until pro crastination got the better of me and I ended up writing this.
But there’s no such thing as bad pro gress. Since downloading Freedom, I’ve been doing a much better job of avoiding procrastination. I’ve been staying well clear of those Sirens try ing to lure me off course. For $1.69 per month, I think Freedom is worth a go.
HendronOliviaIllustration:
TS: How did you begin publishing re search papers? Did you conduct research during your time in university?
TS: Tell us about Liquid Book Club.
TS: What advice do you have for students who are interested in research?
Dr Erven Lauw is a lecturer at the School of Economics and Finance. She is originally from Indonesia, and spent seven years in Singapore before joining St Andrews to pur sue an MSc and a PhD, both in the School of Economics and Finance. Dr Lauw started teaching in St Andrews in the second year of her PhD pro gramme (2011) as a postgraduate tutor. In 2012, she also started teach ing economics for the foundation programme at the English Language Teaching Centre (now known as the International Education Institute). In 2016, having earned her PhD from St Andrews, she took on a job as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Abertay University in Dundee. After her fellowship contract ended, she went back to teaching in St Andrews. The Saint sat down with Dr. Lauw for an interview.
The urgent need for intervention in the sector is thus undeniable if the research capabilities of the United Kingdom are to be preserved. However, as complex as the current situation is, it still leaves room for the government to pursue an innovative approach; one that places students, instead of universities, at the centre of the picture. Rather than bail out universities, why not provide support to students to prevent the collapse in the student population and alleviate the financial strain afflicting higher education?
TS: What has been your favorite moment in a lecture?
TS: What do you enjoy most about teach ing corporate finance?
charges and an actuarial loss in respect of pension schemes of £13 mil lion, its broader financial performance remained far from satisfactory. The truth is, even if pension-related ex penses were adjusted for, the under performance of the operating surplus (crucial for attaining the University"s strategic objectives) only intensifies the already-existing reservations about its finances. Additionally, St Andrews failed to achieve its target ed efficiency savings (productivity of assets), which casts serious doubts on its ability to realise its future tar gets. Nonetheless, even if these were accomplished, its financial future ap pears daunting, to say the least. As a matter of fact, the University fore casted in its pre-COVID-19 Strategic Report a £5.3 million operating deficit for 2019-20, while economists at The Saint estimate indicate a £10.5 million operating deficit for the coming year in a best-case scenario.
To demonstrate the severity of our present crisis, total income and total expenditure for 2020-2021 were esti
mated together with operational sur plus/deficit in an optimistic scenario.
EL: Not as an undergraduate stu dent. I conducted small-scale re search for my MSc dissertation and of course, a bigger scale one for my PhD programme.
The Impact of Covid-19 on Universities
TS: Do you ever incorporate information from your research into your finance
TS: Did you conduct research when you were a student in university?
EL: My favourite moment in a lecture is when I could make my students
Subsequently, this optimistic scenar io projects a £10.5 million operation al deficit for 2020-21. The severity of the University’s financial position is undeniable when considering this best-case-scenario estimate, since it results in a significant operational deficit even when assuming a per fectly balanced USS pension scheme. This situation is incredibly unlikely, since fears of a thorough recession suggest underperformance of equity and real estate investments, on which the scheme heavily relies. If this is the case, the scheme will run an even more significant deficit, resulting in greater financial struggle.
EL: I am currently working on the im pact of women in politics on govern ance; it is a collaboration with Dr Ian Smith. It is more or less done but the pandemic has made it more challeng ing for me to finish up the writing. I am also working on a survey paper on gender and corruption. I am quite passionate about the issue of gender equality in relation to governance and economic development. In the future, I would like to continue working in this area. When you start working on a research project, you continuously generate more research ideas based on your current project. You never stop learning, never stop investigat ing. I think that is why I like doing research, it makes me feel young be cause I always learn something new!
To calculate total income, the state ment of 2018-2019 was used as a ba sis, considering that the Financial Statement for 2019-2020 is yet to be published by the University. Similarly, to estimate total expenses for 2020-2021 we used the 2018-19 financial statement as a basis. We as sumed an optimistic scenario where the revised efficiency saving targets of 2019-20 (£2 million in “Staff costs” and £1 million in “Other Operating Expenses”) and 2020-2021 (a further £2 million in “Staff Costs”), as out lined in the Strategic Report of 201819, were achieved successfully. In ad dition, the pledged £3 million a year for estate maintenance during 201920, 2020-21 and 2021-22, also outlined in said Strategic Report, were includ ed. For the ease of analysis, and due to their lower share in total expenditure, “Depreciation” and “Interest and other finance costs” were assumed to remain fixed at their 2018-19 levels. Additionally, the USS pension scheme was assumed to remain perfectly bal anced during 2019-20 and 2020-21.
SANJANA RAMASWAMY Money Editor
LauwErvenDrPhoto:
30 MoNEy 4 February 2021 · thesaint.scot
EL: Liquid Book Club is a resurrec tion of a book club initiated by Dr Ian Smith (also my PhD supervisor) a few years ago. After he was appointed as an Associate Dean (Education), the book club remained dormant until this year. The book club is a crosso ver between my love of books and interacting with our students. Given the pandemic situation, I also think it is important to have a space where we can interact with each other, dis cussing our common interests in Economics in a relaxed atmosphere. I discussed it with Sanjana (the current School President) via Teams the idea of having a book club where we also drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) to gether (hence, the name: Liquid Book Club). I think the idea also appeals to me because I do enjoy drinking wine while socialising with people. Sanjana really likes the idea and puts a lot of ef fort in making it realised. In my view, this book club is student centred; I only act as a facilitator. The book club has a good attendance so far. The reg ular attendees also include staff mem bers from School of Economics: Dr Ian Smith and Professor Gavin Reid. We even have student guests from US universities attending the book club meetings. Every week, we meet on Teams to discuss one chapter from a book (currently: Good Economics for Hard Times). After every meeting, I am always left feeling very proud of our students. They really show deep and critical perception and under standing not only on Economics sub jects but also on wider socio economic issues. Everyone is also very respect ful of everyone else’s opinions. It has been fun and rewarding for me!
Around the world, universities are under significant financial stress as they manage the consequences of re mote learning and deferral of enrol ment. After ten weeks of lockdown, the Scottish government has released guidance for universities as they open thisAccordingfall. to a study conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), universities with a large proportion of international students will face a large decline in income. In addition, universities will see a reduction in research funding. The study suggests 13 unnamed UK universities may face bankruptcy and estimates a sec tor loss of £11 billion. The sector will face losses in income mainly due to reductions in international student enrolment and a subsequent loss in accommodation and catering fees. For context, in its 2018-19 finan cial statement, the University of St Andrews recorded a loss in net assets of £35.3 million. Although this was predominantly attributed to a £39 million expense in USS pension
Estimated total expenditure for 202021 was £243.4 million.
IGNACIO UGALDE Deputy Money Editor
EL: Yes, in every opportunity I could! It may be directly or indirectly rele vant depending on the modules or topics. When you do research, you are engaged in the most recent discourse. I think it is important to show to our students that university is a dynamic place where knowledge is continu ously being produced. In my experi ence, students really like it when the lecturers connect their own research to their lectures.
lectures?
laugh and understand the concepts at the same time. When I taught foundation students many years ago about applying the cost and benefit principle, I used dating as an exam ple. For instance, I was explaining the concept of opportunity cost and how it was often ignored but should have been considered in the cost of bene fit analysis. In the dating context, the opportunity cost of dating someone is the foregone opportunity of dating someone else (so we must make sure we are very certain before investing in a person!). There was a lot of laughter in the room but I also knew that my students really understood the con cept because they can relate it to their life. They even discussed it happily with me outside the lecture. That kind of moment is very memorable!
St Andrews Economists: Dr Erven Lauw
contracts” (41%), "Other income" – in cluding residence fees, catering servic es, and conferences – (24%), "Funding body grants" (15%), "Research grants and contracts" (15%), "Donations and endowments" (4%), and "Investment income" (1%). International travel re strictions, together with the ever-pres ent threat of COVID-19, are expected to have a formidable impact on the enrolment rate of overseas studentswho make up 26% of total income –threatening not only the main income source of the university, but also its secondary source due to the direct effects that a collapse in the student population could have in accommo dation services. Additionally, the impending economic downturn pre sents further worries in relation to the maintenance of research funding, do nations, and investment performance, implying a potential unprecedented fall in the University"s income. This situation presents a significant threat to the short-run financial stability of the University, which might have to resort to government aid for liquidity, or further reduce its reserves.
To understand the severity of which the financial challenges the COVID-19 pandemic will bring upon the University, it is important to analyse its principal income sources. During 2018-19, total income was composed of: “Tuition fees and education
EL: I do enjoy teaching Corporate Finance because I can relate the the ories in corporate finance to what is happening around us rather easily. Corporate Finance is a module where the theories and practices can be eas ily connected. For example, when I taught about agency problems, I used McDonald’s ex-CEO (Steve Easterbrook)’s relationship scandal with an employee, which was against the company’s policy, as an example. From my students’ feedback, they seem to enjoy the module for the same reason. Some students had told me how they used what they learned in the module to answer interview questions (and they got the job!).
TS: What research are you currently working on/what would you like to re search in the future?
EL: Find a topic you really like. Then, find a supervisor who not only is an expert in your research topic but also with whom you could have a good re lationship. The relationship between really makes a difference in terms of the success of the project, the enjoy ment you get from doing research and your wellbeing. If you’re thinking about doing a PhD, personally, It may be better for you to work outside ac ademia first. PhD is a long and hard journey; if you already experience what are your options out there, it may help you stay on the course when the going gets tough. Moreover, the maturity you get from your work experience could help you navigate your PhD journey more successfully.
Sport thesaint.scot/sport sport@thesaint.scot@thesaintsta
SEB BROOKS Staff Writer
players, Watford hold the second best defensive record in the division, with twenty-three goals conceded in thir ty-two games. This has helped them to reach third place, and only out of the automatic places on goal difference. In the case of Bournemouth, they sit in seventh place, just outside the play-offs. However, two wins in their last nine games has seen them find themselves in a battle just to reach the play-offs, and manager Jason Tindall was sacked in the process. Jonathan Woodgate is his replacement, and it remains to be seen if he is a safe pair of hands in management, having pre viously struggled at Middlesbrough. This squad still possesses some Premier League quality players, and they will be looking to re verse this poor run of form and end the season on a high, with a strong finish hopefully carrying into the play-offs if they fail to close the gap on the automatic places.
initial title two years ago, has again done well, chipping in with seven teen goals this campaign. Playing behind him has been the Argentine playmaker Emiliano Buendia, who has notched up nine goals and the same number of assists, and has at tracted the interest of many Premier League clubs. Norwich also recruit ed well in the summer, bringing in Oliver Skipp on loan from Tottenham and Ben Gibson from Burnley, and a permanent deal for Jacob Sorensen from Danish club Esbjerg. Sticking with Farke post-relegation looks as if it will be the right decision.
season, firstly on automatic promo tion behind West Bromwich Albion and then in the playoffs to Fulham. Ollie Watkins to Aston
All in all the promotion/relegation
Saving the Six Nations: Time to Give Italy the Boot?
Picture yourself at Murrayfield in 2015, huddled amongst the screaming crowd as Scotland and Italy face each other to decide who will be claiming the wooden spoon that year. Whilst the crowd itself would be the im mediate shock to the system – even seeing people together on TV at the moment can cause one to enter a state of panic – you’d also be shocked by how different the relative fortunes of the two sides are today in 2021. In February 2015, Italy, down 16-15 at half time, gave a stellar second half performance to win the game 19-22 courtesy of a penalty try in the final minutes, beating a Scotland team that would go on to be whitewashed. That was the last time Italy won a Six Nations match. Six years later, and Italy have still failed to regis ter a win since the 28th February 2015, meanwhile Scotland are on a remarkable resurgence, beating a lacklustre and lazy England side,
Villa was a big loss, along with Said Benrahma to West Ham, breaking up the lethal front three of Watkins, Mbeumo and Benrahma. Yet, with that said, Brentford have found a ca pable replacement for Watkins. Ivan Toney, the top scorer last season in League One for Peterborough, has stepped up to the plate for the Bees this campaign despite playing in a tougher division. Swansea are also in the mix, who along with Brentford made the play-offs last season, and have looked a team in tune under Steve Cooper. They hold the best de fensive record in the Championship, building under Cooper's three-at-theback system, with only nineteen goals conceded up till now. Expect them too to continue to challenge the relegated sides in the final few stages of the cam paign based on this efficient system. What makes the Championship one of the best leagues in the world is its unpredictability. With fifteen games to go at least all three relegated sides have some chance of bouncing back straight away. It is also important that they throw everything at it given the potential ramifications. The best opportunity to bounce back is at the first attempt, since parachute pay ments eventually end for relegated clubs. Once that happens, clubs can very easily get dragged into a spiral of mediocrity in the Championship, or even drop down further into League One or League Two. Look at Bolton, Blackpool and Hull City in recent years and this shows what can happen. Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth fans will certainly not wish for that to happen to their respective clubs.
the Pro14, with talents such as Paolo Garbisi, Michele Lamaro, Stephen Varney and Jake Polledri all looking like promising players of the future.
Secondly, while Italy have indeed provided little opposition, there is certainly no guarantee Georgia will do any better. In the recent Autumn Nations Cup, Georgia got resounding ly stuffed, scoring only ten points and zero tries in the entire tournament, in cluding a 40-0 capitulation to England.
It might also finally be the time that Italy ‘just need a few more years’. Italy are starting to see the fruits of the involvement of Italian clubs in
justmer,erssomeBrentfordSwansea.lostkeyplayinthesumafterfallingshortlast
Nevertheless, as much as Sam might want to introduce this system, there are many administrative, practical, and reasoned arguments against such a system’s introduction. Firstly, one
Watford currently find themselves firmly in the play-off places in third, whilst Bournemouth are just outside them in sev enth, level on points and goal difference with Cardiff in sixth.
Despite looking less likely in secur ing promotion than Norwich, they both still have a PremierbackstraightbouncingchancedecentoftotheLeague.
CommonsWikimediaPhoto: CommonsWikimediaPhoto:
Current coach Franco Smith is fo cusing on developing this young talent and building his team around them. Now is the time to be helping Italy and Italian rugby, not kick ing them out of the tournament.
Of these sides, Georgia is the most competitive, having won 11 of the last 14 tournaments. At first, this seems like quite an attractive prospect, giv ing both Italy a chance to play some more realistic opposition, and teams such as Georgia a chance to blood themselves against top quality sides, and improve their rugby considerably.
Deputy Editors: Rose Annable, Adam Robertson, Daniel Ross
Recently, there have been calls from some commentators such as Sam Warburton for a kind of promo tion-relegation system to be intro duced to the Six Nations; wherein the bottom Six Nations side would be replaced by the top side in the Rugby Europe Championship, consisting of Belgium, Georgia, Romania, Spain, Russia and Portugal.
of the advantages of the current set of nations is the relative geographical proximity, which has proved especial ly important during the pandemic. It’s hard to image nations willingly ex changing fixtures in the warmth and wonder of Rome, for a trip accross Europe to the less warm Caucasus.
As much as it can be argued per formances would improve with regular matches against these sides, this hasn’t been the case with Italy, and it’s difficult to see why Georgia would succeed where Italy hasn’t. When the sides faced each oth er in 2018, Italy came away com fortable victors with a 28-17 win.
The two main threats to these relegated sides are Brentford and
idea is a total non-starter, and what truly needs to happen is for Italy to expand their opponents during the touring window, playing sides such as the US, Georgia, Uruguay, and Argentina on a more regular basis.
Sport Editor: Samuel Mitchinson
The gulf in revenue between the Premier League and Championship is well known. For the team that is relegated in twentieth place from the top flight, they are currently given around £100 million in total, with a great chunk of this due to lucrative international television money. What the winners of the second division re ceive in payments dwarfs in compar ison to this. Overall, including prize money, the total winnings equate to roughly £10 million. It is not surpris ing that relegated teams are desperate to bounce back to the Premier League, with a notable drop in revenue even in receipt of parachute payments. Yet, this is easier said than done. When analysing the statistics of the past seventeen seasons, it is clear to see why this is the case. In that time, only seven teams have bounced back to the Premier League through au tomatic promotion, with just four more going up through the play-offs. Newcastle of course count for two of these promotions, firstly in 200910 under Chris Hughton and then in 2016-17 under Rafa Benitez, and these were arguably some of the strongest sides the division has ever seen. In the past five years, apart from Newcastle, only Burnley under the leadership of the talented Sean Dyche instant ly bounced back as champions, and Fulham last season and Hull un der Steve Bruce were the only other sides able to return to the Premier
Both clubs have changed manager already this season in an attempt to hope that something can stick in their respec tive bids for promotion. Despite selling some key
and still in contention for the title in 2021. Conversely, Italy look set to be whitewashed for the sixth consecutive year, after losing 41-18 to England, 10-50 to France, and 10-48 to Ireland.
No-one likes to support a team that’s losing, and a few victories against sides like this could be ex actly what Italian rugby needs.
SAMUEL MITCHINSON Sport Editor
League straight away after navigating through the tricky play-offs. A great part of this is down to what some call the 'relegation hangover'. It would appear that bouncing back would be straightforward since relegated sides have the better teams on paper. Yet, it is difficult to go from play ing in a league where you are losing most of the time to then start playing in the Championship with an expec tation to win consistently in trying to gain promotion. Also, the Premier League clubs then have the power to pick apart the relegated squads by buying the top players. In the season gone by, for example, all three rel egated clubs suffered this fate and this trend continued. Norwich sold defenders Jamal Lewis to Newcastle and Ben Godfrey to Everton; Watford sold midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure to Everton; and Bournemouth sold defender Nathan Ake to Manchester City, goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale to Sheffield United, and forward Callum Wilson to Newcastle. Yet, this could be the season where we see more teams bounce back than usual. Looking at the current table, the three relegated sides from last year –Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth – are all in with a chance of promo tion. Norwich are on top and hold, at the time of writing, a seven-point lead over the chasing pack. Under the management of Daniel Farke, who previously led the Canaries to the Championship title in the 2018-19 season, it is looking increasingly like ly that they will make an immediate return to the top flight. Teemu Pukki, the top-scorer in the division in that
Championship: The Race for Promotion
ThisCricket:isa
Football Ramble was the first football podcast I came across. At that point, it had four hosts – Jim Campbell, Luke Moore, Pete Donaldson and Marcus Speller – who hosted two shows a week. Since then, it has come on leaps and bounds and is now available five days a week and has added a vast ar ray of new hosts including Sky Sports’ Kate Mason and BT’s Jules Breach.
EvenNegatives:though there are shortened formats, cricket still tends to take out a whole afternoon of your day. So not a sport if you want to write off a large chunk of your weekend.
World of Sport: Ones to Watch
ADAM ROBERTSON Deputy Sport Editor
IfPositives:white is your colour, this is the sport for you, the vast ma jority of cricket apparel is white. A match tea is served between in nings, which allows for a sandwich and cake break. So those who like their food this could be the sport for you.
Bandy:Thetour of niche sports will now take a trip east. For the Canadians, North Americans, Eastern Europeans, Russians, and the Baltic regions, ba sically anywhere which is cold, ice hockey is a highly popular sport. Further there is a fairly strong aware ness of ice hockey around the world, thanks largely due to the popular ity of the NHL. Yet, this is not the only ice related ball or puck sport which is played around the world. The sport is 11 a side rather than 6 a side in ice hockey. There is also rel atively less contact in bandy than
Kabbadi is the watchedsportintensemostI’ve
The world of sport is large and diverse. Whilst we have become accustomed to mainstream and globally recognised sports such as football, American Football, Tennis, and basketball to name a few. Yet there exists a plethora of oth er sports which within certain parts of the world are immensely popu lar yet remain relatively unknown entities in other parts of the world. A number of sports will not be named in this article, yet this is not to say they are not significant or well known in certain parts of the world. After much research about sports which are perhaps unfamiliar to most, and in a similar vein to my approach to essay writing, I chose a few of the ones I found most interesting rather than the ones which are most unfamiliar.
RugbyBeforeLeague:weleave the shores of the United Kingdom I thought I’d draw attention to another sport which whilst played, is played by very specific regions of the UK such as Lancashire and Yorkshire. Equally it is a huge sport in Australia and New Zealand. Rugby league in a nutshell, and through my unfamiliar eyes, is a combination of rugby union (the more common version of the sport in the UK) and American Football. Like rugby union, you can not pass the ball forward and there are no pads. Yet like American football, there are “downs” after 4 tackles, the team in possession of the ball turns over.
Disadvantages:Stillhavetolearn how to ice skate.
If it’s not Celtic jetting off to Dubai in the middle of a pandemic, there’s always a bizarre refereeing decision based on a rule that you’re certain has just been made up. The pod cast’s greatest strength is its non-OldFirm centricity, giving every team’s game some analysis regardless of their size or position in the table.
Cox’s second book, also titled Zonal Marking, is also a fascinating read. Given we’re in the UK, it seems we can be guilty sometimes of be ing Premier-league centric. Zonal Marking fixes that by documenting the footballing history of Europe’s powerhouses during their era of dominance. Beginning with Holland in the early 1990s, working his way through the intensity of the Pep and Jose rivalry in Spain during the late noughties to English clubs more re cent successes in Europe, the book is a fascinating take on European football.
Like my essays, I will now try and turn this fairly loose trail of thought into some kind of deeper idea. Whilst this has been quite a light hearted read, and fairly vague and experts of the sports may say I have over gener alized and stereotyped in terms of de scription of each sport. I think the key thing to take away is that there are a vast number of sports in this world, so it’s worth exploring beyond the main stream within your country or region.
The Totally Scottish Football Show: Say what you like about Scottish football, it’s never short of a story.
ice hockey. So in my eyes and based on the very limited video footage I have seen, it is like football on ice.
Irrespective, the game remains relatively unplayed outside of the confines of the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, The West Indies, and South Asia. How does the game work? Whilst notoriously quite a long game, in recent years attempts have been made to shorten the game across cer tain formats. Essentially it is a “bat and ball” sport. There are 11 players in each team. Like baseball and other bat and ball sports, you try to score as many runs as possible. 1 team bats first, when the opposing team gets 10 wickets so all but one of the play ers out, then the teams switch roles.
bit of a false start. I already know and love cricket. Yet this sport presents a strange paradox and it truly fascinates me. Even within a country where the sport is played by many, a great many more don’t un derstand the rules or how its played.
Positives: You avoid having to scrum and ruck like in traditional rugby as much.
BasedNegatives:ongoogle images the players still look rather big and muscly like American football and rugby union.
In English schools, many will live and breath the Ashes, whilst oth ers will simply not understand what an “over” or a “wicket” (al beit Virat Kohli, one of the best to play the game, seems to have for gotten what a wicket is recently).
The Best FootballLockdownPodcasts
I
OneAdvantages:ofthe most intense sports I have ever watched on YouTube. Both an ultimate team sport, but as “the raider” opportuni ty to show great individual flair. StretchesDisadvantage:cardiovascular ability to the absolute limit.
DANIEL ROSS Deputy Sport Editor
Crouchlikewhoininterestnopeopledon’tPeter “ “
“ “ CommonsWikimediaPhoto:
@thesaintsta 25/9/19
In spite of the more positive develop ments recently, it looks like we’ll all still have to occupy ourselves in lock down for that little bit longer. With that in mind, we’ve come up a list of the best football related podcasts to keep you occupied. The majority of podcasts can be found via either Spotify or Apple Podcasts as well as many being available to anyone with a subscription to The Athletic.
IAdvantages:feellike it really can’t be em phasized enough that it is less physical than ice hockey. Skating on ice is scary enough for me. Equally, I feel for someone like me who is familiar with football, it would be a very quick sport to grasp in comparison to ice hockey.
Football Ramble:
ZonalZonalMarking:Marking is the perfect pod cast for anyone interested in the more tactical side of the game. The major ity of the episodes are also not con strained by time so it’s worth looking into the back catalogue. Covering everything from the evolution of the tactics of Jurgen Klopp’s to the more niche topics, Zonal Marking is an easy and accessible podcast, never over-complicating anything.
Incidentally, it’s recurring guest Michael Cox has also written two books. The first, The Mixer, tells the history of the Premier League from its inauguration in 1992 right up un til Antonio Conte’s triumph with Chelsea. It’s a fascinating read and one which brings along with it many wonderful memories of some of the best players and most innovative tac ticians the Premier League has seen.
The Ramble as they are so often known is good for anyone want ing to enjoy the funnier side of the game, taking itself less seriously than Roy Keane berating some poor foot baller for the tenth week running.
It’s one of the easiest podcasts to pick up and its host changes dai ly meaning every show is different. It also includes some great playalong games for anyone who fan cies themselves at football trivia.
thesaint.scot/sport
That Peter Crouch Podcast:
Kabaddi:Whilstmy descriptions of the other sports have been far from stellar I can at least say that the descriptions given by their respective governing bodies and tutorial websites aren’t both clear and succinct. On the other hand with kabaddi there is a rather clear defini tion from Yogems.com “[It is] played between two teams of seven players, the objective of the game is for a sin gle player on offence, referred to as a "raider", to run into the opposing team's half of a court, tag out as many of their defenders as possible, and re turn to their own half of the court, all without being tackled by the defend ers, and in a single breath.” Based on the YouTube videos I have watched, it seems like a much more intense and fun version of capture the flag.
I personally have no interest in speaking to people that don’t like Peter Crouch. The ex-Liverpool and Spurs man hosts his podcast with Chris Stark and Tom Fordyce and, again, is best for anyone looking for something lighter. Interviews with Prince William and Andy Robertson are stand-out episodes for me but there are so many available.
Sport sport@thesaint.scot
Unlike the Premier League, every waking minute of every game in Scotland doesn’t make its way onto Sky or BT and so it’s a great way to recap the week’s events if you haven’t had a chance to catch the highlights.
On top of this, the robot-dancing forward has also released two books – How to Be a Footballer and its se quel, I, Robot: How to Be a Footballer 2. Both are filled with so many an ecdotes from the striker’s time as a footballer and are some of the easi est reads you’ll find. His first book is also worth a read to discover who he believes every footballer should emulate and, although known as a funny-man, there are a lot of stories from the highest level of football particularly under Rafael Benitez. have