Student Elections 2025: Reflections from Outgoing Sabbatical Officers
The results are now in from the Students’ Association Elections, which took place on Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 April. As the academic year draws to a close, The Saint interviewed the outgoing Sabbatical Officers, who shared their experiences in their roles, accomplishments, and advice for newly elected representatives.
Cam Brown, President: President Cam Brown explained that one of his major goals was to “give the Union the biggest shake up that it has ever had.” The primary changes made during his tenure are based in The Democ- racy Review, which constitutes a central element of the Union’s Change Programme. The Review contributed to the restructuring of the Union’s Senior Management team, alongside expanding
opportunities for students to be employed as interns and adding new positions such as the Student Advocacy Coordinator.
Notably, the Sabbatical Officer structure has been adjusted so that there is now no longer one sole President. Instead, positions available on the Executive Team now consist of a President of Union Affairs, President of Education, President of Wellbeing and Community, and President of Student Opportunities. These measures were introduced to “ensure that the structures we have work for students,” Brown explained. “I’m proud to say that we are leaving the Union in a far better state than I found it.”
Another of Brown’s main objectives
was to address accommodation affordability. In negotiations regarding next year’s increase in University accommodation fees, Brown and his team were able to “cut the university’s proposed increase in half,” settling on a 2.7 per cent increase for the 2025-2026 academic year.
One of the main insights that Brown has gained from his experience is that, “If you want to make real change, that often means ruffling feathers.”
As he returns to his Master’s in Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Brown hopes that the incoming Executive Team will “continue to stand up for students.”
Continues on Page 4.
Ever to Excel?
by Sunaa Ahmed
Outside, the biting chill of a British winter rages, and the little bird must soon return to the dark unknown from which it has emerged. Though I am perhaps indulging myself, I think the somewhat tragic metaphor can be applied to the journey of the student in St Andrews. Read on Page 9.
The Language of Liberation
by Manraj Gill
That all changed with the arrival of Noor Community, an educational network offering free English lessons to Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza. Through Noor’s online classes, Amir and Layla have been able to reconnect — regularly talking, laughing, and learning — despite the war that rages on around them. Read on Page 13.
PARIE DESAI & SOFIA PANEK News Writers
What’s Inside?
EDITORIAL
Spring trifles and farewells
Over the weekend, David held a lovely spring dinner in the sunshine. The potluck spread included artichoke dip, chicken salad, chocolate-covered strawberries, teapots of Pimm’s, and David’s delicious cherry and pistachio trifle. Layers of dreamy zabaione and subtle rosemary crumble made the marvellous dessert one for the history books — look out, David’s next adventure may just be The Great British Bake Off. The trifle, a classic in the ‘70s and your grandma’s annual contribution to Christmas dinner, is perhaps not what you would think of when reflecting on your university career. The very British, unassuming dessert may not, at first glance, provide much room for contemplation and enlightenment. Perhaps we are going through an existential break, looking for meaning everywhere when things are about to change, or perhaps the trifle is a potent metaphor for the university experience. Fruit, custard, and cream. Friendships, sports teams, situationships, rosemary crumble, late nights in the library.
Much like a trifle, university is anchored in the unexpected and unassuming; with a promising appearance, you can easily plunge into a trifle and find your most-hated fruit. A distaste for the subject you thought was your life’s calling, trust misplaced in the wrong person, darkness at 3pm. Layer after layer, experience after experience. Entering St Andrews
“Quote of the Issue:
as a naive fresher, and doing all the things naive freshers do, is a badge we often look back on with embarrassment. In reality, the experiences stack like the custard in David’s bowl. Layer after layer, four (or more) years of self-discovery. As you plunge deeper into the university trifle, you understand a deeper meaning of friendship, become adept at dealing with a harsh mark, and learn that every experience, positive or negative, means something in the end. You can step back and look at your trifle, with all of its flavours, all of its people, and realise you’ve made quite the ensemble.
When we reflect on our time on The Saint, now coming to a close, this layer of our trifles will be extra rich. The articles we’ve edited, the people we’ve met, the staff. We are both proud to say that one of the driving factors pushing us through 30-hour weeks was the people. The Saint is nothing without the hardworking, talented, dedicated, and truly fun staff members who have inspired us to trudge on. From successful fundraisers to winning SPAs, we are proud of our Saint trifle layer — proud of each other, proud of Hannah & Ilaria, proud of our editorial board, and proud of our lovely staff.
The Saint has been one of the many layers in our university trifle, and has undoubtedly proven to be the zabaione (which David can successfully make). Get excited for The Saint under Hannah & Ilaria next year and enjoy the final issue of the semester. It’s been a blast. Xx. David and Riley
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
-
Dr. Seuss
The Editorial Board
David Buchan Editor-in-Chief
Riley Raab Editor-in-Chief
Pietro Barbini Business Manager
Mary Henderson News Editor
Georges Toulouse Viewpoint Editor
Simon Ezra-Jackson Features Editor
Alex Le Sage Puzzles Editor
Alden Arnold Photography Editor
Arnaz Mallick Arts & Culture Editor
Ilaria Freccia Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Hannah Shiblaq Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Olga Alonso Blanco Events Editor
Ana-Lucia Chalmers Science & Technology Editor
Mahaley Wise Sport Editor
Isabelle Holloway Head of Illustration
Armaan Madanmohan Senior Copy Editor
Natalie Olofsson Podcast Editor
Maria Ebrahim Head of Web & Social Media
EDITOR: MARY HENDERSON
“They Don’t Care”: Students Frustrated As Landlords Hike Up Rents
ZAINAB HAJI News Writer
In a straw poll conducted by The Saint, 63 per cent of 92 respondents stated that their landlord is planning to increase their rent for next academic year — a figure that reflects what students say has become the norm in one of Scotland’s most expensive towns.
Making national headlines in 2022, the St Andrews housing crisis was exacerbated by increased student enrollment after the pandemic and a shortage of rental properties. Rent prices continue to climb year-on-year, leaving many students feeling increasingly squeezed. The Saint spoke to those facing rent hikes about how the rising costs are affecting them.
Lucy and Freya, two third year students, each pay £750 each per month for a house on Argyle Street. With their rent set to rise by £50 next year, they said their sense of what counts as affordable housing in St Andrews has changed.
“At the time £750 seemed really expensive and on the higher end,” said Lucy. “Now, given that people are paying upwards of £1000 a month, I feel like we’re getting a really good deal.”
“It just makes me feel annoyed,” said Freya. “It feeds into the bad reputation that St Andrews has of only having rich people come here, and the housing situation just makes that ten times worse.”
Mia, a third year student, said she is currently paying £951 per month for a five-bedroom flat on North Street. Her rent has risen from £910 last year, and she expects it to jump to over £1000 next year — beyond her budget. The rise means she is now looking for a new house.
She said that letting agents have little incentive to be responsive or fair. Mia stated, “They know that if you say no, someone else will take it. They don’t have to be good letting agents because people have no choice.”
Recently, she was sent a listing for another five-bed flat at £1,040 per person per month.
“Who [...] is going to pay £1,040 for a single bed?” she said. “We gave them our budget, but they don’t care. They just sent it to us because they’re hoping someone will pay that.”
Leah, a student living on Market Street, said her flat is rising by £50 per person next
Lucy added, “I have friends who are paying similar prices in London. But if you’re a student in London, you get a higher student loan. Here, if you are trying to afford these prices that are on par with London, you haven’t got the same means to, even if you need it.”
year, bringing the total to £1,050 a month.
“The market for housing here is so insane that they can get away with that, and it makes sense for them. They want to stay competitive and earn a profit,” she said. “But for students, it’s really difficult. When you’re charged more but it’s technically still within your budget, you’re likely to just stay where you are and pay more — because you kind of have to.”
Celia, a student living on Hepburn Gardens, is paying £930 per month and expects her rent to increase by around £30. She said she looked at other properties but found that they were all just as expensive. “It’s definitely a little frustrating,” she said.
In the 2024/2025 rent survey conducted by the Campaign for Affordable Student Housing (CASH), the average monthly rent for private lets was reported as £743.29, based on 86 data points. However, some students question the accuracy of this
number. On the popular Facebook student housing forum ‘Get A Room’, rooms have been listed for up to £1800 per month. Katherine Knisley, a research coordinator at CASH, said the nature of the housing crisis has shifted. She stated: “Rents have definitely been increasing and it is due to the fact that landlords know that students need to live in town, and therefore they can take advantage of that and raise prices beyond what is normal for a small Scottish town.”
“Before, the crisis was just that there wasn’t enough housing and students were having to live out of town. I think now it’s that the prices are unaffordable for a lot of people.”
National Focus Stories from Scotland
MARY
HENDERSON News Editor
UK Economy Grew More Than Expected in February
According to the latest official figures, the UK economy expanded by 0.5 per cent in February, following a lacklustre performance in January. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) predicted a growth in GDP of just 0.1 per cent, attributing this surprising rise to a strong month in the manufacturing and production services sectors.
This comes as the UK economy prepares for a downturn triggered by utili-
“We must go further and faster to kickstart economic growth.”
ty and council tax increases, and tariffs imposed on goods imported to the US.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves called the figures an “encouraging sign”, but stated that the government was “not complacent”. “We must go further and faster to kickstart economic growth, provide security for working people and put more money in their pockets,” she added. Reeves stated that the government would “remain pragmatic and cool-headed” in its efforts to secure a trade deal with the US.
Extreme Warning For Wildfires Issued Across Scotland
Wildfires have broken out across Scotland, as particularly warm and dry weather continues through April. An urgent warning was issued on 10 April, urging people to exercise caution when using naked flames outdoors.
A major blaze in Galloway saw campers evacuated by a Coastguard helicopter, while another wildfire north
of Ullapool led to roads being closed due heavy smoke impeding visibility.
Kenny Barbour, Head of Prevention, Protection and Preparedness at Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, stated, “Our firefighters will continue to work with local landowners and other partners to bring these fires under control. Responsible human behaviour can significantly lower the chance of a wildfire starting, so it is crucial that people act safely in rural environments and always follow the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.”
“Game-changing” Breast Cancer Pill to be Offered by NHS
A pioneering breast cancer pill is to be offered by the NHS in England and Wales. Thousands of women with advanced breast cancer will now have access to this “game-changing” twice-a-day pill, providing targeted treatment for a specific form of breast cancer that will prevent it from progressing further.
Claire Rowney, chief executive of chari-
“This happens too often and urgent action must be taken.”
ty Breast Cancer Now, welcomed this news but critiqued the initial rejection of the pill that led to treatment delays: “This happens too often and urgent action must be taken to ensure the quick approval of breast cancer drugs so they can be made available promptly to those who need them.”
“The Scottish Medicines Consortium must also consider this treatment at pace now, so that we see it made available to all who need it across the UK.”
Photo by University of St Andrews
Continued from page 1
Hitanshi Badani, Director of Education:
Hitanshi Badani outlined that her original manifesto focused on four initial areas: accessibility, belonging, careers, and decolonisation. To champion all of these goals, she has worked with students across the University, including School Presidents and subcommittees such as the Disabled Students’ Network and BAME Students’ Network. During her tenure, Badani oversaw the introduction of lecture captioning and guidance for decompression spaces around the University, as well as increasing conversations on decolonisation within the curriculum.
Badani discussed the wider crisis within the higher education sector and how these repercussions are felt within St Andrews. She drew attention to the University of Dundee’s financial position and its plans to cut over 600 jobs as well as reduce the number of modules offered. Badani explained that a lot of the work she wanted to accomplish was hindered as a result of the nationwide crisis in funding. Looking to the future, Badani urged incoming sabbatical officers to bring their own personal experience to the role. She stated: “There can be times when you’re expected to fit into this cookie cutter version of the role and I think it’s important in those rooms and meetings especially where most people are much older than
you, much more experienced, a lot of them are white, a lot of them are of a certain socio-economic background […] it’s important to know that you are an expert at being a student and at academic representation.”
Milo Hill, Director of Events & Services:
For Milo Hill, a key aspect of achieving his objectives was working with the Events Creation team in order to revitalise Union events. This included collaborating with Sports Clubs and student collectives such as BPM, Latin Flow, and Throwbacks. Intending to streamline event promotion and foster student engagement, Hill implemented a weekly ‘What’s On’ social media post to showcase all Union events and activities happening each week.
On the challenges of the role, Hill stated: “Being the DoES is more than just organising the big events [...] it’s also all the nitty-gritty logistical elements of running our day-to-day events and services. Sometimes it’s pretty easy to get bogged down in the details and lose sight of the bigger picture.”
He added, “looking out onto a sea of happy faces attending an event I worked so hard on has always been the best part of this job.”
Caitlin Ridgway, Director of Wellbeing & Equality:
In her first year as Director of Wellbeing & Equality, Caitlin Ridgway created a webpage with support resources for student sex workers. In her second year, she worked to create an activism guidebook, aiming to inform students about their rights. One of her main achievements was her involvement in establishing ‘Got Solidarity’, which was intended to increase community confidence in being effective bystanders. This involved working with Student Services and student representatives to support different reporting procedures. Ridgway hopes that these resources continue to be promoted in the long term. She described the difficulty in striking the balance between keeping track of her own goals and remaining attentive to what the students want. Ridgway’s time as a Sabbatical Officer has inspired her to continue working in the third sector in the future. When asked what advice she would impart to future sabbatical officers, Ridgway stated: “Back yourself [...] you don’t need to put on some professional persona.” She emphasised the importance of taking a break: “Take your annual leave. You do better work if you take some of your annual leave.”
Olivia King, Athletic Union President:
As she started her tenure as Athletic Union President, Olivia King aimed to develop the Union’s recreational sport opportunities. Additionally, she sought to ensure that sports clubs could attend as many competitions as possible. King indicated that progress has been made towards these goals, and she is proud to have completed a Club Longevity Document that reviews the future potential of the University’s sports clubs. One of the foremost changes that King implemented was the introduction of an allclub general meeting, designed to increase transparency with students. She explained, “I […] thought it was a great way to encourage open communication between the students, the Athletic Union, and Saints Sport.” The meeting fostered direct engagement with students, and King was happy to see that the event sparked an increase in the number of clubs requesting in-person meetings. King noted that her responsibility to coordinate between many different clubs, students, and staff members sometimes required her to have difficult conversations with senior members of staff. “It is easy to get caught up in lots of different opinions that are flying around, but at the end of the day, our position is [to be] there for students,” she remarked. King hopes that the new Executive Team will “make every decision with students’ best interests at heart.”
Photos from Students’ Association
Palestine Society Continues Advocacy for Emergency Demonstrations
The St Andrews Palestine Solidarity Society has recently supported emergency demonstrations in response to Israel breaking the 42-day ceasefire with Hamas.
According to the St Andrews Union website, the newly affiliated society focuses on advocacy for Palestine, particularly urging the University to take concrete actions in support of Palestinian students and to recognize the ongoing scholasticide in Gaza and across Palestine. Beyond activism, the society organizes cultural and educational events, including teach-ins and film screenings.
Faris Hayatleh, President of the Palestine Solidarity Society, emphasized the urgency behind their latest demonstration, which has largely been organized by the Socialist Worker Student Society (SWSS) in conjunction with the Palestine Society.
“In my view, the emergency [demonstration] was called not just because
of the ceasefire breaking, but also because the University, after sixteen months, has essentially been silent on the issue. Our goals have remained the same — for the University to take a stand, at the very least in support of a ceasefire, and to back international calls for boycotts and divestment.”
The society has been pushing for the University of St Andrews to cut financial and institutional ties with companies and organisations linked to the Israeli government and military.
“Our goal is for the University to divest from them because [these organisations] still work in collaboration with the Israeli government and the Israeli military.”
They hope for increased student engagement despite concerns some students may have about publicly participating.
Hayatleh stated: “I understand that St Andrews has a lot of international students, many of whom are on visas, and people are worried about publicly taking a stance. But the more people that do so, the safer the environment becomes. Hopefully, in future marches or demonstrations, more students will show up. Any point in the last sixteen
months has been important, but now more so than ever, I hope to see more engagement.”
A University spokesperson said:
“We recognise the deep pain and trauma being caused by the ongoing conflict to Palestinians, Israelis, and others in our community; our classmates, friends, teachers, colleagues, and, for many, family. We remain committed to providing pastoral support to all those affected, directly or indirectly, by conflict, injustice, and violence, wherever it occurs.
“As a University with more than 140 nationalities represented across our student body, we recognise our collective responsibility to listen, reflect, and understand the diversity and complexity of views within our community. We remain committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment for all.”
“With regard to our financial practices, the University’s investments are governed by Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, with particular emphasis on social responsibility and human rights. Our endowment funds are held within an ethical investment portfolio, overseen by
external fund managers. Through them, we seek to invest in companies that demonstrate a clear commitment to ethical and sustainable practices, including the protection of human rights and responsible engagement with society and the environment.”
Hayatleh, along with student and staff speakers from BAME, MENA, Amnesty International, and SWSS, articulated during a town hall meeting for Palestine that outspoken student support is the most direct path toward meaningful change.
The Palestine Solidarity Society plans to hold further movie screenings to raise awareness. A GoFundMe campaign has also been initiated to support Abeer Almassri. Almassri has been accepted into the St Andrews Education for Palestinian Students (STEPS) program, and the campaign, which has been a focal point for the society this year, will help her with the financial support needed to facilitate her departure from Gaza.
St Andrews Palestine Solidarity Society remains committed to ongoing advocacy and direct action, with further demonstrations likely as the situation in Gaza unfolds.
AU Donates Stove To Zambian Orphanage
MORVEN BOYD News Writer
A donation from the University of St Andrews Athletic Union and St Andrews students has funded a new five-plate gas stove for the Fountain of Hope orphanage in Lusaka, Zambia.
The Fountain of Hope orphanage houses and teaches approximately 140 children, with a further 150 vulnerable young people coming to the centre for hot meals every day. Founded in 1996, the centre serves as a home, medical centre, and school, providing a safe place for children to learn, have a safe place to sleep, and get a meal.
The donation was made possible through the University’s long-term partnership with the Zambian charity Sports in Action as part of the Wallace Group. The Wallace Group is a collaborative project between eight universities in the United Kingdom. Named after the former Vice-Chancellor of Loughborough University, Sir David Wallace, the group aims to support the development of sport in Zambia.
Following St Andrews joining the Wallace Group in 2012, Director of Sport Stephen Stewart stated that it was a “great opportunity for our students to start to mix with students from other universities, different sports, different backgrounds.” He added that the aim of the Wallace Group was to use “sport to convey the importance of education.”
For Athletic Union President Olivia King, sport is all about “bringing people
together and fostering active wellbeing”. Developing sports is important because it “not only keeps people physically fit, sport has positive effects on mental wellbeing, it also enables people to develop social skills, leadership skills, and many more.”
The stove will help to alleviate cooking challenges the centre has been facing, including with the ongoing scheduled load-shedding and rising charcoal costs. These issues have been exacerbated by the rainy season, which made it difficult to cook outside and keep the charcoal
Coat Collection Policy Causes Controversy
SAFIRA SCHIOWITZ News Writer
On 2 April, students attending the Union event Sinners were left frustrated upon departure, after an unexpected £5 fee was introduced for those seeking to retrieve unchecked jackets left in the building.
This sudden enforcement followed a recent kitchen fire in Main Bar. Senior management reportedly introduced the policy to address safety concerns over jackets being left in fire escape routes.
The policy, implemented without prior communication, has been met with widespread criticism.
Cam Brown, President of the Students’ Association, stated that the new policy was a surprise even to him and his team.
“Posters were put up the same night, but I wasn’t aware this was being enforced. I only found out after students were queuing outside the building, upset and confused.”
The abrupt implementation of the policy was also a surprise to the Union staff, who had to create a last-minute system for people to retrieve their property. Coats were sorted by colour and students were asked to queue in order to search through
the piles. Some students reportedly became aggressive towards Union staff in response to their coats being withheld.
Brown, who was present that night, stayed speaking with affected students and handing out snacks in an attempt to de-escalate tensions until 5am. “Many people budgeted for a night out and simply didn’t have the money for an unexpected fine. Some were turned away without their coats, and those who had left earlier were told to come back at 3am, when the venue had closed,” he said.
The Students’ Association met with senior management the following day to call for changes. As a result, according to Brown, students who paid the fine will be refunded via a self-declaration process, though this has not been confirmed yet by the Union.
Looking forward, Brown is advocating for the cloakroom to be free for the rest of the semester. “We’re working to ensure students are never again denied access to their property without proper notice or a fair process.”
While the long-term policy is still under review, Brown emphasised that student safety and dignity must come first: “This is their Union. They deserve to feel safe, heard, and respected here.”
dry. With the donation of the stove, the centre’s ability to cook and provide hot meals will be significantly improved, enabling the provision of better food and care for the young people they look after.
The stove is the latest donation in a long history of support for the Fountain of Hope orphanage. The partnership has funded the installation of a multisport court in 2019, the renovation of the toilet and shower block in 2023, and the creation of a fundraising initiative which sees the Wallace Group and partners subsidise
100 per cent of food costs for the centre. According to Stewart, 3.6 million meals have been funded by the Wallace Group, and around 50 children’s education is funded every year, with a number of Zambian young adults being funded through university education in the United Kingdom. Over the last twenty years, the partnership has been working with Sport in Action, the group has raised £750,000.
St Andrews students have directly funded the stove for the children at the centre. The money raised from ticket sales for the Union’s sports night, Sinners, goes toward these projects. As King states: “An easy way for students to get involved with raising funds to help Sport in Action is simply by attending the Sinners event at the Union each month.” She also shares that another way to support Sports in Action is by donating any sports kit, clothes, shoes, teamwear, and balls that are no longer needed. These can be handed into Saints Sport to be sent out to Zambia with the volunteers.
Not only are there plans to establish a Sport in Action society, but the University of St Andrews and the Wallace Group plan to launch a new project in rural villages in Zambia. The project will encourage students who do not have to come from a sports background and have an interest in areas such as teaching, dance, and music to volunteer in these villages during Summer 2026.
Photo by University of St Andrews
InFocus
Dr Rahul Rao: Exploring the Controversy Surrounding Colonial Statues
SAVANNAH ABBEY News Writer
“I’m trying to understand the depth of emotion, resentment, and feeling that this arouses on the part of both people who think that the statues are racist and doing harm, and the people who think that taking them down is in some way a deep attack on them,” said Dr Rahul Rao when asked about his main aim regarding his recently published book.
On 20 March, 2025, Dr Rahul Rao, a Reader in the School of International Relations (IR), published his third book, titled The Psychic Lives of Statues: Reckoning With the Rubble of Empire. He commemorated this publication with a launch at Topping & Company booksellers in St Andrews. While the book mainly explores the historical contexts in which certain political statues were erected and why there are now global movements to take them down, it is also a memoir that is deeply tied to Rao’s personal history.
While currently on research leave, Rao holds the role of Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) for the School of IR. The job primarily entails ensuring that all staff and students feel included within the department and making students aware that there are forms of support if they encounter issues.
“If you feel disconnected [...] chances are there is something about the institution that needs to change.”
However, Rao also noted that the job became more difficult and complex when the Israel-Palestine conflict emerged. He highlighted that a key aspect of being Director of EDI was verifying that the University adopted an even-handed attitude towards all forms of conflict.
Rao stated: “If you feel disconnected or out of place, chances are there is something about the institution that needs to change in order to better solve your needs.”
Rao is originally from Bangalore, a city in the south of India. Having completed
a five-year combined degree, he realized quickly that he was not interested in the day-to-day practice of law and felt much more engaged in the other fields he had been studying at university. Partially influenced by the political atmosphere of India at the time, Rao chose to go down the route of studying political science.
Rao’s main research interest is studying social movements anchored by identities such as gender, sexuality, race, caste, and
Rhodes and how he made his money. Like all applicants to the scholarship, I was very aware that I was applying to a colonial bequest that was founded on these acts of exploitation and expropriation,” Rao stated.
“‘Rhodes Must Fall’ as a movement captured my attention because of that personal history and because I guess it sort of revived in me all of the uncertainties and anxieties I had felt about applying for the scholarship, the kind of delusional
class. Rao came to the UK after receiving a Rhodes Scholarship, a program which funds students from around the world to study at the University of Oxford. While initially accepted to do an MPhil, Rao stayed on to do his DPhil in International Political Theory. The Rhodes Scholarship sparked his desire to write a book on the eradication of colonial statues.
Rao explained how a movement called ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ erupted in South Africa in 2015 in response to the persistence of the legacies of apartheid. The movement centred on the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes in the University of Cape Town campus. Rhodes was a colonial settler who made a fortune exploiting resources in South Africa. He would later become the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.
Rhodes donated a large portion of money to the University of Oxford, thus creating the Rhodes Scholarship. This was originally used to bring people from Germany and the British Empire to study at Oxford, training them to later go into a life of public service.
“I was very aware of this history of Cecil
stories I had told myself to make it okay to apply for the scholarship to benefit from it to, you know, sort of get ahead in life”
“It was that connection to Rhodes, the Rhodes scholarship, and “Rhodes Must Fall” that made me pay attention to movements that were demanding the removal of statues.”
“I’m hoping that with this kind of writing, it becomes harder for people to offer knee jerk reactions.”
Using this as a starting point, the book discusses six key sites of colonial statues. Rao strove to unpack how the current destruction of colonial statues is more than just dismantling an inanimate object. The book analyses a wide-spread critique of past generations for not having done enough,
how toppling statues become portals into exploring topics of institutionalised racism, why statues continue to be erected as vehicles of immortality, and how the term ‘decolonialism’ is being used in varying contexts.
“I hope that poeple, in reading it, find ways to tell their own stories.”
Originally a series of blog posts written in response to particular instances of statues being taken down, writing a book presented a different set of challenges for Rao.
“I found it quite easy to [...] dive into particular flash points, but to then zoom out and ask bigger questions like why now? Why in these places? What connects them? Are they learning things from each other? That’s a different kind of process.”
Given the contentious nature of the topic, Rao anticipated criticism over the subject matter of his book. He was nevertheless still slightly shocked when he received hate mail to his work address.
“It was kind of scary, but it was also like, what am I saying that’s so controversial? You know, I felt a level of puzzlement, and I think that was part of the provocation to write the book. One of the chapters in the book is about why we identify with statues so strongly, why we think of them as all related, and why we think of them almost like they are living things that needed protection or veneration,” commented Rao.
“I guess social media wars tend to be waged through sound bites, right? The ideas are very blunt and often not nuanced, but I’m hoping that with this kind of writing, it becomes harder for people to offer knee jerk reactions that don’t actually think through the arguments.”
As much as the book is a reflection of his personal history, Rao hopes that readers are also able to identify with it, regardless of background.
“I hope that people, in reading it, find ways to tell their own stories in, through, and against the statues and the built environment around them.”
Photo by University of St Andrews
Viewpoint
SAM SPENDLOVE Viewpoint Writer
EDITOR: GEORGES TOULOUSE
I’m Only Alive When I’m Here Reflections on going home
The premise of Apple TV+’s series Severance is this: corporate office workers undergo brain surgery which ‘severs’ their memories and experiences. The result is that a worker’s body plays host to two personas. The first persona is the worker’s outside self, the self that remains largely untouched post-surgery and witnesses nothing but off-hours. The second persona is brand new and witnesses nothing but life in the office. From the moment the worker steps into the office, this new alter ego is activated and made to endure the nine-to-five shift — all while knowing that somebody else, the same somebody who chose to get the surgery, lives nothing but nights and weekends.
The compelling internal conflict that the characters on Severance face is not unique to the corporate world or even to science fiction. I noticed a through-line to my own life when I examined the experience of visiting my hometown. I felt internally divided — there appeared to be no continuity between my university-self and my home-self. I got on the plane as one person in Edinburgh and got off of the plane at Boston Logan International as somebody else entirely.
I don’t think I’d notice this separation so much if I weren’t plagued by a bias against my hometown. I’ve written before that I was a hermit all the way through high school. It’s time to admit that I was also a bitter one: I lacked interest in the things that were going on at home, and, from an early age, I willfully stopped trying to participate. I didn’t want to join clubs, I didn’t want to do sports, and, most days, I didn’t care to go anywhere after school; I didn’t feel like having community if it wasn’t on my terms. In short, I divested from life in Boston. When I got to St Andrews, however, I invested like a coked-up Wall Street banker during a market tailspin; I recognised that the old Sam had to go — progress was going to be made. Despite the small-town stagnation, St
Andrews is full of potential if you’re looking to evolve your persona. You see the same people just enough to learn how to build relationships without suffering from overexposure. Everything is within walking distance, so you suddenly feel more capable — no longer made juvenile by lack of a driving licence. You can toe the line between adulthood and childhood, real life and campus life, risk and restraint. To me, life in St Andrews became rich and vivid. I was alive. At university, I could go anywhere in
position. Whether or not I really could have chosen to be different in Boston was beside the point. The overwhelming influence of my surroundings seemed to always ensure that I began operating on my hermit settings. In St Andrews, I had started a life — now I was removed from all the tools and resources that might’ve helped me to keep working on it. I was, once again, bitter: I felt I had waited nineteen years to actually jumpstart my life, and the reality of how long I had waited only became clear to me when
of escaping my restrictive old self real. Then, last summer rolled around, and it was time to go home. Four months grumbled ahead of me like a thunderstorm. I remember thinking about all the risks I’d have to take being in Boston for that long: how many car rides, how many walks, how many dodgy seafood plates. How many instances where I might get in some awful accident and die before I was allowed to make progress again. That irrational fear sprang from a very rational understanding of the situation I was in: my two selves were entirely bound to the places and circumstances in which they were formed. I really didn’t have the ability to choose who to be; it was a matter of
worker alter ego: “I am a person. You are not. I make the decisions. You do not.” She is the dominant persona — the one who matters, the one who gets to live. I believe this exemplifies the tension between home life and university life. By choosing to leave home, you’re choosing to follow a certain path. A path is linear; you can’t be at the beginning and at the end at the same time. Even if you loved your hometown, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that it was your choice to go somewhere else, to give your life to another community. As you walk that new path, you become more comfortable on the road than in the place where you started. Progress is always understood to
be more valuable than staying the same. But this way of seeing things also isn’t necessarily healthy. It’s an unimpeachable fact that I am the same person wherever I am. The ‘severed’ nature of the two identities is more of a byproduct of my value judgment than of any real irreconcilability between them. Last summer, I realised that the real challenge wasn’t missing my university-self, but uniting my two selves so that I could discover whoever was waiting in between the two extremes. I had assumed that my homeself was useless to me, someone to work at dismantling. I refused to recognise that my home-self wasn’t defined by my worst aspects but, in fact, by my best aspects. Everything my parents taught me, the kindness I learned through living peacefully, the time I gave myself to read and learn represented the only things that made the creation of a university persona possible. Who would I be if I ripped out those foundations?
Not someone who’d choose to go shopping, or who’d sit in the park and read, or who’d go out at night. I’d be someone unrecognisable, someone worse. Over this most recent reading week, I went home. It was still difficult to resist backsliding into my old self, but I tried thinking differently. I invested a new importance in all of the things I felt I’d left behind. I looked through my books, the things I drew on the walls, the things I left stuffed into boxes, and, finally, the brochure from St Andrews I brought home during my senior year of high school. In Severance, the process of recombining your two split personas is called reintegration. When I found that brochure, I abruptly reintegrated. The persona between the two extremes emerged, and I felt grateful for my old self. Ultimately, how could I resent him? Looking at that brochure — the thing I once flipped through while I dreamt of progress — I suddenly understood that I’ve never been anybody else.
Illustration by Isabelle Holloway
Devil’s Advocate
Should you move out of student accomodation?
AVERY COHEN
Let’s start with the question on everyone’s mind: why on earth would you actively choose to stay in student accommodation? Staying in halls is for the students who weren’t social enough to make any non-fresher friends their first year to take a flat over from or for those whose parents don’t trust them not to stick their fingers into an outlet and go up in flames. Neither group is particularly enticing to be a part of. Not to let my PTSD(RA) speak for me, but having a place to call your own, not subject to arbitrary or unjust university standards, is the starting point of adulthood. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t had a smug smile creep on my face every night in my non-hall home when I go to charge my phone in my EU adapter without the fear of it getting confiscated if I wake up too hungover to hide it during room inspection. Three years in, I’ve refused every opportunity to buy a UK plug for precisely that reason — trust me, the Brits won’t win this one.
Now, this isn’t based on a salty pettiness about my own accommodation nightmares. Having spent the past three years between the Fife Projects and the Badlands, I’ll admit that my housing situation has not been reflective of my BNOC status as one of St Andrews’ finest. If you had the luck of living in town your first year and having all your meals catered for you, we have had radically different housing experiences. The closest I’ve come to pre-paid catering is mooching cold leftover curly fries off of the Aikman’s floor at close and calling it ‘dinner’.
Life is just far too breezy and predictable when you have the comfort that you’ll still know when your next hot meal will be, no matter how stupidly you flush away all your student loans. Where’s the mystery? Importantly, how does that teach you the skills you’re supposed to be learning and growing from in your university days? What happens when you’re fresh out of uni receiving your first (of many) minimum wage paycheck, just to, at the ripe age of 23, discover that you can’t blow £1,200 on mixing decks in the hopes of launching a DJ
career? Living outside of accommodation (allegedly) teaches you these things: how to manage money and what to prioritise.
If you’re a second year — or worse, an honours student — living in student accommodation, you’re being deprived of more than you’re being given. At a certain point, I think we should all be entitled to a little privacy. The privilege to choose who you live with should not be taken for granted. Whether your vice is unforgivably loud
In a perfect world, I, too, would keep a hygienic distance from freshers. But needs must — and, this January, as the house hunt loomed, and my slew of toadying hints to graduating fourth years fell flat (“Your eyes are iridescent, John. What’s next for your flatshare?”) I sipped the bitter cup and accepted Mac for my third year. As it happens, the hemlock went down quite well — I’m now quite chuffed. Let me explain why. I’ll start with the glum side: staying in
sex on the communal livingroom couch, doing your dishes bi-yearly, or waking up after a blackout to your flatmate asking why his fresh loaf of bread has a single bite taken out of it (my own flat’s trifectaof-sin), strangers shouldn’t be subjected to that. Choosing the correct housemates to let you get away with your debauchery is step one of building up the blinded, impenetrable ego this town demands of you.
I will leave you with a word of encouragement, something for those of you departing from halls this term and anxious for the road ahead. Upon asking a resident of South Street what he appreciates about his post-hall housing, his answer is one I believe to resonate with us all: “I can now have guns and raclette machines.” And what more could a university student be after?
olds will be your main co-dweller. But do not fear! You and the other non-Freshers can huddle ‘round the far end of the canteen and glare at anyone who comes near, like a spooked centrist coalition hurling up a cordon sanitaire against the far-right. You’ll make fast friends with the other oldies — shared trauma tends to do that. Some might castigate hall-stayers as coddled, regressing back to an infant-like state of dependency and quailing from the scary HMO-filled world outside. I will wear that badge with honour. Hall life, especially catered, is indeed Jabba-like — you become a great quivering blob whose every need is attended to by hordes of attendants. No cooking, minimal cleaning, on-hand
emergency electricians. The risk of being fed to the great sand-crusted maw of the Sarlac (failing your room inspection) is admittedly present — but, if things get hairy, you can always zhuzh round the lightsabre (hide the dirty dishes under the bed). If disaster strikes in catered halls, the porter is a panic button away. Lets say, to give a purely hypothetical example, you shut the lid of your waffle maker on the power cable, and, in an entirely unrelated sequence of events, the circuitry in your flat kitchen decides to blow out. In a DRA flat? No problemo. The emergency, pre-paid electrician will be quickly called by the on-hand porter, and the incident will be dealt with. If, however, a waffle maker-related calamity befalls in a private flatshare? Good luck getting your bastard landlord round before Christmas. If thou still doubtest, let me remind you of the alternative. The flat hunt is the pits. There are the well-known complaints: having to pay for heating means not paying for heating, which means taking your Aikman’s link-up back to your Siberian snow cave and doing a survival huddle by the space heater instead of any rumpy-pumpy. And don’t get me started on your flatmates. Absent from the cleansing, Biblical fire of the DRA room inspections, I have heard tales of inch-thick dust layers mossing up bedrooms, of seeing something writhing amid last Friday’s dirty dishes. Let me end with perhaps the greatest plus of Halls life: no matter how low you sink, no matter how whingeing your extension requests become, no matter what dire shape your love life curdles into, you will still come home and enjoy a feeling of life-giving moral superiority, for there will always be a seventeen-and-a-half year old shambolic enough to leave a margarita on the pool table.
Illustration by Elizabeth Lang
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Saint.
SUNAA AHMED Viewpoint Writer
Ever to Excel? On leaving the bubble
The Venerable Bede, in a fit of despair caused by the nihilistic outlook of his pagan contemporaries, compared life on Earth for the non-believer to the flight of a sparrow through a mead-hall. For one moment, the sparrow may bask in the room’s ale-scented glow, enjoying the drunken chatter of the men and women who mingle there. Yet his admission to this sanctuary is all too brief. Outside, the biting chill of a British winter rages, and the little bird must soon return to the dark unknown from which it has emerged. Though I am perhaps indulging myself, I think the somewhat tragic metaphor can be applied to the journey of the student in St Andrews.
Fresh-faced and pitifully naive, we are thrust into the mead-hall at the tender age of eighteen and proceed to glide through four years of similarly alescented debauchery, years in which the blustering reality of the outside world fades into pleasant memory. Life in the bubble — a cocktail of costumed pub crawls, sweaty house parties, and latenight dips — possess much of the flickering warmth, the slightly claustrophobic sense of comfort one associates with the Germanic alehouse. Yet, if we students are the sparrow, what happens to us frail creatures when the doors are behind us for good?
For starters, we must experience the startling revelation that the world is bigger than the three streets we’re used to. When that long-awaited moment arrives, the feeling will be bittersweet. After four years of recycling the same tired pubs, the same overpriced restaurants, four years of beach walks, Taste paninis, and sanity-restoring trips to Crail, suddenly it’s all over. The world that awaits you is likely one of unlimited choice, pubs so numerous that you can never sample them all, faces in such abundance that most will remain strangers. Of course, the delicious freedom of our twenties is a privilege, and something that the cloistered St Andrews student will likely throw themselves into. Yet after four years in such a little bubble, I imagine I am not the only one who fears floating into the big, wide world.
The truth is, there’s nowhere quite like St Andrews. I was told this on my first week here, during a chance late-night encounter with a pair of ex-students on West Sands. Ejected from Aikman’s at closing time, I wandered onto the beach in the hope of finding an escape from the bustle of Freshers’ in the clarity of a Scottish night sky. Instead, I discovered two more than slightly inebriated
the night before. Yes, the sense that you are under constant surveillance is maddening at times, but faced with the prospect of losing it, I’m almost saddened at the thought of never being part of something so intimate again. It’s an intimacy that dominates life here. One that is terrifying at first, as you are faced with the prospect of fewer streets to explore than years you will spend here. Yet it is an
along the lines of never taking the town for granted. At the time, I felt there was something fated about that meeting, as if I had stumbled into some version of my future self, sent to warn me against letting the next four years of my life pass me by.
I don’t believe I ever did. In fact, with each year, I appreciate with renewed wonder just how extraordinary this place is. Nowhere does familiarity like St Andrews, the sense of collective boredom that breeds camaraderie amongst even the most dissimilar of students. In a town where everyone knows everyone, we are all subject to the same scrutinising judgement as we rush into Sainsbury’s in our pyjamas or stumble in late to a Thursday-morning tutorial reeking of
Serial Griever
by Natasha Currie
Pleasing parents everywhere, this week, I have brought my sister, Rebecca, along for my final column piece in The Saint. As with all siblings, our relationship has changed as we have gotten older, and things like sharing clothes have overtaken fighting over toys as the prevalent issues in our lives. As such, a pivotal bonding point in our grief has been sorting through our mother’s extensive and well-thought-out wardrobe, and we are still only halfway through.
In many respects, I do leave St Andrews ill-equipped to face the real world, in which responsibilities and problems spiral far beyond the ones I have grown accustomed to in this toy town I call home. Yet I leave with the sense that I have been part of something entirely unique, and I have got through it with friends who, after so many nights out, nights in, nights spent arguing about the state of our flat or the state of the world, are so much more than friends. As I battle the mingled panic and relief of my final few weeks, I feel sure of one thing — that of all the mead-halls I could have flown through, I’m bloody lucky I chose this one.
The decision was made early on that both of us would proudly wear her clothes, jewellery, cowboy boots, and leather jackets. This is something that might have felt weird to us before, but it has become the truest source of comfort while also increasing our respective Glasgow and St Andrews street styles. I asked Rebecca about her own thoughts on this: “It feels only right that we both carry a piece of her with us — literally. Wearing her clothes has become something quietly powerful. It’s like slipping into a memory. Some mornings, I’ll put on one of her jumpers and feel braver. Other days, it’s just for comfort. It’s strange how something as simple as a cardigan can make you feel held. We’ve laughed over some of her more questionable fashion choices and cried over the ones that still hold her scent. Sometimes we would disagree over who gets what, Tasha wanted the brown cowboy boots — she eventually caved on that battle — but even that feels like a form of love. A love for her wardrobe is a love for her. Her style was bold and vibrant yet also chic and classy. In a way, we’re learning more about her, and about ourselves, with every outfit. We’ve started styling things our own way, mixing her pieces into our lives, like building up a map that helps us find our way back to her memory.” Some people may call this materialistic or trivialise our connection to physical items, but, reflecting on this, I find real beauty in the way both of our styles evolved to include a piece of her. The physicality of owning her clothes, wearing her clothes, and spilling prosecco on clothes she would have spilt prosecco on, is something to be cherished. If people dress to define who they want to be and who they are, I am proud to be defined by my mother’s clothes. As this is my last column piece ever in St Andrews, I just want to pop a little thank you: Thank you, Saint readers, for entering my stream of consciousness and for following me along this little part of my journey.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Saint.
Illustration by Lucy Maitland-Lewis
LEWIS MACKINLAY Viewpoint Writer
As Bridgit Mendler once sang, “You’ll be my William, I’ll be your Kate, livin’ like a fairytale. We could have a palace right next to Oprah, 37 cars and a yacht down in Boca” (singing it in your head yet?) It seems Harry and Meghan may have taken those lyrics a bit too literally. Once seen as the dazzling new faces of a modern monarchy — Harry, the rebellious spare with a wounded heart, and Meghan, the ambitious American actress with a tiara-ready smile — their story captured the world’s imagination. But five years after their dramatic royal exit — ‘Megxit’ as it’s snidely dubbed — the fairytale has taken a turn. With Harry stepping back from Sentebale, the charity he co-founded, and persistent rumors of personal strain, we’re left wondering: where did it all go wrong?
In hindsight, the warning bells rang well before the wedding bells. When their engagement was announced, many were struck by the very public fractures in Meghan’s family. Her father, Thomas Markle, made repeated media appearances pleading for contact, while halfsiblings aired grievances from across the pond. The concern wasn’t just
How Not to Be a Royal
Checking in with Harry and Meghan
tabloid titillation — it was a genuine public unease about what happens when someone with strained family ties enters an institution built on lineage, duty, and continuity.
And yet, there was optimism. A hope that Harry and Meghan could modernise the Firm, injecting it with relevance, compassion, and a touch of celebrity energy. But rather than modernise from within, they chose a different route as halfin, half-out royals. They would step back from duties, live abroad, and speak openly about grievances — yet retain their titles, expect taxpayerfunded security, and still wield royal cachet. The arrangement was novel and, ultimately, untenable.
Harry
has long blamed the press for his mother’s death and the intrusion that stole his youth. But there’s a touch of contradiction in the Sussexes’ relationship with the media. Since moving to the US, they’ve courted the limelight through multimilliondollar deals — including a tell-all Oprah interview watched by millions across the globe and a $100 million Netflix contract. The very industry they accuse of hounding them became, briefly, their cash-cow.
But that brand — built largely on grievance and institutional critique — is running out of steam. Grievance has a shelf life. Eventually, audiences want more than someone else’s family score-settling. They’ve tried to deliver that “more”, but with little success. The segue from royal drama to lifestyle content hasn’t landed.
Spotify dropped Meghan’s podcast Archetypes after one season, with a senior executive reportedly calling the couple “grifters”. Netflix quietly axed Meghan’s animated project Pearl, and her new curated film series With Love, Meghan was panned by critics: “high on gloss, low on human connection”, said British Vogue; “toecurlingly unlovable”, sneered The Guardian What’s left is a story in limbo. On one side of the Atlantic, the royals carry on — William and Kate remain popular, modernising quietly and without drama. On
Another Year Gained
the other, the Sussexes seem increasingly adrift, caught between celebrity and royalty, never fully embraced by either.
The UK will always be Harry’s home — and, by extension, Meghan’s, too. And I’m sure the hospitable British public would — despite low poll ratings — welcome them back when the time is right. William and Harry, through shared grievance with the public, will always have a place in the nation’s heart.
And that is perhaps the real pity. Because there was a version of this tale that could have ended differently. Had Meghan weathered the storm a little longer, had Harry shown more patience, they might have reshaped the establishment from within. Instead, they walked away from the very thing so many dream of — only to find that life outside the palace gates is no fairy tale either.
That was the fascination with Megxit all along. The public’s captivation was rooted in disbelief: how bad could it really have been? But when the answer turned out to be “not all that bad”, interest waned. The plot stalled, stuck in a loop of blame. And now, five years on, the world is moving on — even if the couple haven’t. So, if you ever find yourself marrying into royalty (don’t laugh — stranger things have happened in St Andrews), maybe give it some more time. Life behind palace walls might just suit you after all.
Illustration
by Charles
MacBeth
SAFFRON ROWELL Viewpoint Writer
Growing up is relatively easy. It’s measurable. It’s also pretty unavoidable. Life is defined by piano tiles of dark lines etched onto the kitchen wall, relatives telling you just how big you’ve gotten, and a new pair of shoes and school uniform every year because, yet again, it doesn’t fit anymore. Most hardship, most of the little ugliness of life can be put down, in some way or another, to growth.
“You’re still growing.”
“She’s just going through a phase.”
“That ache in your wrist? Bless, darling, that’s just growing pains.”
Something about society’s treatment of growth changes once we stop physically growing. While we stay in motion, absorbing and fluctuating, all of the physical markers are lost; change is inevitable, but it’s just less perceptible to and less acknowledged by the world around us.
That doesn’t make growth any less complex. It takes all of you. There’s the overwhelming knowledge that you stand at the edge of your own fig tree. Countless lives pass by as you sit. Moreover, you’re now at an age where it takes a reasoned choice to prepare for this. You lose your parents, teachers, and much of the structure of your life. Now, there is no one left to do it for you. Life has already started; if you’re not ready, you will miss it completely.
There’s a counterbalance to this, the haste to get going and be ready for the world. It’s an awareness that any step into your own future, you can’t take back. We can never become younger, more innocent, more naive, not without undoing the progress we’ve made. This knowledge, to me at least, can be excruciating. Is everything that I learn, every person that I meet, taking me further away from the girl I once was? Is every new experience just another step away from the comfort of childhood, of safety and reliance?
How do we know what to shed from
ourselves, what to hold onto, which parts of ourselves to stay true to? There must be some fundamental aspects to one’s personality that stand fast, while the rest slots in place around them. Or are all of us in flux, changing throughout our lives by situation or by conscious choice?
I suppose the real question is, how much of ourselves can we keep as we grow? Privileged to get to watch some of my best friends grow from children into teenagers and now pseudo-adults, I’ve found different archetypes of growth in all of them. Some, like butterflies, transform from one creature into another, recognisable only by the colour of their laugh or a quirk in speech ingrained since age six. For others, the transformation is so entire that they can only be described as a phoenix — dead one moment and completely reborn from the same atoms in another. Most people, I think, are like house cats: ageing gracefully into a larger, nearidentical version of their younger selves.
In a town that seems stuck in time,
unchanged as we are by each semester, it’s funny to reflect on what a year has done to me. In some ways, it has felt like a year-long settling down and easing in. In others, the change has been so intense that I’ve felt like a scraggly teenage boy, limbs stretched out of my sockets in seconds, hiccups and voice cracks abound. Ultimately, I like to think that this year has been one of evolutionary growth. A snake, say, shedding an outer layer of scales, dirt, and dust, emerging a fresh, softer version of myself. Closer, I hope, to my core. The growing pains have been worth it — I think they always are. Don’t stress about the ways in which you are changing, or how, or why. Just know that it will come, and do as well as you can by the person that you want to be. Even if our growth is unavoidable, it is also important. The pain is a good sign. Like the ache in your wrists, it reminds you that you are in motion, and of what you can become.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Saint.
You’re no Confucius, Just a Doofus
I don’t want to have a deep conversation with you
POPPIENA HORSINGTON Viewpoint Writer
Given the miniscule scale of this town, on nights out, it can feel like everyone pours out to party along with you. Luckily, this means you have a decent chance of bumping into some good acquaintances. Sadly, with the yang comes the yin. It also means that you have the painful potential of being caught out by unexpected opps. Only recently, though, have I been made aware of a hidden enemy, one that lies among us, waiting to pounce. This is the pseudo-philosopher, a pestilence that stalks the darkness, waiting to unload their innermost monologue on an unsuspecting victim. Their ideas are obviously insanely profound and absolutely necessary to hear. In my experience, these deep-down thoughts are sometimes immured for a reason, and I plead that we refrain from pouring them out to whoever happens to be sitting next to us in the smoking area. Allow me to clarify. The pseudophilosopher materialises when you least expect (and want) them to. Often inebriated and always armed with a flurry of ‘deep’ talking points, it feels as though they seek you out to pull you into a conversation you want nothing to do with. Forget about your missing friend
and listen to this boring man talk at you about how people are like stars. Sweating to death and you need air? Okay, but it will come at the cost of a breathy rant about what happens when we die. Will we ever know? Isn’t that truly one of the biggest shames of life? No. The biggest shame is that I made the god-awful
conversation that truly leads nowhere. Please don’t accuse me of antiintellectualism. I refuse to believe this is the best philosophy has to offer us, and if it is then truly we have made no strides. Additionally, I am not referring to people who drunkenly unload their trauma onto you on nights out — I think they get enough self-inflicted shame the morning afterwards. Sure, counterfeit Confucius is well-entitled to speak his mind, no matter how mentally taxing it is to listen to his ‘um’s and ‘ah’s as he tries to remember why he began his sentence. Yet I also have the right not to listen — this right is continuously denied me as he creeps closer and closer. With no escape, I struggle to find the antidote to this pox. I’ve tried numerous approaches, believe me. I’ve indulged their ramblings and asked them
more
questions, in the hope they weren’t expecting to be interrogated and give up. I’ve argued back, and hoped the unstoppable force would meet an immovable object. Against my nature, I’ve been silent and wished that my visible aversion to their conversation would force a surrender and retreat. In all cases, the enemy has won, as I have somehow been coerced into spending time with them. The only possible solution I’ve found is to locate another one of their kind. However, this raises its own challenge of having to go out of your way to interact with more pretentiously profound people who have the next deepest thought no one has thought of yet. Moreover, like magnets, there is a chance that the two phony thinkers repel each other. The relationship between the thinker and the innocent victim is parasitic, and the thinker depends on the unwillingness of the victim to survive. I’ve gone into the mind of a killer and forced myself to have these complex ponderings to best learn how to cure this blight. To the pseudo-philosopher who forces deep conversation with me at midnight: you are the bane of my social outings, and I hope one day you will be forced to experience the same flurry of boredom, anger, and disdain as I have felt sitting there listening to you.
Illustration by Sarah
Knight
Ditching the ‘Big Fish’ Mentality
STELLA PAK-GUÉNETTE Viewpoint Writer
If you stare at a fish tank in a dentist’s office long enough, you’ll realise something strange: the fish aren’t freaking out. They’re not sizing each other up or fighting to be the star of the tank. One’s lazily orbiting a fake coral reef, another has wedged itself behind a decorative pirate ship, and there’s always that one lying suspiciously still, toeing the line between nap and obituary. Point is, none of them are stressing about being the ‘biggest’ fish. Somehow, though, they’re all doing just fine.
The ‘big fish, small pond’ idiom is a weird one if you think about it. It’s one of those phrases that your uncle tosses around like it’s deeply wise, but the more I heard it growing up, the more I started to wonder: why is just being a fish not enough, why must we be the biggest one, splashing around in a big puddle of inflated superiority?
In high school, I was told that going to a big-name university would make me a
“small fish in a big pond” — as though that was something to be feared. But maybe being surrounded by other capable and brilliant fish isn’t the end of the world.
We’ve been conditioned to dread spaces where we’re not in the top one per cent.
The horror of not being the most talkedabout fish is so deeply ingrained that people will happily shrink their environments only to feel like they’re at the top.
This mindset follows us everywhere. People deliberately choose jobs, schools, and opportunities where they can feel superior, where they can post about their ‘impact’ on LinkedIn without silently sweating that someone in the comments is curing cancer. We chase titles, accolades, follower counts — all to prove we’re not just swimming, we’re dominating.
Here’s the thing: I’m starting to question why that’s so important. The desire to be the biggest, the loudest, the most ‘impressive’ doesn’t really feel all that appealing anymore. Lately, I’ve been growing to be more happy with a radical idea: what if I’m just… a fish?
Apparently, this is a controversial notion. In the world of productivity culture, mediocrity is a crime. You can’t just ‘swim’, you have to be constantly listening to selfhelp podcasts hosted by 28-year-olds who call themselves ‘founders’, reading The Daily Stoic unironically, and pretending you’ve never watched an episode of Modern Family because your screen time only goes towards ‘curated, educational content’.
Now, reader, this isn’t to imply that someone who isn’t a big fish is lazy or unmotivated. Honestly, it’s not even a question of ambition at all. It’s about rejecting the exhausting idea that our worth only exists in contrast to other people’s lack. I don’t want to enter every room hoping I’m the smartest or most polished. Smartest in the room? Time to find a new room.
The Stanford Duck Syndrome is a perfect example of the ‘big fish, small pond’ mentality. A friend of mine who goes to Stanford explained it to me: it’s this unspoken rule that students are expected to glide through everything, appearing calm
and effortless, while underneath, they’re paddling like hell to stay afloat. It’s the same thing we all do. It’s the ‘big fish’ mindset at play, where we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others in the pond, trying to see who’s the most composed. Perhaps we need to stop comparing ourselves to other ducks in the pond, constantly checking if we’re the most composed one, and start embracing the awkward, messy paddling because at least it’s honest. I think about the dentist fish tank again. They’re not caught up in the next big thing or sizing up the others around them. Yes, they’re just fish, but it’s still a decent metaphor. There’s no comparison, no pageant, no pond politics. Maybe the key is to stop comparing ourselves to everyone else and start appreciating that we’re in the tank at all. Winning at fishhood doesn’t actually seem worth it. I don’t want to live in a pond just small enough to make me feel superior to others. I’d rather swim in an ocean, surrounded by fish who are more focused on the swim than the show.
GAYATRI CHATTERJI Viewpoint Writer
Bad for the Brand
Being performative: profits and pitfalls
The other day, I woke up feeling extra edgy. I wore black, leather, and eyeliner as I stomped out of the door, determined to milk my edginess for the day, to be a physical manifestation of how I felt and how I’d once been told I come off as.
About two minutes into my daily coffee run, it fell apart when I couldn’t help but kneel and play peek-a-boo with the toddler in the queue in front of me as she stared up at me with her big eyes. After the toddler waddled out, dragged by a father juggling several coffees, I sprung up and chuckled to myself thinking, “That was bad for the brand”. Then I silently laughed at myself for thinking that, because, realistically, no one cares that I played with a child. Wearing a leather jacket didn’t make me any less of a softy.
It’s this spotlight effect that makes us feel like we always perform our way through life, that we feel like we have some sort of a reputation to uphold. However, with time, I’ve come to realise that while we can laugh at ourselves for moments where we take ourselves so seriously, there is nothing wrong with a bit of performative self-expression.
Having entered the final stages of
adolescence, I have long tried to understand exactly what defined and constituted this stage of life, a stage that has long been given this weight and special status in popular culture. This romanticisation of the transition from teenagehood into your early twenties feels somewhat deceptive: no one talks about the all-encompassing and utterly overwhelming sense of just not really knowing yourself.
In your late teens and early twenties, you’re doing most things for the first time.
“There is a pressure to both coform and stand out .”
One of the best examples of this is entering a new environment such as uni, in which there is a pressure to both conform and stand out, to be different and know yourself, while still fitting in. To have an identity that is distinctly yours, as long as it is one people will find attractive. Finding that middle ground, calibrating some kind of balance between who you are and how you want to be perceived, is exactly how I’d characterise this stage of life. Some famous
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www.thesaint.scot/viewpoint
An Extended Viewpoint: In Defence of Philosophy
AGATA MALA & ALEX
MCQUIBBAN
Viewpoint Writers
If you’ve ever confessed at a family dinner or a social gathering that you’re studying philosophy, you’ve probably been met with a range of bemused or horrified expressions, accompanied by sarcastic comments like “Oh, so you’re aiming for unemployment?” or “Nice! You’ve decided you don’t need actual skills then?”
Philosophy students everywhere are likely familiar with these stereotypes, but they can find solace in the fact that the philosophers they study faced similar treatment. Take Socrates, for example. Opinions on him differ: some consider him to be the greatest thinker to have ever lived, others think he was just kind of alright, and many people (including some we know personally) would really rather
not have to hear about him or his equally nauseating student Plato anymore. In fact, many of Socrates’ contemporaries couldn’t stand him and his constant questioning either. The Greek comic Aristophanes wrote a whole play depicting Socrates as an air-head fraud who was more attached to sophisticated argumentation than to reality.
Of course, at the turn of the 4th century B.C., Socrates’ incessant philosophising and general questioning of society’s most basic institutions and cherished values eventually got him put on trial. He was executed. Protip: that “the unexamined life is not worth living” is not a good defense when capital punishment is on the table. And, though we do not advocate putting any philosopher to death (no, not even Hegel), we do appreciate that leading an over-examined life can be equally soul-sucking not just for oneself but also for others... continued online
person on a podcast I listened to years ago described youth perfectly: adolescence is a time where you find yourself “shopping for a personality”. You see traits in others, view them as aspirations, and try them out for yourself. Some feel like they’re meant just for you, and they stick. Others don’t. Everyone has had embarrassing phases. The ‘canon event’ may include a hyperfixation on some kind of depressive philosophy (Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky seem to be popular choices), getting into some ‘alternative’ artist (who is actually very well known), and swearing that no one understands you. We laugh now, but, at the time, it’s all we wanted to be seen as. I’d be willing to bet that whatever literature you read and music you listened to shaped you at least a little, even if it was performative. It’s okay and important to embrace the idea that we change, especially at this age. My parents still joke about the very visceral shift in how I carried myself the second I stepped foot in St Regulus Hall, where I lived my first year. The urgency with which I began to curate every aspect of myself, anxious to do everything deliberately to grasp a sense of control over how I was being perceived. I guess I, like many, saw this as a pivotal opportunity
to reinvent myself and escape the image
“I began to curate every aspect of myself, to do everything deliberately.”
I’d been stuck with in school. I saw my fresher self as the ‘best’ and coolest version of me because I learnt to dress like those around me and speak like them. Ultimately, though, that wasn’t really me. However, it certainly brought me closer to who I am now, and we will continue to change and look back on our silly younger selves. We are the cumulative of every experience we’ve had, every choice we’ve made, whether or not it reflects the truest version of ourselves. Even if performative acts of self-identification are just inherently ‘trial and error’, they are the best (and really only way) of knowing yourself. So forgive yourself for the eyeliner phase, and maybe the next time you’re feeling edgy, put on that leather jacket and go live it.
“What’s Your Diss On?” Good work grows from what you already know
MISTRAL ZERBI Viewpoint Writer
The dissertation is often framed as the climax of the undergraduate experience, the crowning moment when four years of knowledge, skills, and ambition are finally channelled into a single, bound piece of work. For many students, it becomes a symbol of intellectual achievement, the chance to prove oneself a respectable academic weapon. With that pressure often comes the desire to write something ‘impressive’ — something ground-breaking, controversial, or difficult. A piece of work so original and sophisticated that it could rival the philosophers or theorists we studied. After spending four years writing essays criticising the theories of Silver Professors and PhD scholars with our honours student knowledge, it’s unsurprising that we have built a sense of inflated confidence in our own theories. But here’s the honest truth: your dissertation does not need to make you the next Voltaire.
In fact, it shouldn’t. What it should do is reflect you — your interests, your values, your curiosities. No matter how exciting your thesis is, you’re going to live with this project for months. You will talk about it in seminars, bring it up at dinners, dream about it and spend countless hours tweaking, editing, questioning, and restructuring it.
Remember how frustrating the question “what do you study?” was by the end of our first year? Well, “what’s your diss on?” is the fourth-year equivalent. You will not escape the topic anymore. So, the least you can do is choose a subject you genuinely like.
A common trap students fall into is picking a dissertation topic because it sounds clever or particularly challenging. We think about a project that will be respectable or ‘impressive’, and often forget to prioritise something that we are interested in researching, even if nobody else seems to care. Actually, the more niche and precise the topic is, the more it might be interesting to supervisors, who certainly find themselves reading similar topics every year... continued online
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Saint.
MANRAJ GILL Guest Writer
EDITOR: SIMON EZRA JACKSON
The Language of Liberation Visiting Noor Community in Palestine
At 27, Amir has seen more war than most people will see in a lifetime. Growing up in the Aida refugee camp in the West Bank — the most tear-gassed place in the world — his childhood consisted of stinging eyes, sniper fire, and stone-throwing. His fiancée, 25-year-old Layla, has suffered no less. Living in the besieged Gaza Strip, she has endured relentless bombardment, suffocating blockades, and the devastating toll of death and displacement brought by Israel’s latest war with Hamas. Since 7 October, 2023, Amir and Layla have been physically separated, and even communication between the two has been reduced to fleeting, unreliable moments. That all changed with the arrival of Noor Community, an educational network offering free English lessons to Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza. Through Noor’s online classes, Amir and Layla have been able to reconnect — regularly talking, laughing, and learning — despite the war that rages on around them.
Last month, I spoke to Gabriel BeckfordTongs, co-founder of Noor Community and a student at St Andrews. Born and raised in England, Gabriel grew up in an activist family. “Mum was a stalwart of the anti-apartheid movement,” he explains, “and her campaigning instilled in me a sense of social justice from an early age.” Gabriel credits this upbringing — and his Christian faith — with guiding him towards Palestine. “It had always been on my radar,” he reflects, “but it was not until March of last year when the horrific images coming out of Gaza compelled me to act.”
At the time, Gabriel had recently pivoted from a career in music to focus on English, and was working towards his TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) qualification at the University of St Andrews. “I conducted a skills assessment, and realised I could help by offering English lessons to communities affected by the violence.”
Dissatisfied with existing projects, many of which he felt lacked focus on local empowerment and risked perpetuating colonial models of aid and education, Gabriel decided to start his own. He reached out to Manar Qarage, co-founder of the Al-Manar Society for Culture and Creativity, a Palestinian organisation based
in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. “The early conversations were tough,” Gabriel tells me. “We had no funding, and the infrastructure to support such a project was fragile at best. It felt like a pipe dream.”
But perseverance bore fruit. In September 2024, Gabriel and Manar officially launched Noor Community, a volunteer-led initiative that provides free English-language education to young Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. What began as a handful of remote classes has since grown
where young Palestinians can find their voice. It aims to maximise their agency, and to provide them with the ability to name and critique the systems that oppress them.”
Such ambitious work has not been without its difficulties. Asked to name the greatest challenge facing Noor Community, Gabriel’s answer is immediate: “trauma”. Although Noor provides students with pastoral support, and Al-Manar employs three social workers trained in psychological care, he stresses that it is not enough: “Our students have endured — and continue to endure — huge amounts of trauma.”
into something much larger. Noor initially focused on general English and IELTS preparation, but quickly expanded to include conversational practice and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) sessions. “It’s organic,” Gabriel says. “We’re constantly getting feedback from our students, and tailoring the programme to meet their needs on the ground. If we’re not listening, we’re not helping.”
The curriculum itself is grounded in principles of critical decolonial education, and all teachers receive meticulous training in Palestinian history and culture before they start. “Noor is about more than language,” Gabriel explains. “It’s about creating a space
Walking through Aida camp with his colleagues on the ground, this trauma is tangible. The nine-metre-high separation wall partially encircles the camp, looming over Palestinian children as they play in the streets. It bristles with imposing watchtowers and innumerable cameras, in a scene more suited to George Orwell’s 1984 than the birthplace of Jesus. The hum of an Israeli drone overhead, too, is a constant reminder that we are being watched — and that we could be killed at any moment. Houses are pockmarked by bullet holes, and their residents are quick to produce the bullet cartridges, tear-gas canisters, and grenade casings fired during military raids on the camp. Conditions have only worsened since the start of the war. Initiatives like Noor have had their activities sharply curtailed, either directly by Israeli authorities or indirectly due to the deteriorating economic situation. Checkpoints, long used as a tool to constrain Palestinian’s daily lives, have multiplied and tightened, further choking freedom of movement. I experienced this personally, spending nearly three hours under the sweltering sun at the Container — an infamous internal checkpoint that straddles the only road linking the north of the West Bank with the south. Likewise, large-scale incursions into cities
“Palestinian children are not terrorists. We are educated, we have goals, we have dreams.”
like Jenin and Tulkarm have intensified, forcing some of Noor Community’s own students to drop out of the programme. Nevertheless, Gabriel still has hope. To date, Noor Community has taught over 100 students across the West Bank and Gaza, and is currently onboarding 60 more, all without institutional funding or corporate backing. He outlines their role in training Palestinian educators, and his aspiration of eventually shifting to a consulting role as Noor becomes entirely Palestinian-run and owned. Even under the current conditions, he has faith that this is possible: “The resilience of the Palestinians inspires and empowers us. Our students move heaven and earth to attend classes, and our local staff to deliver them, even when under outright siege.” Referring to the Palestinian concept of sumud, or steadfastness, he says, “Despite fear, despite terror, despite destruction, they have an inner resolve that bears them through.” Manar, too, echoes this sentiment. Much of her team grew up in Aida camp themselves, and as I speak to her at Al-Manar’s head office in Bethlehem, she outlines their desire to change the image of Palestinian refugees around the world:
“We want to show the world that Palestinian children are not terrorists. We are educated, we have goals, we have dreams.”
At the end of our conversation, I ask Gabriel if he has a message for students at St Andrews who are advocating for Palestine. “We are at an inflection point in history,” he replies, “and it’s our responsibility to bear the torch.” He pauses, then adds softly, “When Amir and Layla see each other’s faces on the screen, even for just a few minutes, it’s a kind of freedom no checkpoint can take away. That’s what we’re fighting for — not just survival, but freedom, dignity, and the right to dream.”
Photo by Manraj Gill
The Death of the Despatch Box
Drinking, dinner-ing, and debating in St Andrews
MRUNMAYI KAMERKAR
Features Writer
“A group of people go to the pub and get drunk,” said Spike McGrath, Appreciator of Real Ale for the St Andrews Conservative and Unionist Association (STAUCA). McGrath was describing STAUCA’s Thatcher Thursdays. Despite the name, Thatcher Thursdays rarely include discussions on British politics.
“I think if I had to describe the setting, it would be cigarettes, wine, and some jazz.”
“I think if I had to describe the setting, it would be cigarettes, wine, and some jazz,” said Juan De Grazia, Head of Communications of the Carnegie Club, to describe the club’s dinner debates. With just sixteen members, the Carnegie club recruits students through a four-month-long process of application forms and drink receptions. “I would say what we look for, if you had to cull it down to one word, would be esoteric,” De Grazia said. “You need to have an edge,” added Henry Wilson-Litt, Carnegie’s Treasurer.
Members of the Carnegie Club host dinner debates at their flats. “We’ll try to sit around one big table and sometimes we’ll have to squeeze in.” It’s like any other potluck — except you’re expected to prepare “the same way you would prepare for a formal debate”. Conversation is guided by a prompt but largely unstructured. With a small group of just sixteen people, De Grazia describes an intimate setting, which is still “focused” — a chance to have lively debate but also “disconnect from the bulls**t of the real world”.
“You would think that not having a large group restricts the amount of perspectives coming in, but because we all try to be very diverse and varied in our thought, everyone gets to say something,” said de Grazia. He defended the exclusivity of the club. “No one is silent, which can happen a lot of the time if you just have it open to everyone.”
The 1984 creates a similar space for unstructured debate with one primary
If you’re a St Andrews student looking for a place to discuss the grand ideas of our day, you’ll find that your options are wide, varied, and very boozy. On weekday nights, a bar tucked away above Mitchell’s, the crowded cellar of Aikman’s, and cramped student flats all set the stage for debates on pressing questions: should we discourage nationalism? Are single people unfulfilled? And ye or nay? Is it okay to stream Kanye’s music? I interviewed members of the Carnegie Club, The 1984, St Andrews Labour, and STAUCA to find out if placing alcohol, unstructured debate, and St Andrews in the same room was the secret to great discourse.
entire student body. Alma de la Tournelle, a second-year, is a regular attendee at the 1984’s bi-weekly discussions at The Hide. She was intimidated her first time, taking a seat in the large circle of chairs set up for attendees. The topic was read out, followed by 40 seconds of silence where “nobody wanted to throw themselves in”. As the session progressed, people countered each other faster and she got less worried about intervening. “The first time I spoke I turned bright red. The third time I spoke it was easier.”
De la Tournelle’s contributions were on Leonard Cohen and metal music — a reflection of her interests. For her, “the way you grew up, the way your parents teach you, your experiences — whether that’s feeling insecure in a country or knowing that a certain economic system works” — are central to the way you contribute to debate.
At Carnegie, Head of Philanthropy Elisabeth Van Meer describes a space where members are free to express the perspectives they come in with. “Being diversely politically doesn’t mean we’re apolitical [...] We are very political,” De Grazia said. “I think apolitical implies that we don’t discuss politics.”
In contrast to Carnegie, de la Tournelle emphasises the value of spaces where everybody is “legitimate enough to speak. If you cap it at a number of people and have a long selection process, you already filter out what kind of discourse you’re going to get at the table.”
St Andrews Labour Society hosts pub nights with a similar aim: creating a space where anyone can speak. Jaiveer Chadda, incoming Chair of the society, describes the value of an informal setting with people “who at the end of the day won’t really care what your opinion is”. The pub setting helps to “lower inhibitions and let the juices flow”. It gives people who aren’t usually confident speakers a chance to speak in an environment that’s “a little bit more casual and a little bit safer”. Each group accommodates a wide range of topics. WilsonLitt described his favourite debate as one on paternalism
and the psychology of fatherhood. Carnegie also has “more grounded” topics, de Grazia added, like the ethics of voting.
“There are people screaming at each other by the end of the night.”
At Labour’s pub nights, topics in the news will often guide conversation. “With the speed of the news cycle, it’s usually pretty obvious to see what we’re going to be talking about,” said Chadda. “We’ll just start shooting the s**t about it.” Chadda recalled a suggestion to debate the restoration of the British Empire. “We vetoed that, on the idea that that’s not something that should be debated.” “If somebody would suggest ‘should trans people have rights?’, we would not debate that.” He describes these topics as ones “that are so obvious it should not be up for debate”. In the case of STAUCA, the committee also avoids potentially controversial topics. “We’re conscientious of what the society looks like on paper,” George Smedley, Chief Whip, said. The committee is cautious to make sure they’re not “getting into the newspaper for some horrific reason”. “We’re also not there to have people fall out or to have really big arguments about British politics,” Smedley explained. Their debates are geared towards a more lighthearted conversation — “a laugh and a joke really”. At their semesterly joint debates with Labour, they set one general motion, one current motion, and one “jokey” motion. “It’s rare that you would have an ideologue going up and talking.” For example, the LabourConservative debate this semester had no motions about the current government. Without the rigid structure of formal debate, Chadda describes the LabourConservative debate as a good chance to let the speaker’s personality shine through. With structured debate it becomes about “how great of a parliamentarian you are or how great of a speaker you are”. With informal debates, though, “it’s more real life.” It’s about thinking on your feet, having to counter somebody’s argument as they say it. As a result, things get heated. “There are people screaming at each other by the end of the night. There’s tons of alcohol, and it really is a lot of fun.”
Illustration by Elizabeth Lang
“It’s Like Learning to Fly”
Inside St Salvator’s Bell Tower
SARAH HASSANEIN Features Writer
On my first tour of St Andrews, I stopped in front of St Salvator’s Chapel to hear the infamous tale of how Patrick Hamilton’s face could be seen burnt into the side of the bell tower. I remember being told to never step on the ‘PH’ lettered in the cobbles in front of the tower, but nothing about what was actually going on inside of it.
Since beginning classes in September, I walked by the bell tower everyday, admiring its beauty and its notable mystique. I began to wonder: how do I get to the bells? Who rings
“I don’t say safer for the person, more safer for the equipment.”
the bells? Could I, possibly, ring the bells?
To find out, I climbed dozens of spiraling steps and a rather rickety ladder to finally arrive at the six bells concealed inside the chapel. They sit on the top floor in two rows of three and are of varying sizes. A rope attached to each of the bells falls through the floor and reaches into a room located a few floors below. In the room, the ends of the six ropes hang along with one practice rope that can be used with a bell-ringing ‘simulator’ for new learners.
Dr Peter Williamson, a member of BellRinging Soc for over fifteen years, has been ringing bells since he was eight years old. His parents were both bell-ringers and even met in the bell-ringing soc at their university. Growing up, Williamson rang at many chapels across the UK, and when he moved to Fife in 2009, he immediately got involved in bell-ringing at St Andrews. He described to me how they use the bell simulator to teach students how to ring.
“[The simulator] is the same setup as a bell — a bell wheel and a weight [...] It’s like learning to fly. You probably don’t go into a fighter jet to learn to fly. You learn in a simulator. I think that it has actually made learning to ring safer and easier. I don’t say safer for the person, more safer for the equipment. This semester we’ve actually taught four people to ring,” said Williamson.
Each of the six bells are named after
somebody important to the community. The two original bells of Sallies Chapel — Katherine and Elizabeth — were brought to St Andrews sometime in the sixteenth century and have resided in the tower for over 400 years.
In 2010, four more bells were added to the chapel to celebrate St Andrews’ 600th anniversary. Named Annie, Agnes, Margaret, and George, these bells needed a crane to be lifted into the bell tower because they could not fit through the spiral staircase.
Annie is the newest of the bells and is the treble bell. She was named after the sister of John Burnet, a former Chair of Greek at St Andrews. Agnes was cast in 1912 and is named after the first female to graduate from St Andrews in 1895. Margaret was named after Saint Margaret of Scotland, who helped pilgrims come to St Andrews. Lastly, George, the largest of the six bells, was cast in 1939 and named after George Buchanan — the personal tutor of Mary Queen of Scots (and a St Leonard’s alumnus).
St Andrews Bell-Ringing society is in charge of ringing the bells on Sundays, graduations, weddings, and other special events. The group meets weekly and is open to any student interested in joining.
First-year Ellie Boosey joined the society during Freshers’ week with no prior experience. She’s learned a lot of ringing patterns since September and even got to ring at the winter graduation ceremonies.
“[Learning the] inner workings of it surprised me. I come from Devon and there’s so many churches and bells there, so I feel like you hear bells all the time, and you never realise the actual, inner workings of [bellringing],” Boosey said.
“You hear bells all the time, and you never realise the actual, inner workings of [bell-ringing].”
Williamson’s favorite part of ringing at St wAndrews is at graduation ceremonies — though it can be stressful, too. They ring at five points during the day, each for over half an hour. “When you’re trying to do some work at the same time, it’s a real juggling act.”
A special part of learning how to ring is the community it brings, Williamson said. He’s been able to ring in churches
How Did a Fourth-Year Get a Penguin Book Deal?
Hannah Heilman
In the midst of writing a 15,000-word dissertation, a fourth-year English student named Matthew is publishing his first book with Penguin Random House. Penguin also offered him a job as an editor of a new division. Other than “performing a surgery,” Matthew told me that doing something creative is the “most impactful thing you could ever do”...continued online
Trump’s Tariffs and Your Tuition Fees
Gracie Jones
“If there’s a recession, how am I gonna be able to find a job this summer?” Honey Rothert, a first-year International Relations and Sustainable Development student, works in the hospitality industry in the US [...] It’s not just summer jobs on the line [...] “A year’s cost of education jumped by about $3,000 in one day”... continued online
Documentaries,
Starbucks,
and Murder
Celia Irving
If a scroll through their Instagram tells you anything, it’s that the ladies of St Andrews Documentary Filmmaking Society (DOCU) know how to curate an aesthetic. Lace, oversized blazers, and a classic burgundy-black palette make DOCU’s committee photoshoot reminiscent of the musical Chicago (Cell Block Tango-chic, anyone?) But unlike battling crime duo Roxie and Velma, DOCU Presidents Amy Taylor and Shelbi Owens are out to film, not murder their husbands ...continued online
“LinkedIn Isn’t a Real Place” Jean Van Der Spuy
They say two thousand zero zero, party over oops out of time. One more week. April spells the end times for a St Andrews student. Like the final days of a holiday, many of us must reconcile with letting the days roll on. Cram as many Taste Coffees, rounds of golf, rounds of pints, and beach days as you like. The end times are here continued online
Illustration by Hannah Beggerow
Atom Bombs and Speaking Arabic
Sir Geoffrey Adams on his diplomatic career
SIMON EZRA-JACKSONFeatures Editor
When Sir Geoffrey Adams was British Ambassador to Iran, then-President George W. Bush summoned him to the Oval Office for a personal meeting. “That was weird,” Adams told me, as we sat amid the clatter of coffee machines in the Market Street Costa. Adams had prepared for a one-on-one with Bush — but when he got there, he ended up getting grilled on Iran by the “entire National Security Council of the United States”.
Adams, now an Honorary Professor at the School of International Relations, first came to St Andrews in the ‘80s to study Arabic. His 42-year career with the Foreign Office included serving as the DirectorGeneral, Political of the Foreign Office, the main adviser to the Foreign Secretary, the British Consul-General in Jerusalem, British Ambassador to Egypt, Iran, and the Netherlands, plus stints in Jeddah, Cape Town, and Paris. Before meeting him, my general impression of diplomacy was that it involved bow ties and cocktail parties. What exactly do diplomats do? Are they just advisers, or do they shape the decisions politicians make? (In other words, are they pencil-pushers or Grand Viziers?)
Adams, perhaps unsurprisingly, was diplomatic about the last question. There’s often a “creative tension”, he said. Civil servants who have been doing the same job for years will be coming at things from a different perspective than ministers who’ll be reshuffled in a year or two. “Sometimes politicians find officials hard to understand, and sometimes officials find politicians hard to understand,” Adams said. But he never found it “awkward” to be overruled by politicians. “I think that’s right [...] no one elected me.”
“Always be shorter than you think [...] and [do] not try to be funny.”
Placing the responsibility on the politician makes it easier to justify promoting policies you might disagree with — but still, if a diplomat cannot in good conscience implement a certain policy, they “need to resign”. On his part, Adams said he always felt the demands of his ambassadorial postings were “reasonable”. It helps that most people in the Foreign Office, including
the centre of politics”.
Being a The Rest Is Politics centrist certainly helps when you’re negotiating treaties, where stepping into the shoes of your counterparts is crucial. For instance, when Adams was dealing with “very difficult and very tough Iranian negotiators” over nuclear proliferation treaties or the release of British hostages, he needed to know where they were coming from. Understanding why Iran sees Britain as “powerful and manipulative” involves understanding the two countries’ history. “As recently as 1953, Britain with the US overthrew a government of Iran in the hope of getting a government that was more amenable to our interests [...] So you can kind of see why Iranians might think that.” Sometimes, though, compromise is not going to happen. “We had to deal with Iran over terrible violations of human rights,” Adams told me. “I couldn’t say, ‘Oh well, maybe it’s understandable’ [...] You have to say, ‘No, we can’t accept that.’”
To properly know his counterparts,
Dutch before his posting at the Hague, even though everyone he worked with spoke perfect English, both reading and listening to the language gave him an insight into Dutch culture that he couldn’t have gotten otherwise.
Being a good public speaker in any language is important — Adams has strong opinions on after-dinner speeches. “I tell people to be brief. Always be shorter than you think [...] and [do] not try to be funny. Too often, I think, people making speeches try to be amusing, and very often it doesn’t work.”
Adams would recommend his job for anyone interested in “living and working abroad, sometimes in difficult places, getting under the skin of countries, working out what makes them tick”. But aspiring diplomats should recognise the drawbacks of the job. For one, it’s hard to raise small kids when you’re constantly moving countries (Tony Blair once asked Adams for child-rearing advice — “important to have a nanny”, Adams replied.) Likewise, If you have a partner, they need to get used to
moving around every couple of years. Adams was “fortunate” in that his wife, a freelance writer, could do her job from abroad. People need to understand they’ll be advancing British interests over other countries: “it’s important to not be naive about that.” But still, the whole point of diplomacy is finding a common ground. “I certainly remember thinking, on occasions, that the person I was negotiating with [...] had a case,” Adams remembered. “Very often, you’re talking to people who are prepared to meet you halfway.”
Nobody should be put off by an impression that diplomacy is just for posh men — that stereotype was true in the 1930s, when Adams’ own father was rejected from the Foreign Office because, back then, diplomats needed substantial personal savings to fund their trips abroad. But these days there’s been a “massive” widening of access, partly led by Adams in his role on the board of the Foreign Office. “Since part of our job is to represent Britain abroad, we should look like modern Britain, both in terms of ethnicity but also in terms of class.” Diplomacy is often frustrating, and Adams isn’t free from regrets — especially from his time in Jerusalem. “Along with many others, we failed to bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians,” Adams said. But his four-decade career has included plenty of achievements, too. Adams was especially proud of his time working in South Africa at the end of Apartheid, where he “played a part, in a small way, in achieving a relatively peaceful transition to democracy”.
“[It’s about] getting under the skin of countries, working out what makes them tick.”
Or, take Adams’ meeting in the Oval Office. President Bush was weighing up whether to invade Iran — Adams reckoned his expert advice, “in a very small way”, helped stop Bush from launching another war. “You shouldn’t be over-ambitious about the amount of good you can do,” Adams told me. “But you can do good, and you should do good, and it’s most certainly not all about going to parties.”
Photo by Alden Arnold
Parting Words
ACROSS
1 Nodded to, perhaps
5 Yurl’s love in ‘Doctor Zhivago’
9 Corn cores
13 Amazonian berry
14 Sherlock’s sister
16 Tons
17 Lip
18 Before, in Barcelona
19 ‘Stormy Weather’ star Horne
20 Not gas-powered
22 see 51-Across*
24 Clair de ______, third movement of ‘Suite Bergamasque’
25 Addams Family actress Neuwirth
26 Diamond measurements
29 Wide-angle shot
33 What a Frenchman might bid you*
34 Start the pot on poker night
35 LOTR’s McKellan
36 Soothing substance
37 Garments worn for pier walk
39 Lily pad locale
40 Machine learning that Meta and Google strive for
41 Mexican beers, for short
42 Courage
43 What a St. Andrews student might say after exams, or an aggressive synonym for the starred clues**
45 adjacent/hypotenuse that might be solved for in trig
46 Chances
47 Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore release
48 Task you might need a handyman for
51 Along with 22-Across, song where the Von Trapps part
55 V minus II
56 Leavening agent
58 Norse god of wisdom
59 Assent in Anatolia
60 Cypriot capital
61 Common starchy staple
62 Marlin finds him
63 Depend (on)
64 Bambi, or Rudolph
Anagrams: Vacation Destinations
EDITOR: ALEX LE SAGE
by Alex Le Sage by Alex Le Sage
Make as many words as possible! Rules: Words must have at least 4 letters and must contain the center letter. Letters can be used multiple times. Scoring: 4 letters words are worth 1 point each. Longer words are worth 1 point per letter. Each puzzle has at least one word which includes all the letters and gives you seven bonus points.
Word Search
DOWN
1 “In this _____”
2 Berkley and Santa Barbara school sys.
3 Lack of difficulty
4 Renounce, like a title or deed
5 Digests information Poet Fields, who later ‘Boston-married’ Orne Jewett
7 Mil. training for teens
8 Alcohol stored in a cask
9 One with a handset
10 Butter alternative
11 City on the Rhine
12 Male 64-Across
15 Yeses
21 Part of a ballet costume
23 Classical woodwind
25 Church of England wedding announcements (and common spelling bee fodder!)
26 Political clique
27 Common maxim
28 Used again, like a candle
29 Swat, as a cat might
30 Mayonnaise kin
31 Massenet opera in 5 parts
32 “The Punisher” Agassi
37 “______ Stranger” (Supertramp hit)
38 Duty
39 It might require a special character
41 Try again
42 Cast a ballot
44 Cocktail with mint and tequila
45 Greet, as one might to the Queen
47 Pau with two NBA championships
48 Creatures hooked by yoke
49 Dig (into)
50 Carpe ____
51 Train ticket cost
52 Carmela’s ‘Sopranos’ actress
53 Mites
54 Train you might take to London
57 Cont. with 11-Down
BALGOVE CASTLE DUNNY GOLF HIGHLANDS
Connections
JANNETTAS MAY DIP OLD COURSE PICNIC PITTENWEEM RUINS SEAGULLS SUNSET TOASTY SHACK WESTSANDS
Crossword by Greta Shope
by Alex Le Sage
Illustration by Magdalena Yiacoumi
by Alex Le Sage
ELISE LIU Photographer
EDITOR: ALDEN ARNOLD
Skating at Spider Park
PHOTO@THESAINT.SCOT
MANRAJ GILL Photographer
Inside the West Bank: Aida Camp
EDITOR: ARNAZ MALLICK
Illustration by Amelia Freeden
Life Lessons From Miranda
“What have you done today to make you feel proud?”
DAVID BUCHAN Editor-in-Chief
The titular character from the BBC sitcom Miranda is everything we strive not to be: clumsy, immature, hopeless with romance, and a regular purchaser of specialist clothing (cough cough, ‘Big and Long’). To put it bluntly, Miranda is a bit weird, isn’t she?
But we all harbour a bit of Miranda in us. Boasting a catalogue of untimely caterwauling, falls, and failed romantic encounters: any embarrassing moment you’ve had, Miranda’s probably done it already. Though I consider myself to be more of a Stevie — Miranda’s pushy and slightly psychotic best friend — I’m guilty of many Miranda-isms from time to time. But if the sitcom has taught me anything, it is that you should embrace embarrassing moments. Every time my friend and I do something clumsy or unfortunate, we say: “What a Miranda moment!” Truly, Miranda is a character we can consult in times of need: the ultimate life-coach. Throughout the series, Miranda is consistently labelled as unattractive — namely freakishly tall and overweight. In the eyes of her pushy mother Penny, she is a failure not simply because she owns a joke shop in Surrey, but because she gradually moves closer to spinsterdom, surrounded by cats Larry, Barry, Carrie, Harry, Glengarry, and Sheila. Miranda’s physical qualities are the antithesis of the ideal bride. Yet
Miranda, amidst undeserving vitriol, embraces her appearance, declaring in season three: “We have something called flesh, because we eat something called cake.” Miranda’s comfort with her body
friend Gary, which, for most of the sitcom, rarely reaches more than a peck, is certainly painstaking but teaches viewers that, while people like Gary can overwhelm us, loving oneself comes first. The pair’s
family — place Miranda on an illfated pedestal; or rather a plinth in which she is treated like a zoo exhibit. Her failed romantic encounters plunge her deeper into maternal disappointment. Miranda’s tumultuous on-off relationship with chef
equally important. Whilst Miranda’s attempts to find love are at the centre of the show, it is not at the expense of her independence and self-fulfilment. Such methods of self-fulfillment are certainly unconventional: fruit-friends,
upside down shower heads, jelly in a blender, snack fishing, and games of ‘Where’s Miranda?’ with Stevie are perhaps not what we get up to in our spare time, or in the aisles of M&S. Nevertheless, they are Miranda’s ways of fun, and the show is anchored by her individuality and unwavering desire to indulge in childlike, humorous activities. Miranda is the personification of not taking yourself too seriously, which is perhaps a pressing issue in this university town. Amidst discussions of recession in the library foyer, I have no doubts that Miranda would flash or giggle at the word ‘thrust’ in order to lighten the mood. But the heartiest message I find in Miranda is ‘who cares?’ Most of the show’s secondary characters are so concerned with how people perceive them, whilst Miranda embodies an ‘oh well’ attitude — particularly to embarrassing moments. In essence, people can think whatever they like, but most importantly: was it funny? Whilst I can’t remember a time when I’ve accidentally displayed my pants in a nightclub, there’ve been many incidents where I should’ve adopted a Miranda attitude and soldiered on. So, eat cake, sing, dance, slap googly eyes on a butternut squash, do whatever you like. Do whatever you fancy, so long as you’re happy. And as you reach the end of the semester — and for some, your university career — if you can be more like Miranda going forward, well that’s just ‘Sue Perb’. Such fun!
Illustration by Maya Mason
The Strange Messages Behind Adolescence
MILLY SMITH Relic Writer
If you haven’t seen Netflix’s new drama Adolescence, then I’m sure you’ve heard about it. It is currently Netflix’s top-rated show globally: a major achievement for a slow-paced drama set in the North of England without any big-hitter actors. It has sparked political and social conversation, and even Keir Starmer is talking about it.
The show centres around thirteenyear-old Jamie Miller who, in the opening sequence of the first episode, is arrested for the murder of his classmate, Katie. Jamie is adamant that he did not commit this crime, and whines and cries in the police station as his family all insist this is some kind of strange mistake. That is, until some pretty damning CCTV footage is presented in which Jamie is caught stabbing Katie seven times. Suddenly he is not a sweet young boy to whom a bad thing has happened, but a cold-blooded killer.
Over the course of the four-part series, I searched for an adequate explanation of the events which led up to Jamie’s decision to stab his classmate. The show, created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham (who plays Jamie’s father), made a conscious decision to not give Jamie an ‘out’ for his act of murder. He comes from an upper-working class family, his parents are happily married, his father is angry but never violent, and he has never been the victim of any abuse. He doesn’t have cause to be a killer. Yet the show seems to suggest being plied with enough online content about the ‘manosphere’ and the ‘80/20 rule’ (80 per cent of women only find twenty per cent of men attractive), other types of Andrew Tate radicalisation, and one girl rejecting him romantically pushed him to the edge, making him procure a knife and murder her in a car park. Thorne affirms that the key difference between him and the show’s protagonist, Jamie, is that “he had the internet to read at night whereas I had Terry Pratchett and Judy Blume.” This is quite a statement
from Thorne. I don’t know anything about him, but I’d like to conjecture that, even with access to a few Andrew Tate videos, he wouldn’t have gone about brandishing a knife at any unsuspecting women that happened to walk by. I just don’t quite buy the show’s message that the rhetoric of the ‘manosphere’ has the ability to poison the minds of all otherwise law-abiding, untroubled boys across the nation. There is also no real-life empirical support to back Thorne’s ideas either; as he says, “there’s no part of this that is based on a true story.”
As such, I find all the extrapolation that has followed the release of this series surrounding the male capacity for unprovoked violence a little far-fetched. There is definitely a lot of gender-based violence committed by men unto women, but I’m pretty sure it preceded both smartphones and Andrew Tate.
Another aspect of this series — and the discourse that followed — I found frustrating was that it was all about men. The show gave us Jamie’s backstory, we met Jamie’s friends, and we saw the effect of his sentencing
on his family. Katie had zero airtime; we didn’t see how her family processed her murder or learn anything about her at all. It was all about the perpetrator, not about the victim. It’s all about male violence, not about the women they commit violence against. All the news coverage that followed the series release also centred around men: are men as violent as the show tells us?
How should we educate a future generation of men? Are young men being radicalised?
An article in The Spectator even went as far as to say that ‘femcels’ were the real problem, and if women didn’t hate men, they wouldn’t feel the need to kill us. Feels a bit like the ‘what was she wearing?’ of a new generation.
The victims of the series being billed as Jamie’s family, not Katie’s, I found quite a strange decision that silences the real victim of the show, and the wider victims of the social problems the show wishes to spotlight.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Reflections with Topping & Co.
Looking for your next read? The Saint and Topping & Co. have come together to save the day. Below are some stories to help you reflect. All books are available locally in store.
Ruby Recommends Morning and Evening by John Fosse
In the morning, a baby is born. A hundred pages later, it’s evening, and an old man is dying. There’s that theory that when we die, we watch our lives replay in just seven seconds that feel like forever. Fosse seems to have captured those seven seconds here. In a minimalistic, stream-of-consciousness style, we follow Johannes about on his last day, where the veil between this life and the next is thinning. In these final, quiet hours, his lifetime of loves, griefs, achievements, regrets — all of it — reappears to him. His thin biography plays out not as a chronology of events, but rather the way memory unfolds, with jumps and starts and blanks, some images bright, some vague. Fosse doesn’t insist that Johannes’s life has had meaning. Like John Williams’ Stoner, it’s the quiet surety of life nonetheless that this book captures.
Harry Recommends The Last Days in Old Europe by Richard Bassett
Part-history, part-travel memoir, The Last Days in Old Europe is Richard Bassett’s account of central Europe from the late ‘70s to the early ‘90s during his career as a journalist for the foreign affairs desk at The Times Moving through the social circles of various regimes, the ghosts of former kingdoms are ever-present. Although the political colours of these countries were profoundly different from their imperial past, much of that late Habsburg world resonates within the people and places of old Danubia. Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, and many other places that we now consider to be separate political entities, were once part of a realm that was simultaneously deeply divided and subtly united. Throughout, Bassett reflects upon his encounters with echoes of states and borders which once presumed themselves to be eternal — until they weren’t. Governments can come and go, borders can be redrawn, but people will always endure, reflect, and remember.
STAFF PICK Arnaz Recommends To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Simpler is Not Always Better
ADRIAN HANLON Relic Writer
From fiction to philosophy, the emphasis these days is on simplicity. Hemingway would probably tell you this is a good thing. Faulkner would probably disagree. And although I think Hemingway, if he ever said such a thing, would have a point, I think Faulkner would too. Simpler is not always better. Take philosophy. Here, the drive towards simplicity is obvious. Philosophy is nuanced, complex, and, especially in contemporary philosophy, often makes a very specific point. It’s not about entertainment, it’s about clarity, so it is unsurprising that virtually every paper of the last few decades starts the same: “First I’m going to do this, then I’m going to do this, then I’m going to do this.” But, philosophy was not always like that. Socrates, for example, never wrote anything down, for he believed that philosophy should be done through dialogue; through questioning and answering and then questioning the answers. He thought this is how you achieved clarity and avoided ambiguity, as points could be challenged and refined in real-time. So, of course, The Dialogues never start with “first I’m going to do this and then this and then this”, because you never know where you’re going to end up. And I think that’s part of their appeal. They take you on a journey, and it’s a journey we lose by whittling down arguments into their simplest form. Besides, simplicity and clarity are not the same thing. The reading level of US Presidential speeches has been steadily decreasing over the past decades, but they are no clearer than before. According to UC Berkeley, the reading level of JFK’s 1961 State of the Union Address was around that of a first-year college student, whilst Trump’s 2018 address was that of an eighth-grader. And yet, when we compare a typical speech from JFK and a typical speech from Trump, whose point comes across better? Was the message
really harder to grasp when Kennedy said: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”, than when Trump said: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats”? And even if it was easier to understand, which would you rather hear?
Perhaps that’s an unfair example, but the point still stands. We gain something when we engage with great speakers like JFK, and we lose something when we don’t. We gain from engaging with complexity, in writing, speech, and ideas. Yes, there are intellectual benefits. When you become accustomed to reading challenging works, hard ones don’t seem so daunting. You can read them faster, and understand them more deeply. The effort you must exert decreases. But there are also aesthetic benefits. Kennedy was not just a great speaker because he said important things; he was a great speaker because his sentences were beautiful. It was not just about the content of his words, but how he combined them. It’s the same for fiction, Dickens being one of the best examples. Of course, he conveys deep themes, creates complex characters, and knows the rules of composition as well as anyone. But a lot of what carries you through his novels is simply the sound of his sentences, which skip and turn and often leave you tongue-tied, yet have a charm and an energy that hooks you to the page.
And yet I do not deny that a simple sentence can be beautiful. I’ve written before about my love for the authors of simple sentences: the Raymond Carvers, the Kazuo Ishiguros, the Claire Keegans. All I’m trying to say is that a complex sentence has a special kind of beauty, a beauty not accessible to everyone. It’s the sort of beauty you get when Great Expectations first hits your ear, and which you don’t get when you try to get the bare facts across. For even in a subject like philosophy, where the point is to convey knowledge, we should surely make space for the entertainment of The Dialogues and cast off the monotony of “first I will do this, and in the end, I will do that”.
You are on holiday with some friends and see a child wearing a Manchester United t-shirt, his fa vourite football team. It’s so cute, so you take a pic ture to send him. Then you realize: you have not been talking for months. It’s silly that it still hurts.
There was a time when his picture was your bookmark. A time when he flew to your country and told you that he loved you for the first time. You were holding hands over the table and Oasis was playing in the background. You said, “Thank you,” and “I’m sorry,” and “I love you too. I have been wanting to tell you for a long time.” A couple weeks later you were strangers. Or maybe even before then, when it was the middle of the night and you wondered who really was the person who was sharing your bed. An alien. Pretty and well-spoken, but an alien nonetheless. A couple of months after the breakup, you discover the truth and your world crumbles. His friends call him immature and manipulative. You would like to tell them it’s a very big mistake. You simply cannot reconcile with the person you danced in the kitchen with, the person who talked about TV series with your mum and poured you wine, laughing “my lady,” with the one they tell you about. And then you feel stupid for still defending him. So you try to move on. You go to parties, kiss strangers, laugh at everything. You think you see him on the street, but you’re wrong. You force yourself to walk the other way. One day you are just tired of this continuous spinning, so you decide that maybe it is better to be on your own. Your mum calls and asks if you are all right with it, and you say that you don’t really mind. Actually, you do, but love is not a currency you feel like wasting. And there are other things. There is writing, and the sea, and hugging your best friend and new music you have never listened to with him. There is not love, and it’s fine for now. Sometimes — but only sometimes, I swear — you still wonder if you cross his mind.
To The Lighthouse is singular, not only because of Woolf’s lyrical writing style, but because of its singular structure, in which there is an entire section named ‘Time Passes’. The reader witnesses the changes that occur over time in the house on the Isle of Skye which the characters return to, rendered unrecognisable and irrevocably changed through death, war, and the passage of time itself. The final section of the book deals with a small number of the original cast of characters returning to the home in which they once lived, and reflecting upon the changes undergone by themselves and those whom they loved in the house, coming to realisations about life. To The Lighthouse is a profound, moving read on human connections, fitting for a time of the year when we are dealing with endings and farewells. do you have a survival story? email arts@thesaint.scot to be featured.
Illustration by Elizabeth Lang
DANIEL ALDERSON Relic Writer
The ‘Paul is Dead’ Conspiracy
It is October of 1969 and you are Paul McCartney spending a relaxing couple of weeks on your Scottish farm. Tired of the unrivalled invasive fame, you are finally taking a breath of fresh air — until a barrage of reporters batter down this safe haven insisting that you prove you are alive. Anyone in this scenario would be bewildered.
This was not just a short-lived fad either, as it has survived to become one of the most enduring conspiracy theories of recent history, with believers existing in the same sceptical club as those partial to a faked moon landing. Even today as you scroll through the comments underneath any YouTube video about the Beatles, it won’t take long to come across someone claiming that the real Paul McCartney died in 1966. While it is likely that some are satirical, the unrelenting input from channels dedicated to this conspiracy suggests that although Paul McCartney continues to live on as himself, this is not enough to convince everybody that he isn’t an imposter.
The scene is worth setting to understand just how this baffling rumour could unravel to such international attention. By 1966, the Beatles had caught more hearts, eyes, and ears than anyone prior, and amongst
the frenzy that this naturally caused, they decided to stop touring. Suddenly, the publicity machine had withered to a more reclusive existence, coinciding with the sophistication of their album output. Each line to every song became something to be analysed with intensity. Paul crashed a moped while cruising around on the Wirral, leaving him with a broken tooth, a sliced lip, and the subject of rumours about his worsening health. By January of 1967, icy conditions on the M1 had caused many to claim that he had been killed in a car crash.
And so by 1969, rumours about the wellbeing — and aliveness — of Paul McCartney had been spinning on the mill for some time. However, this year would bring a new and almighty gust of wind when the Drake University student paper published an article analysing the fatal clues from recent Beatles albums. These hidden messages were uncovered by playing the band’s songs backwards, such as the White Album’s avantgarde track ‘Revolution 9’ in which a slurring “turn me on, dead man” can be heard. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was also littered with clues of Paul’s demise: he faces the opposite way to his bandmates on the reverse cover, fingers point to specific lyrics referring to a car accident, and the ‘OPD’ badge he wears naturally means ‘Officially Pronounced Dead’. These campus rumours reached international attention when
student writer Fred LaBour of The Michigan Daily published a review of Abbey Road, highlighting the fresh ‘Paul is Dead’ evidence brought forward by this new album.
In this article, the official story was set: on a cold night Paul McCartney stormed out of the studio, drove away in his car and wound up dead in a car crash. To shelter the adoring Beatles fans from the heart-wrenching news, the band teamed up with MI5 to find a left-handed bassist lookalike with equal songwriting skill. The winner, and incoming Paul McCartney, was an orphan named William Campbell. Overcome by guilt, the surviving Beatles left clues to vent their
sadness at the loss of their dear friend. Like many of the previous albums, Paul stood out on the cover of Abbey Road, going barefoot across that famous zebra crossing with a slightly out-of-step cadence to his stride. Believers contented themselves with a reality in which Paul’s family reacted to this replacement with the surprisingly stoic mindset of ‘well, he’s not our Paul but he’ll do!’ True belief defies logic. However, in the counter-cultural era that questioned the facts relayed by the ‘establishment’, the window of plausibility undoubtedly opened wider. Popular music had become synonymous with secret messages, fuelled by the idea that anything with such enormous reach must be spreading a hidden agenda. A perverse reading of the Beatles’ White Album led Charles Manson to believe that the band was in tune with his desire to instigate an apocalyptic race war. Mass influence seems nothing short of scary. The theory is a testament to the bizarre reality that disinformation carries. Even in light of LaBour’s confession that he invented many of the clues detailed in his seminal article, the student paper’s publication still has many today claiming that they are not fooled by the deceiving ‘Faul’. Has anyone else noticed that [insert famous musician] is looking a little different lately?
Black Swan and the Experience of Girlhood
MARIA DE FEO Relic Writer
Last week, I finally resolved to watch Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky. It had been on my bucket list for a while, but I had always been intimidated by the psychological thriller genre, being afraid the film would give me nightmares. When I actually watched it, though, I was surprised that I did not fear the film’s protagonist Nina, but held a sense of deep affinity for her.
The film’s plot follows Nina, a ballerina, in her preparation for the ballet Swan Lake
The artistic director Thomas Leroy has chosen for her to interpret both the role of the White Swan, for which she is perfectly suited and that of the Black Swan, for which she is consistently told that she is inadequate. Nina collapses into madness in an attempt to become perfect for both roles at the same time.
Many have seen in Black Swan a warning about the downfalls of perfectionism. I see what they mean. After all, Nina expresses her desire for perfection from the beginning to the end of the movie, both through her words and her actions. She spends days exhausting her mind and body with rehearsals and
destroys herself chasing after a role. However, Nina’s perfectionism is not what made me feel for her so deeply. The movie has many layers of interpretation. For me, the yearning for excellence was only one of them.
Nina made me feel seen because a lot of her experiences are those that have marked the lives of many women, including me. Her entire identity is built on her reputation as pure and innocent. Her mother calls her “sweet girl”, and shelters her, hoping that she will never stop embodying her childlike naivety. It is also this same immaculate image that lands her the role of the White Swan. However, Nina gets mistreated for her childlike essence. The artistic director constantly scolds her, calling her boring and pushing her to change. Nina’s mother simultaneously creates and takes advantage of her daughter’s sweetness, using it as a weapon to control her further. Both these figures violate her bodily autonomy and take advantage of her defenselessness.
As a girl immersed in many different contexts, I have often felt much of what Nina did. Many young women are praised for their ‘innocence and encouraged to preserve it like a precious jewel. This same ‘jewel’, however, often makes one more
vulnerable to exploitation. In addition, as much as it is praised in certain contexts, it is also viewed as a weakness in others.
The relationship between Nina and Lily, her rival dancer, also has very realistic elements. The two look very similar. However, unlike Nina, Lily represents the prototype of the Black Swan. She is sensual and carefree. Nina, just like many girls who are told that their value is in their
innocence, views her counterpart as an enemy; Lily represents an unexplored part of Nina. We all have repressed elements of our personality, and it is frightening to see someone else embody them so freely. A significant portion of Lily’s hostile behaviour towards Nina is imagined or hallucinated by the latter. Indeed, the problem is not Lily as an individual, but what she represents and the shadows that Nina associates her with, something that is elicited in the film’s conclusion. Nina gets into a brawl with Lily, only to then realise that she is not fighting with the other ballerina, but with her dark side. Nina’s house is pink, fluffy, and girly, yet something is unsettling about it. Wholesome pictures hang on the walls, but, if one looks closely, one notices that the eyes of their subjects creepily move, following the ballerina as she walks through her house. The disturbing aftertaste of Nina’s sweet light is connected to her shadows. There is something going on within her, forces that are pushing to get released. The beauty of Black Swan lies in its multilayered nature, and I look forward to watching it again so that I can discover some other, equally compelling shades of meaning.
by Amelia Freeden
Illustration
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
REESE ABROMAVAGE Relic Writer
I often take the architecture in St Andrews for granted. Like many of my peers, I am a chronic speedwalker, and I seldom stop to appreciate the buildings and ruins of the town as I weave through groups of people congregating on the street. My mind becomes overwhelmed with deadlines as I enter academic buildings, compelling me to ignore the architectural history of the classrooms in which I am earning my degree. Momentary lapses in academic or social chaos often allow me to slow my strides and admire my surroundings, relishing in the historical moments that have influenced the architecture of the town.
The entrance to South Street is affectionately known as the South Street Arch among my friends, but this corbel structure called the West Port originally served as a town gate, denoting the official entrance to town after its construction in 1587. Through the West Port and down the street lies the remains of Blackfriars Chapel which was part of a Dominican friary that was partially destroyed by Protestant Reformers during the Scottish Reformation. Although it boasts
The Architecture of St Andrews So Much More Than ‘Messy’
masonry similar to that of the West Port, it was built roughly 70 years before the port’s construction and doesn’t retain the same structural integrity of the West Port. The town of St Andrews is steeped with religious history, and Blackfriars Church was not the only structure affected by the Reformation.
Just down the street from Blackfriars Chapel lies Holy Trinity Church which moved from the Cathedral grounds to South Street in the early fifteenth century. John Knox delivered a sermon at Holy Trinity Church in 1559, ordering the townspeople to reject Catholicism and destroy the monuments that reflected it. Overlooking the North Sea, St Andrews Cathedral was built in 1158, and it served as the centre of the Medieval Catholic Church in Scotland until it was ransacked as a result of Knox’s decree during the Reformation. The preservation of the Cathedral ruins was initiated nearly 300 years after its abandonment in the mid sixteenth-century, and it now serves as the burial grounds for clergymen, academics, golfers, etc.
The religious history of St Andrews intertwines itself with the history of the University, reflected in some of the academic buildings. Replacing two ruined teaching buildings on South Street, St Mary’s College was founded in 1538 to promote Catholicism
and defend against the teachings of Protestant reformers. However, in 1579, St Mary’s College became a Protestant organisation and was designated as a Divinity College by Parliament. About 100 years before the establishment of St Mary’s College, St Salvator’s Chapel was constructed in the late Scottish Gothic architectural style
with the desire to provide a place of worship for the members of St Salvator’s College. Stone dominates much of the architecture of St Andrews, from the aforementioned
buildings and ruins to the cobblestone streets that students tread or choose to avoid. Unrelated to the religious history of the town, the Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course features stone like many other paths in town and was originally built in the fourteenth century, allowing shepherds to help their livestock cross the Swilcan Burn that flows beneath the bridge. Unlike the Swilcan Bridge, which welcomes shuffling feet for posed photographs, students circumvent the ‘PH’ outside of St Salvator’s Chapel. These initials mark the location where the Protestant Reformer Patrick Hamilton was burnt at the stake in 1528, and nearly 500 years later, students hop over the letters to preserve their academic success.
The charming streets of St Andrews present beautiful stone architecture enriched with the town’s religious, political, and academic history reflecting the influential figures and moments that have shaped the town as we know it today.
Image From Wikimedia Commons
Lola Young’s This Wasn’t Meant for You Anyway Reviewed
LAURENCE HEPWORTH Relic Writer
The album This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway came out on 21 June, 2024 — nearly a year ago. I have to confess that this release completely passed me by; but what hasn’t passed me (or you) by is ‘Messy’, Lola Young’s breakout hit from the same LP. It’s fantastically popular, oozes dopamine, and has now spawned its own Messy EP, which features different takes including ‘MessyStripped’ and ‘Messy - Sped Up’. Whilst it’s tempting when it comes to an album featuring such a huge hit to discard the rest of the songs as packaging or filler, such a move would be only to deprive yourself of the red-hot rest of This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway
When so much of our focus around music is on the artist — it’s their name on the record — it’s telling that you might find yourself seeking out more work by this producer first, and looking at the rest of Lola Young’s stuff second. That’s not to slight Young, but the most compelling thing about this album is its production, which is overseen by Jared Solomon (alias Solomonophonic). Each song feels burstingly whole, and, at the same time
wholly different from whatever’s around it. In ‘Wish You Were Dead’, verses purr with the latent power of an idling dragster. Then Solomon flicks a switch and destroys a dam, allowing this repressed energy to flood the song. Meanwhile ‘Big Brown Eyes’
sets up a memorable two-tone squelch below lyrics like “I wish I didn’t miss/Your d**k, smile, lips, your kiss”. ‘Conceited’, with a baseline like a walloping ECG, eventually folds in on itself, caldera-esque.
Solomon makes the unusual decisions seem easy and obvious: indeed, the only thing to do. Take the chorus of ‘Crush’ — which, after a build-up that rises and rises, is the quietest part of the song. Suffocating Young’s cries of “you noticed” in the song of the same name makes them sound like shouts from down a windy street. It’s poignant.
Of course, it is only because Young is at the top of her game — writing and performing — that there are songs around which to drape this creamy production in the first place. Widely speaking, This Wasn’t Meant For You Anyway sees the artist taking digs at past partners which, according to the expository ‘Outro’, represents for her a cathartic process. Her storytelling is piercing and unblushing (“Can you come around, f*** me nice/Pull my hair, sing me lullabies” in ‘Wish You Were Dead’) and funny (“You said you got nowhere to go/ Well, you can start with the lift to the ground floor” in ‘Walk On By’). The spoken-word ‘Outro’ also allows her standout husk to seep
through in a way much of her singing doesn’t. Not that Young’s vocals come up short. What’s clear is her confidence: she has no qualms about playing around with her delivery or opting for off-kilter cadences. The artist even changes the rhythm of lines between verses: “You gave me some flowers, I gave them to someone else” (‘Conceited’). Here she sings in pointy staccato, elsewhere there’s a smooth and fast tumble through “and I could have anybody else, but I like what I like” (‘Big Brown Eyes’). Whilst a lot of the album falls in the ‘brash and bitchy’ category, the second half features some more tender, folksy moments, like when Young alludes to her schizoaffective disorder in ‘Intrusive Thoughts’. Such tracks offer the listener a glimpse of a different side of Young, which, combined with the aggression of other songs, present a remarkably intimate profile of the artist. Whether or not you will care about all of this and connect with Young will depend on the person, but having fun whilst you listen should be a universal experience.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Events
AMELIA BEATTIE Events Writer
The end of another semester is just about coming into sight, bringing with it the return of a St Andrews staple: the Kate Kennedy Club’s annual May Ball. If you’re checking your calendar right now to be sure you haven’t skipped a month, fear not: changes to semester dates have resulted in May Ball 2025 — rather confusingly — being held on Friday 4 April. Whatever your opinions on St Andrews’ infamous not-so-secretanymore society, Kate Kennedy have solidified their reputation as exceptional hosts. May Ball is an events calendar classic that promises to sign off each academic year with a night boasting as much sophistication as it does revelry.
Anticipation was stirred by an Instagram marketing campaign that advertised the night as a medieval fairytale come true, complete with a castle setting. Considering the notoriously steep price tag on the night, with tickets ranging between £40-50, one would hope the evening lived up to the fantasy.
The night got off to a strong start: the sound of bagpipe fanfare led the way to a much-welcomed champagne reception. Despite technically not being in Earlshall Castle, as the ticket advertised, the gazebo was adequately decked out to blend in with the extravagant location just a stone’s throw away. The blend of plush red drapery, twinkling fairy lights adorning the ceiling, chandeliers dotted throughout, and view of a sixteenth-century castle worked its magic to transform a plain
EDITOR: OLGA ALONSO BLANCO
May Ball... in April?
May Ball 2025 in Review
tent into a fairytale setting for the night.
Guests were not short of entertainment, having the choice between two rooms with a band apiece, as well as a third livening up the crowd outdoors (a welcome prospect for those waiting in the daunting chilly queues for the bathrooms). A few
were doing their very best to keep a handle on the dancefloor, to no avail. What began as a rousing call to the dancefloor soon descended into an attempt to minimise Gay Gordons-related casualties. This came as a painful reminder that, unlike Scottish students, the rest of the world missed out
rogue, but surprisingly great, additions to the setlist included renditions of The Strokes, Radiohead, and The Cranberries. These were welcome interruptions to the standard playlist of crowd-pleasers and 2010s anthems that every bop and ball appears to be sharing lately.
Meanwhile, ceilidh band Super Grouse
on the crucial learning curve of school social dancing lessons — a fact that was not at all helped by the ever-growing pile of plastic champagne flutes being crushed underfoot, threatening anyone wearing open toed heels.
As the sun set, it appeared the clock was striking midnight on the May Ball fairytale. The hive of anticipation in the crowd
simmered down to a restless shuffle across a lethargic dance floor in serious need of revival. Further dampening spirits was the frustratingly long line blocking all view of the bar, leaving many far more sober than they’d anticipated. Even if you plucked up the courage to stick it out in the free-for-all chaos of the queue, early shortages forced many to forgo their drink of choice. Some logistical difficulties did seem to plague the night from then on. Awkward gaps between performers’ sets left gaping holes of inactivity on the dance floor, and an insufficient number of unkempt bathroom facilities crafted excruciatingly long wait times. Ultimately, despite showing great promise, May Ball 2025 fell short of its own expectations. Kate Kennedy succeeded in creating a beautiful setting, and May Ball excelled in the details, building energy and vibes with their social media campaign and aesthetic experience, painting the picture of the perfect spring evening — complete with pastel gowns, bagpipes, and a summer breeze. I’m sure many of us love to think we’re living out whatever Saltburnesque Pinterest board fantasy we imagined university life would be when we’re draining our bank accounts on yet another ball. This fantasy is not without its charms; there will always be an allure to playing dress up and dancing the night away, fuelled by complimentary champagne. Let’s just hope future balls offer smoother sailing logistically and slightly less chaos when thinking back to what, exactly, you got for your £50.
Photo by Freddie Coughlin
Raiders of the Lost Early Medieval Monastery
An afternoon with the St Andrews Archaeological Society
ILARIA FRECCIA Deputy editor-in-chief
On Thursday 10 April, I found myself trading the beach, sunshine, and twentydegree weather for the darkened interior of School I and the company of the St Andrews Archaeological Society. At 6pm, I found my seat, the blinds were lowered, and David Petts, from the Department of Archaeology at Durham University, took to the podium to discuss his findings from nine years of excavations on the site of the early medieval monastery at Lindisfarne.
Lindisfarne is an island off the northeast coast of England, and the monastery was believed to have first been established in AD 635 by King Oswald. At this point, I began to feel grateful for having read Unruly: The Ridiculous Lives of England’s Kings and Queens by David Mitchell over winter break. The lecture began with a brief history of the monastery as well as medieval Christianity, which was far more riveting than you would imagine. Think saints (this one was named Cuthbert), Vikings, and Braveheart (the last one is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s probably not too far off). All in all, fascinating stuff.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the lecture was the practical side of it. Dr Petts walked us through the excavation process, which has been ongoing since 2016 in
collaboration with DigVentures and Durham University. He explained how all the data is recorded entirely digitally and the limitations they face due to weather, the size of the site, and restrictions of modernisation — a few years ago, while excavating, they accidentally went through someone’s telephone wire.
archaeological sites from a similar time period to illustrate the rationale behind different beliefs and assumptions, as well as to highlight popular building techniques of the time and create a more robust picture of the time and its architecture. For me, the most interesting bit came
Beyond the obvious archaeological aspects of the talk, Dr Petts also delved into parallel subject areas, including geoarchaeological work, discovering the way that early medieval people interacted with the land throughout history. He also referenced other nearby monasteries and
next: skeletons. One of the unique aspects of Lindisfarne is the unusually high quality of skeletal remains, which allowed them to identify the cemetery as a secular one, containing men, women, children, and babies. It also allowed them to determine things like their diets and mobility (whether
the people buried were local or brought from further away to be buried). This is the part where I began to feel the most out of my depth. Isotope analysis is an area of expertise for many of the members of the St Andrews Archaeological Society, and so I listened in awe as my fellow attendees began discussing in depth the reliability of isotope analysis for seasonal diets, quickly transitioning into a multitude of questions about the extinct Great Auk and it’s anatomy and habitat. Any confidence remaining from my knowledge of medieval British Kings and Queens (thank you, David Mitchell) quickly faded. But, regardless of my lack of previous knowledge about Lindisfarne, the early medieval period, and great auks, I found the talk both engaging and easy to follow, and I left feeling much smarter than before. I also had the opportunity to speak to Dr Petts after the talk and learn more about his work studying the rise of Christianity in Britain. His passion is both apparent and contagious, and this event served as an important reminder of the rich and storied history of our surrounding areas. The Archeological Society’s next event will be on 8 May, and it will discuss medieval ceramics — if you have any interest in ‘local’ history, you won’t want to miss it.
Moving Castle: Szentek’s Annual Rave
LIZZIE ROSENMAN Events Writer
Once a semester, the student music collective Szentek hosts an event outside of town for a day or night full of Electronic music. In the first semester, there’s a nighttime event at the Silo, but the committee’s main event is Moving Castle, which took place on Saturday 5 April, from 1pm to 9pm.
For £56, Szentek provides buses to drive its attendees the anticipated thirty minutes to Dundee’s Main Castle. The sixteenthcentury castle poses a stark contrast to the contemporary dance music blaring from its stone walls. The Szentek committee completely transformed the space into a colorful and extremely inviting atmosphere. The old architecture was covered with painted lanterns, CDs tethered by a string, bed sheets, and tapestries hung from trees with bright, hair-like material wrapped around their branches. The decorations served as the background for DJs and contributed to the carefree environment.
As we stepped off the buses, attendees could hear the music beats before seeing the DJs. The first stage was positioned at
the entrance. It was outside, covered by a tent, and a personal favourite that was
no doubt helped by the unusually good weather. Some of the DJs were St Andrews students, and a highlight of the first stage was the Wax Rooms set, which featured fast electronic beats and attracted an energetic
crowd. Directly behind the first tent were tables with crayons for people to draw on their faces, tooth gems by Ella, and a private sofa area for people to relax in the shade or eat their food.
To the right of the stage was a path to the side of the castle, lined with more eclectic decorations that led to the second stage in the back. The rare sunny weather caused event-goers to lay in the grass behind the dome shaped tent featuring more artists. A standout from that stage was Azamiah, who cultivated a more relaxed environment with her own vocals and a guitar paired with electronic music.
The backyard was also where people could purchase Venom, which was the only alcoholic drink that specific bar served — I saw many cups filled with a bright green liquid that day. The only stage inside the castle was purposefully dark, and it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the change from the outdoor dance floors. Flashing lights came from behind the DJ booth to illuminate the room and it felt more like a traditional rave stage. Behind that room was
another bar providing more drink options than the one outside. At the end of the night, the first stage closed down, but attendees did not want to leave, filling up the upstairs room until the music completely stopped.
Szentek can seem like an intimidating event for people not interested in electronic music. However, attendees seemed to be at Szentek for more than just the music. It cultivates an unmatched, free-spirited atmosphere unlike other St Andrews events, which is why people return each year.
Associate Director Jada Wenger spoke to me about that sentiment: ‘Szentek makes everyone just feel so comfortable to be themselves. You can fully immerse yourself into the art and music, finding a sense of childlike wonder. There’s something for everyone.’
Like many St Andrews collectives, Szentek is a charity that has donated £46,000 pounds to Variety Scotland since 2016, making the ticket prices even more reasonable. Moving Castle is an event people look forward to every year, and because of its unique ambiance, students become regulars to the music collective.
Photo provided by University of St Andrews Archeological Society
Photo by Lizzie Rosenman
Sci-Tech
BHANI KAUR Sci-Tech Writer
EDITOR: ANA-LUCIA CHALMERS
Melody & Memory
How do our brains respond to
music?
Music washes over us in a way no other experience can replicate. It carries us to distant memories, sends shivers down our spines, and can alter our mood in seconds. This isn’t just emotional — it’s neurological. When we hear music, our brains light up in a symphony of neural activity, engaging multiple regions simultaneously in a cognitive dance as complex as the music itself. Music is unique in how it lights up our entire brain all at once. When you listen to a song you love, almost every part of your brain joins in on the party. The hearing areas process the sounds, while other parts keep track of the beat and rhythm. One section is busy figuring out the song’s structure and anticipating what comes next, while deeper emotional centres create those powerful feelings music gives us, whether it’s joy, sadness, or nostalgia. This whole-brain
workout is why music affects us deeply. Unlike other experiences that only activate particular brain regions, music brings your entire neural system into harmony, which is why it has such a profound impact on us. Those spine-tingling moments when a song hits just right? Scientists call this musical frisson, and it triggers the same reward pathways in your brain as food, sex, or drugs. When unexpected harmonic progressions or sudden dynamic shifts occur in the music you enjoy, your brain releases dopamine, the pleasure neurotransmitter. Brain imaging studies show the nucleus accumbens — the brain’s reward centre — becomes flooded with this chemical during musical peaks, creating physical sensations of pleasure. Perhaps most remarkable is music’s resilience in memory systems. People with severe dementia who cannot recognise close family members can often recall songs from their youth with perfect clarity. This phenomenon occurs because musical memories are stored differently than others,
distributed across multiple brain regions rather than localised in one vulnerable area. Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author, documented numerous cases where Alzheimer’s patients who rarely spoke would suddenly sing entire songs when music from their past played. This happens because procedural memory (how to do things) often remains intact even when declarative memory (facts and events) deteriorates. The musical patterns become deeply embedded in motor networks that remain accessible even as other cognitive functions fail. Musicians’ brains physically differ from non-musicians’. The corpus callosum — the critical bridge of nerve fibres connecting the brain’s left and right hemispheres — is noticeably larger in musicians who began training at a young age. Their auditory cortex (the brain region that processes sound) shows increased grey matter density, and the motor regions controlling finger movements in string players grow over time. String players develop enhanced
motor regions for finger control. These changes aren’t innate but develop through practice, demonstrating neuroplasticity — our brain’s ability to physically reorganise based on experience and repetition. Evolutionary biologists debate why our brains evolved such specialised musicprocessing abilities. Some suggest that music has served as a social glue, helping early humans bond and coordinate group activities. Others propose that musical ability piggybacks on language processing systems. However, neuroimaging shows distinct pathways for music and language, suggesting music processing may have its specialised evolutionary adaptation. This extraordinary relationship between music and the brain reveals something fundamental about human cognition — our minds aren’t just logical processors, but deeply emotional, pattern-seeking organs exquisitely tuned to the mathematical and emotional qualities of music.
NIH Layoffs: The Politics of Funding Science
LOGAN SIBBALD Sci-Tech Writer
At the end of March, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a reduction in the workforce of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 80,000 to 60,000 employees. Thousands of workers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are among those affected by this staffing slash. At the NIH in particular, where the directors of several institutes have been placed on administrative leave, these changes represent the first bloodshed in the slaughter of the scientific community driven by US President Donald Trump.
In addition to these mass layoffs, Trump’s barrage of attacks on science includes the termination of research funding and censorship, specifically targeting projects surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), vaccine hesitancy, COVID-19, climate change, and HIV and AIDS. Amongst the pile of brutally scrapped programmes is $577 million in funding previously awarded to conduct antiviral drug discovery research for SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses which have the potential to cause pandemics in
the future. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed almost 7.1 million globally, called to attention humanity’s unpreparedness for an infectious disease outbreak, this research would have primed responses to the future spread of infectious viruses, including Ebola and Marburg Viruses.
Some may think this unsurprising, given that Kennedy, who oversees HHS activities, is a notorious antivaccine proponent and has previously purveyed misinformation in support of vaccine hesitancy, including false claims that vaccines cause autism. But let’s be clear: vaccines represent one of the most crucial advancements in modern medicine and have saved innumerable lives — to promote misleading statements about their efficacy and safety is endangering.
implementation of long-acting injectable PrEP was one of three federal grants retracted from Dr Marcus, who published policy recommendations
As such, it is important to retaliate with an accurate, factual account of the importance and value of NIH-funded projects that have had their funding cut. For example, work to improve the accessibility and efficacy of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to control rates of HIV, led by Harvard Medical School Professor Dr Julia Marcus. $2.5 million in funding to support the
for overcoming barriers currently limiting the implementation of long-acting injectables, despite their efficacy, at the beginning of the year. HIV research appears to be a key item on the Republican funding chopping block, with HIV-focused studies at Brown University, Yale University, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care also losing grants. With 1.2 million people living with HIV and approximately 31,800 new HIV infections in 2022, now is not the time to
be compromising on funding for HIV research. This evidence-starved, anti-scientific rhetoric spouted from red-faced, ultracrepidarian Republicans is lethal not only for America but also for the rest of the world. At a time when unsubstantiated statements and conspiratorial contentions spread like wildfire across the dark forest of the internet, we are at risk of being burned here in the UK. A biannually tracked YouGov poll asking if “vaccines have harmful effects which are not being disclosed to the public” has seen ten per cent of UK adults respond “definitely true” and 24 per cent respond “probably true,” as of 29 January 2025. With the number of children receiving a first dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine falling in 2024, distortion from the Trump camp represents a dangerous threat to UK public health. It is evident that we are approaching a tipping point in the war of science and misinformation. You must understand that when you block out the noise — digital or otherwise — it boils down to the simple distinction between truth and lie. Evidence-based medical research aligns with the former, and the ignorant ramblings of a dangerous conspiracy theory are the latter.
Illustration by Vera Kaganskaya
ALICIA SVENSSON Sci-Tech Writer
Have you strolled on East Sands in the evening, watching the blue sky turn into vivid yellow and orange arrays?
Major cities have some of the most dazzling sunsets, and although they are a beautiful sight, they also reveal deeper environmental issues. Pollution from our transportation and industry, along with the increasing number of wildfires, doesn’t just contribute to melting ice caps — it also influences the way light scatters in our atmosphere, altering the appearance of sunsets.
The blue sky that we observe daily is the result of Rayleigh scattering. The molecules in the atmosphere are much smaller than the wavelength of the light radiation. The sun emits white light, which is all the wavelengths combined. When the white light hits the particles in the atmosphere, it scatters depending on the wavelength. Rayleigh scattering increases when the wavelength decreases; blue and violet light have the shortest wavelengths and will therefore scatter the most, resulting in our blue sky. During sunrise and sunset,
Sunsets or Pollution? The hidden cost of a beautiful skyline
the sun is at an angle relative to its original position, meaning that the light has to travel farther. Due to blue light being already scattered, orange and red light reach us. In scattering, not only does the wavelength
matter, but the surrounding particles as well. Earth’s typical atmosphere is primarily composed of nitrogen and oxygen gas, with only 0.042 per cent being carbon dioxide. In altered
environments, such as an area near a wildfire, excess aerosol particles will be present. Light travels through a thicker column of air before it reaches us for sunrises and sunsets; this excess in particles has the same effect and also results in an orange or red sky. The soot and smoke from wildfires can travel over a large area, effectively blanketing and filtering the light. However, wildfires are not the only contributors to this effect; humancaused air pollution — primarily from transportation emissions and the burning of fossil fuels for energy — is also a major factor. Pollutants can react with the air to create bigger molecules, which scatter the light in different directions from the small nitrogen and oxygen molecules. Don’t be fooled by the beautiful colours they produce — these particles have a severe effect not only on animals and plants, but humans too. Respiratory and cardiovascular
diseases, and their related cancers, are closely associated with both short and longterm exposure to high levels of air pollution. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is the cause of 4.2 million premature deaths per year. The majority of these deaths are related to heart disease and strokes. One of these pollutants is sulfur dioxide, which is produced in the burning of fossil fuels. Besides being toxic, it also causes acid rain, affecting water environments and changing their pH levels. Sensitive species will struggle to adapt and may face extinction as a result. Although sunsets are pretty to look at, they can also be red flags — literally — for environmental dangers. The particles responsible for their vibrant colours can indicate poor air quality and increased risk for serious health issues. Raising public awareness about the connection between ecological health and community well-being is essential for driving policy changes. By working together, we can ensure that our sunsets reflect beauty and a commitment to a healthier planet, benefiting all living beings on Earth.
by Isabelle Holloway
Illustration
ANNE-CARTER
RIGGS Sport Writer
With the NFL draft only two weeks away and free agents striking deals, it seemed like a good time to pivot back to the other kind of football. About a month ago, on 12 March, the new league year began, and players with expiring contracts entered free agency. Free agency is a time when players either renew their contracts with the team they played for in the past season or accept a new deal made by a new team. At the same time, all 32 teams are scheming on how to position themselves the best way they can for the up-and-coming draft. The draft, in its base form, allows for teams who performed the worst in the past season to get one of the first choices of new players coming from
EDITOR: MAHALEY WISE
Football v. Football
college football. It has seven rounds, with each team getting one pick in each round. Things are a bit more complicated, though, as other teams are able to trade players for better pick numbers and vice versa.
This year has seen some interesting moves in the lead-up to the draft, especially since the maximum amount that teams were allowed to pay their players recently went up by $100 million. Because of this, many free agents simply resigned. The Seattle Seahawks have made multiple — frankly, risky — moves in trading their powerhouse wide receiver, DK Metcalf, to the Steelers for a second-round pick and their quarterback Geno Smith to the Raiders for a third-round pick. All of this is to build their team around 27-year-old Sam Darnold, who they see as a long-term investment in contrast to 34-yearold Geno Smith. Hopefully, their plan
materialises in some good draft picks so that the Seahawks can continue to form a strong team for Darnold. In more general terms, at the time of my writing this, Aaron Rodgers has still yet to be signed by a new team. In full transparency, I believe he should retire, and there are whispers of that, but he’s also been offered a contract by the Steelers. If he takes the offer, it would make for an interesting medley of players in Pittsburgh. George Pickens and DK Metcalf on the same team for Pickens’ last season in Pittsburgh will be an entertaining watch by itself; head coach Mike Tomlin will certainly have his hands full. In terms of the draft class, there are the obvious players to pay attention to. Travis Hunter, the Heisman Trophy winner and cornerback from the University of Colorado, will be one to watch. He also won the Bednark for best defensive player and the
Biletnikoff Award for outstanding receiver. In the analysts’ projections, he is drafted in the second or third pick, and most agree it will be to the Cleveland Browns. Running back Ashton Jeanty from Boise State is fifth on the ESPN ‘Best Available’ list, with the most rushing yards in this college football season. There is debate, however, over his ability to perform within the NFL due to the less rigorous competition in the Mountain West Conference. There is a ton of talent in this draft class, and with all the strategy in play for each team, it will be exciting to see where they all end up. If you are not a fan of either kind of football, hopefully, you learned a little something about the inner workings of a league. Now, you can try to impress your American friends with your knowledge of the draft.
Is Red Bull in the Pit of Controversy?
ISOBEL LISHER Sport Writer
F1 is the supreme tournament of singleseater, open-wheel car racing. With famous races from Monaco to Melbourne, F1 is world-renowned and reaches 21 countries and five continents. With a focus on both team and individual racing, some of the teams have made their way into popular media such as Mercedes and Ferrari. But has Red Bull in particular made its way into the media for all the wrong reasons?
The behind-the-scenes and strategy of F1 is immensely important, but the focus will always remain on the world-class drivers. In each team, there are two drivers, with most teams having a dedicated first and second seat. For Red Bull, in recent times their first driver is infamously Max Verstappen. With an impressive winning streak dating back to 2021, he has been dominating the circuit for five years.
The dominance of Verstappen is a crucial part of what makes Red Bull controversial. Firstly, the way in which the team is — quite literally — built around him is somewhat concerning. Whereas other teams have high-tech but more generalised cars to suit both the first and second drivers, Red Bull engineer their cars around Verstappen and his driving style. Not only does this take away
from the two-man team, but it also prevents the second driver from fully excelling. You would think Red Bull already has enough problems with their second drivers.
This ruthless Max-centric approach has left Red Bull with a very unstable second seat indeed. From Gasly to Albon, underperformance in the eyes of the team has been rife, with the more recent example
Bull has a consistent problem in finding a suitable second driver to Verstappen. Whilst internal issues are not necessarily controversial, when the media starts to feel that players are being mistreated, this is when controversy takes centre stage.
The controversy does not stop there. From a major budget breach to harassment claims, the second seat is the least of Red Bull’s worries.
of Liam Lawson causing further controversy. Although not quite a rookie after racing a couple of times as a replacement in the 2024 season, Lawson was swooped up by the Red Bull team only to be dropped after two races in 2025, proving that Red
In 2021, the budget cap of $145 million was breached by $2.2 million, leading to a $7 million fine and a ten per cent reduction in the following year’s aerodynamic testing time. Not only is this financially frustrating for the team, but it quite simply just looks bad.
And onto what was the major headline of the 2024 season — Team Principal Christian Horner’s harassment case. Married to Geri Halliwell — more commonly known as ‘Ginger Spice’ —
Horner was accused of inappropriate and manipulative behaviour when his female colleague released a series of texts.
All in all, Red Bull has had a bit of a car crash recently. Yet, this is not to say that other major F1 teams have not had their fair share of controversies. Ferrari’s history of team order and the potentiality of another between Hamilton and Leclerc this season has upset some viewers. The aim of a team order is to prioritise the team win over individual success, after all. Additionally, the late safety car period in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021 caused some issues for Mercedes. The cars between Hamilton (then Mercedes, not Ferrari) and Verstappen were unlapped, instead of all lapped cars, which gave the victory to Verstappen, who benefitted from having fresher tyres. Some blame Mercedes’ bad decision-making, whilst others blame the decision of Race Director Michael Masi. Nonetheless, controversy is a given in F1 — a sport riddled with celebrity racers and mass media interest. But there are only so many times a team can get away with controversy, and time is ticking for F1’s biggest offender, Red Bull.
Image From Wikimedia Commons
The Future of FIFA & The World Cup
PATRICK MAITLAND Sport Writer
As FIFA continues to change football from the top down, the Club World Cup has become the most recent competition to undergo a transformation. Is the new format another money-grabbing venture from Gianni Infantino and his gang of thieves, or might it actually serve to benefit the sport?
Football fans have grown increasingly sceptical of the top organisations since 2015, when former FIFA president Sepp Blatter was accused and subsequently charged with fraud. The memory of comedian Simon Brodkin showering the sport’s top man with fake money is unfortunately the lasting image of the legacy that Infantino has inherited. No matter what FIFA or UEFA do, their decisions will be analysed to the nth degree, and the Club World Cup is no exception. If successful, it could be the first step in FIFA’s long journey to restoring its reputation.
veiled attempt to increase the number of matches across the season and boost revenue, but the promises behind the project are encouraging. FIFA projects an eyewatering revenue of $2 billion, with half of that coming from a global broadcast rights agreement with DAZN, and claims that the competition will be entirely self-sufficient. Any profits from the Cup will be reinvested
On the surface, the Club World Cup seems nothing more than another thinly
into club football projects worldwide, which is what we have all been crying out for. Giving lesser teams the opportunity to earn big money will go some way to closing the gap between the rich and the poor in football. I still take issue, however, with the
allocation of these funds. $575 million will be shared across the 32 teams who compete, with $465 million being split depending on sporting performance. What we’ll indubitably see is the richest European sides winning and taking home most of the pot. If the aim of the competition is to redistribute football’s riches, why not give more winnings to the less affluent teams for whom the money would be far more valuable? For context, Botafogo won their first-ever Copa Libertadores last year, with a wage bill of under £350,000. In the same time frame, Manchester City paid Erling Haaland £500,000. It seems therefore nonsensical to have a progression-based reward system — I would scrap the prize pool and give each competing team a portion of the money depending on the continent they represent. Doing this would ensure that teams from South America, Asia, and Africa are guaranteed to take home the majority of the earnings as the mission statement suggests should happen. The notion that this change is solely to promote lower-league football is being frustratingly undermined by the way
in which FIFA are allocating their funds. The only apparent justification for the current plan is to give the bigger teams sufficient reason to pay heed to the Club World Cup, because FIFA knows that no one will watch a tournament of this nature without the presence of the best players in the world. Having to throw money at Europe’s elite for them to even bother fielding a side would suggest that the problem lies not in the finances but in the prestige of the competition. Most fans could not tell you who won the Club World Cup last year, yet everyone knows that Real Madrid are the holders of the Champions League. The only way to make the Club World Cup as desirable as the pre-existing competitions is to raise the overall level of the competition, which would best be done via direct investment. It remains to be seen how the Club World Cup will unfold this year, but it seems unlikely that it will be a hit. With the news coverage around the competition having been overwhelmingly negative, FIFA have failed to control their own narrative, which was supposed to increase the audience in coming years. If this was an attempt to win back the fans, I’m afraid it’s back to the drawing board.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Historic Season for Saints Rugby
BEN BAGLEY Sport Writer
The Men’s Rugby 1st XV capped off their historic season in emphatic style, clinching the BUCS Trophy with a 23-15 win over Loughborough (“Luffbuh-ruh” for the avoidance of doubt). The final was part of the national BUCS “Big Wednesday” event, which also saw the women’s football team claim the title.
Try-scorers James Murray and Angus Mather were instrumental in a hard-fought victory against the Loughborough 3rd XV. The clinical boot of the “ice man” Chris Schreuder proved decisive, as it has in many first team encounters.
The road to the final was anything but straightforward. The Saints had to negotiate a tough cup run that included a long-awaited victory over Manchester Metropolitan.
“They’re our bitter rivals,” McCusker emphasises. “For some of the lads, this was their eighth time playing
silverware after their victory in the Varsity match against Edinburgh last September.
“You put in six, seven weeks of prep just for that one game,” McCusker recounts. “To win it was immensely rewarding.”
Anyone who was in and around Why Not nightclub in Edinburgh on the night of 23 September or indeed the morning of 24 September 2024 can attest to just how rewarding a victory that was.
“They had the home advantage, which made it even tougher,” first team hooker Archie McCusker tells The Saint. “The club’s never won a national trophy before, so to end our season in that fashion was pretty special.”
them and they’d never won before.”
Man Met are not the only Manchesterbased outfit to fall short this season…
Winning has become a habit for the Men’s 1st XV; it’s been a season of
The Saints also notched up a third-place finish in the highly competitive Men’s Premier 2 North.
Much of the success has been down to the on-field leadership of senior players, notably skipper Fergus Cato, a fourth-year Maths and Economics student.
“Fergus has been terrific,” McCusker adds. “The way he sets the standard with his physicality and all-round work ethic is exemplary.”
It wasn’t just the Saints veterans leading the charge. First-year David Brown made an instant impact, highlighting the strength of the club’s development system. “We’ve got a great crop of younger lads coming through,” McCusker notes. “Credit has got to go to David Morris, our coach, who has instilled a great culture and performance level that
has played a huge role in our success.”
“We’ve got a great crop of younger lads coming through. Credit has got to go to David Morris, our coach, who has instilled a great culture and performance level that has played a huge role in our success.”
Saints rugby have been equally active off the pitch. In November, they raised over £20,000 as part of Movember, the nationwide campaign to raise awareness for men’s mental health. The club’s fundraising efforts culminated in the much-anticipated Mo Ball, a highlight of the year for many an egg-chaser.
With the help of University Chaplain, Reverend Samantha Ferguson, the club set up a peer support group, meaning players now have anonymous access to a trained support network.
The St Andrews 7s tournament is the final date in the university rugby calendar. Taking place on Saturday 26 April, this year marks the 55th anniversary of the largest student-run event of its kind.
“It’s always a great day out. I think there’s a BrewCo beer stand again.” As well as a talented rugby player, McCusker — or “Robo” as he’s known in the rugby club — is an astute salesman.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
A Preview of the Jonny Wookey Game
We have an ice hockey team? Yes, and you should know about it!
SASHA WOLF Sport Writer
Not many university students would pass on a night of school spirit, cheap beer, and a packed afterparty — especially when it accompanies a live sporting event against our university’s rival in one of their biggest games of the year. So why haven’t we heard more about the St Andrews Typhoons? It certainly isn’t because the team lacks talent or passion for their sport. Founded in 2011, the St Andrews Typhoons are the University’s competitive co-ed ice hockey team. They currently hold a record of 8-1-1 and have won the northern division of the BUIHA. “It’s a great accomplishment for us,” said team President Tristian Long. “That’s the highest division in British university ice hockey,” added third-year player Andy Benstead, who is set to be president of the team next year.
Long and Benstead both hail from the United States and were involved in ice hockey prior to arriving at St Andrews. “One of the draws here is that we have a very tightknit team,” remarked Benstead. They’ve been playing for the Typhoons since their respective first years at university and have both experienced wins at the annual Jonny Wookey Memorial Game. The Jonny Wookey Memorial Game is played in honour of Jonathan “Jonny” Wookey, a founding member of the ice hockey team who died shortly before graduating from St Andrews in 2012.
Edinburgh Eagles. Long commented that the unfortunate loss has inspired the team to redeem themselves in the upcoming showdown. “Last year we got a little too emotionally involved, but we’ve gained a lot of experience since then. We just need to keep our heads cool and remember that we’re the better team,” he reflected. This year, the Typhoons will enter the game with a 2-0 record, already an improvement from last year when they went into the game with a record of 1-1. “I think the biggest difference between this year and last year is that our average player age is up by three
they can use for food and drink. Beer pong will be set up outside The Rule, where the buses arrive. With direct transportation from the pre to the game, the experience is convenient and inexpensive. For £15.45 (including fees), you receive access to the pre, transportation to and from the venue, as well as entry into the game. If you also want a spot at the afterparty, tickets are £20. Considering the ease and affordability of the experience, it is surprising that the Wookey game hasn’t gotten more buzz. To spread the word, the Typhoons have been handing out flyers around town to
“I’ve had a lot of great memories, but I’d trade it all for a win.”
years. We have a lot of guys who have been around longer,” explained Benstead. “We know what we’re capable of as a team and we have a better record. We know that if we stick to our plan, it’ll go well,” secondyear player Tommy Griffith chimed in.
“We just need to keep our heads cool and remember that we are the better team.”
The Typhoons have won all but two Wookey games. Last year’s game resulted in a tough loss against their rival, the
This year’s Wookey game takes place on 17 April, the Thursday after reading week. “We tried to schedule it at a time when people don’t have a lot of work, and it’s after dissertations [are due],” Long mentioned. But the fun starts before the game even begins. Snow sports, lacrosse, and Canadian society (which Wookey founded) will be hosting a pre at The Rule. Everyone who shows up with their wristband can receive discounts, and members of sports societies will receive an additional discount code
advertise the game. You may have seen them set up outside of the main library on your walk to class. “For every person who says no to a flyer, there’s another person who says they didn’t know we had a hockey team. It’s more about awareness than anything,” Benstead stated. But once the game begins, spirit is no issue. Last year, over 700 spectators showed up to cheer on the Typhoons. “There aren’t many events when you can pack that many people all screaming for the same team in one place,” observed Griffith. Long excitedly showed me a picture of a beer snake formed by the crowd last year and proclaimed, “It measured six-and-a-half feet long”. Long, Benstead, and Griffith want readers to know that they are trying to market the game as a new and different experience in
town that won’t break the bank. They also emphasised that it is a unique opportunity for American and Canadian students attending a European institution. “The University has a pretty big North American population, and a lot of our friends back home have larger sports cultures. “[The ice hockey team] and rugby are probably the closest thing that these North American students would have to that culture, especially since we’re playing our rivals,” remarked Benstead. This means that students from the United States and Canada can get a taste of what college life back home would look like without having to leave St Andrews. After the game concludes, you can head to the afterparty, which will also take place at The Rule. Despite the loss, over 400 fans came to last year’s afterparty — “and there’s usually more people when we win,” the team members exclaimed. The Typhoons will be busy after the Wookey game with more upcoming games this season. Two weeks after the Wookie game, they will play Oxford for the League Championship. There are countless opportunities to see this team in action and watch their players give it their all. I concluded our discussion by asking Griffith what his favourite memory of being a Typhoon was since he had yet to experience a Wookey win. “I’ve had a lot of great memories, but I’d trade it all for a win,” he joked. So, if you’re free on 17 April, bring your friends and your St Andrews spirit to Kirkcaldy Ice Arena for a unique, inexpensive chance to see the Typhoons emerge victorious once again.
