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Month: December 2011

Five political predictions for 2012

It’s here. 2012, a year that has been etched into our collective consciousness ever since London won the right to host this summer’s Olympic Games, is finally upon us. Add the annual torment of Wimbledon, throw in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and we are set for a year that will live long in the British memory – but will it be any good?

The answer is, of course, that we have no idea. Amateur soothsaying is a dangerous game. The perfect forecast sees you emerge, as Vince Cable did having predicted the banking crisis, smelling of roses and reeking of credibility. Get it wrong, though, and your comments will haunt you forever – see Neville “peace for our time” Chamberlain for further details and a lesson on the value of tempered optimism.

History is littered with examples of wildly inaccurate predictions which seem utterly absurd in the cold, harsh light of the future. Spare a thought for the author and journalist John Langdon-Davies, who once asserted “democracy will be dead by 1950”. Or, sticking with the ideological theme, consider Nikita Khrushchev’s prediction in 1958 that Soviet communism would “bury” US-style capitalism.

Margaret Thatcher herself stated, ironically, that she would not see a female Prime Minister in her lifetime. And surely nobody in history has been so wide of the mark as the associate of Edwin L. Drake, the first man to drill for oil in the United States, who was so baffled by his 1859 strategy that he spluttered, “Drill for oil? You mean, drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”

Nonetheless, I’ve dusted off my crystal ball to bring you five things that will definitely happen next year. Unless, of course, they don’t.

The 2012 Olympics will come and go, and be judged to have been a grossly expensive damp squib. The Olympic Stadium alone has cost £486 million and, whilst there will undoubtedly be worthwhile regeneration for parts of East London, the spectacle itself will simply never live up to the monumental efforts of Beijing 2008. Compared to the previous Olympics, which many have called ‘the greatest show on Earth’, London can only fail.

Barack Obama will be re-elected for a second term as President of the United States – but only just. The Republican Party will choose the more moderate Mitt Romney to be there presidential candidate, but his campaign will be crippled by his inability to attack ‘Obamacare’ and a failure to connect with voters. His Mormonism will also prove a problem. Obama, meanwhile, will devote the final four years of his presidency to rebuilding the US economy.

David Cameron will instigate his first wide-ranging Cabinet reshuffle after May’s local elections, which will see Theresa May lose her job as Home Secretary. Having struggled to get to grips with the political hot potato of immigration and border control, May has been routinely described as ‘out of her depth’ and – for want of a better alternative – will be replaced current Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

Ed Miliband has struggled in his first full year as Labour leader, but 2012 will see him finally hit his stride. His inner circle have now had plenty of time to formulate concrete policy and develop a narrative to sting the government with, and once austerity measures begin to hit the public in their increasingly empty pockets Miliband will be presented with the perfect opportunity to re-establish Labour as a ‘natural party of government’.

Finally – and this is speculative – Silvio Berlusconi will return, again! Mario Monti has replaced him as Italian Prime Minister for the time being, but it is only a matter of time before the Italian public hankers after their great leader for one last hurrah. Berlusconi’s first act will be to single-handedly solve the Eurozone crisis by unselfishly dipping into his own deep pockets and bailing Italy out of his own accord. You know you want it to happen!

Oh, Marc!

Marc Jacobs has enough media savvy to know how to grab the public’s attention. Since he first exploded onto the runway with his controversial grunge collection for Perry Ellis, he has not been one to follow the crowd, whilst his ad campaigns have long courted controversy (stashing Victoria Beckham in a carrier bag certainly caused quite a stir). His latest campaign, however, has entirely surpassed whatever alarm he may have previously caused.

 

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have pulled the advertisement for the new fragrance ‘Oh Lola!’ this month for being, ‘sexually provocative.’ The ad shows a wide- eyed looking Dakota Fanning, (Hollywood’s former go- to child actress) sat on the floor, wearing a demure polka dot dress that perhaps shows a tad too much thigh, with a large bottle of the perfume placed between her legs.

 

There is nothing overtly sexual in the ad. She’s fully clothed with her legs closed. Yet it is in her innocence that the offense lies; according to the regulatory body the “length of her dress, her leg and the position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality. Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered the ad could be seen to sexualise a child.”

 

Though yes, the ad does scream Lolita rather than Lola (which was surely the slant that Jacobs was trying to achieve), have the ASA gone slightly too far? I say this because, it seems a bit excessive to pull an entire ad campaign after only four complaints. That’s right, an astronomical four. What’s more, the arguably pedantic ASA banned the YvesSaintLaurent ad for its fragrance Belle D’Opium, due to the expressive contemporary dance performed by actress Melanie Thierry, who was photographed apparently  tripping out at Warehouse Project (an occurrence which incurred a paltry thirteen complaints). Should we perhaps take their judgment with a rather large pinch of salt?

 

It is a tricky one. Though Fanning will be eighteen in February next year, there is no denying that in the glossy image, she does like she has just hit puberty. Yet is there no artistic license in advertisement anymore? Jacobs described the little sister fragrance to the hugely popular ‘Lola’ as “sensual”, Fanning being “seductive yet sweet,” – a perfect muse to portray his new scent. Furthermore, Coty, makers of ‘Oh Lola!’ said the giant perfume bottle was, “provoking, but not indecent.” Surely there should be some allowance, as after all, we all know Dakota has grown up since her ‘Dr Seuss’ days?

 

I can’t help but feel that it is a bit ridiculous that Jacob’s creativity has been quashed due to a small minority reading into things a bit much. Advertisement is an art form; a platform for subjectivity. The whole ad is legit, Fanning would not have excitedly accepted the project if she knew she would be portrayed as preteen tease. In my opinion, I think the bottle is resting on her lap. No suggestion. She’s just holding it.

 

Celebrities Selling (Themselves)

The most obvious advertising campaign for a celebrity to get involved with is the perfume ad. Having a celebrity become a ‘spokes-model’ for your brand is a dream collaboration. It works as a two way thing. Usually said actress or singer has a new film or album coming out at the same time as them looking beautiful and, I’m sure, smelling lovely in perfume adverts. Beyoncé, for example, sang in the Giorgio Armani advert for ‘Diamonds’ around the same time as her album B’Day and film Dreamgirls were released. Thus publicity was ensured for the fragrance, film and album: genius. However it cannot be denied that some advertising campaigns are better than others. The pick of the bunch is, of course, Chanel.

Being one of the greatest fashion houses on the planet, under the guardianship of fashion god Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel obviously attracts a lot of gorgeous sophisticated women to star in their advertising campaigns. In recent years, Nicole Kidman, Audrey Tautou and Kiera Knightley have all graced our screens in the name of ‘Chanel No.5’ and ‘Coco Mademoiselle’. What works about these adverts is that Chanel brings in external directors who have worked with these actresses before to create a mini film. Baz Luhrmann worked with Nicole in Moulin Rouge prior to Chanel, and Joe Brown directed Kiera in Pride and Prejudice and Atonement. As a result the adverts have their own mini plots and are oozing with sexual tension and romantic hook-ups with mystery men. What may have been standard, ignorable television adverts become events. They suck you in to a romantic frothy world that, alas, we mere mortals can only dream of.

However, some celebrity-designer perfume adverts are just so, so wrong. Chanel is partial to a bit of tasteful nudity where nothing is actually on show. Calvin Klein’s advert for Secret Obsession starring Eva Mendes is another story. Rolling around on a bed starkers showing off your nipples and gasping ‘sexily’ is just so cheap. What is the point? A thirty second advert does not need to be X-rated in order to sell perfume- a ploy which holds little sway with the female populous.

Each to their own, of course, but personally I’ll be sticking with Karl’s adverts: glamazons, dashing men, couture gowns and gorgeous Parisian settings… sigh.

Where Are They Now? – Tony Yeboah

Only a handful of players can lay claim to leaving their legacy not just on the game itself, but in the vocabulary of it. Throughout the years playgrounds and parks alike have seen countless punters attempting the ‘Zidane’, with that signature, graceful pirouette; or perhaps the ‘flip-flap’ that Ronaldinho introduced to us; or maybe, perhaps most famous of all, the ‘Cryuff turn’ was employed.

All new additions to the footballing lexicon seem to relate to a particularly special moment of imagination or creativity, a moment which incorporates all of footballs bywords for ‘sublime’: grace, beauty, skill, technique. Yet, none of these football icons left us with an appropriate phrase to describe something equally as magical; a moment of explosive power, of thunderous speed, of raw strength.

That was until the 1995/6 Premiership season, when Tony Yeboah unleashed an absolute miracle strike against Wimbledon, crashing the ball in off the underside of the bar in the fastest unofficially recorded strike in Premier League history. This goal of the season winner, along with his other explosive 30-yard volley a month earlier against Liverpool, cemented the ‘Yeboah’ in footballs vast and ever evolving dictionary.

As Urban Dictionary attests, a Yeboah is ‘the term given to a goal that is scored via the underside of the cross-bar from a particularly powerful strike’.
After leaving his mark on English football with Leeds United, Yeboah moved on to enjoy more success with Hamburg in 1997, before ending his career with a small stint at rich Qatari club Al-Gahrafa. Following his retirement in 2003, he set up his own hotel chain. Called Yegoala Hotels, the 3-star chain operates in Ghana and claims to provide a ‘distinct world of luxury, seclusion, romance and relaxation’.
Yeboah was also the centre of a bizarre sex scandal that emerged in early 2011. According to ex-striker Peter Ndlovu, Yeboah slept with Zimbabwe coach Charles Mhalauris’ wife after Zimbabwe humiliated Ghana at the 2006 African cup of Nations. Yeboah, a proud Ghanian, allegedly confided in Ndlovu – ‘When a man insults my country, I insult him by taking his woman’.

Interview: Vinnie Caruana (I Am The Avalanche)

I Am The Avalanche played their first ever shows in the UK back in 2004 before the release of their debut self-titled album in 2005. Now, finally, they are back in England promoting their second album Avalanche United, which was released in October this year.

Shortly before their show at Moho Live, Manchester, I caught up with the band’s vocalist and founder Vinnie Caruana.

Q: So how has the tour been so far?

It’s been amazing man – it’s been really fun.

Q: Any highlights?

Liverpool was the highlight so far. The show was moved coz the venue got shutdown a week before the show, so we went to this tiny little room and it got packed out, and everyone was freaking out. It felt good, and we caught our groove.

Q: How do the crowds compare from the US to the UK?

Um, at the moment we do have more support in the United States, but that’s because we’ve been there for a while. But the UK is…I’m impressed with everybody, you know?

The fact that there’s anybody coming to see us is really cool, coz we’ve neglected them. And I think it’s a testament to the reception of the new record – people are really enjoying it, and the reviews have been great, and we’re really thankful.

Next time we come here we’ll be supporting a bigger band, and we’ll continue to build on what we’re doing.

Q: Which band?

Yeah, we’re playing with a band called Brand New, and they do quite well…

Q: So how come it took so long for you to release your second album?

We toured for about three years after the release of that record and um…we wanted to go home and just live life at home for a bit, so we slowly wrote the record and slowly recorded the record, and then it was time – it was time to get back to business, you know?

But yeah, we kinda took a little break and enjoyed our families and our friends…

We have a lot of work to do, you know? We have a very small fan base in the UK, but they’re dedicated and they’re loyal, and it’s growing. That’s what we’re doing over here – just playing for them.

Q: You played your first show over here, right?

First show ever, yeah, in Kingston. Err, an offer came though, “Yeah do you wanna come over to the UK?”, and [I said], “Yeah, let’s make that our first show.”

So I put a band together, and then we went to the UK. (We didn’t have a band. I recorded everything by myself – all the demos and all that stuff.) I thought it might be a cool thing to do and it was. It was really cool.

Q: How are you finding Manchester?

It’s amazing – Manchester’s great, man. This is a good city – it’s got a lot of character. I’m also glad – sometimes when we show up to a city it’s like “Oh great, I can’t wait to see that city”, and we’re like on the outer limits of the city – it’s nice to be right in the middle of Manchester.

We got to walk around today, and I’m gonna walk around and see some sights.

I Am The Avalanche have just completed their tour of the UK with support from Apologies, I Have None and Hostage Calm. They will be back in February next year supporting Brand New on their sell out tour.

I Am The Avalanche – Brooklyn Dodgers (Official Video)

Live: The Swellers @ Academy 3

The Swellers
Academy 3
4th December
3 and a half stars

With a half empty room of relaxed viewers, this actually worked to the show’s advantage. The inviting intimacy was present from the very start, with one man acoustic persona Into It. Over It., who received full attention and appreciation from everyone present as he talked and sang his way through his catalogue of memories and journeys, successfully carved into beautifully melodic songs. With an impressive set of vocals and an instantly likable character, the audience are likely to welcome him back when he returns next year.

Next is pop punk trio Broadway Calls, who picked up the pace and played a very good set- easy on the ears and also easy to appreciate. Nothing explosive, but sufficient enough to keep people’s eyes to the stage rather than the bar.

The Swellers take over to make their way through a well thought out set of songs that will appeal to fans old and new. With the majority present being relatively new followers, the band are more than gratuitous. They open with new song ‘Runaways’ from latest album Good For Me, before smoothly working their way through favourites ‘Dirt’, breakthrough single ‘Fire Away’, ‘Sleeper’ and ‘2009’,  whilst also slotting in classics from their debut.

With a pleasant and welcoming aura, it is apparent that the crowd and band share the same amount of respect for each other. Although movement seen was limited, the mutual appreciation of everyone in the room made the atmosphere more special than any amount of circle pits or sychronised bouncing could achieve. Genuine band and genuine audience- I’m pretty sure that everyone involved will be more than happy to relive the night again at the next given opportunity. Let’s hope its not too long before they decide to return.

Album: Four Year Strong – In Some Way, Shape or Form

Four Year Strong
In Some Way, Shape or Form
Decaydence Records
3 stars

Many people had already made their minds up about this record before it was even released, or were hesitant at the least. With a departure of keyboardist Josh Lyford, the band had the task of creating a standard, expected from their long term followers, Four Year Strong who will be wanting to progress to a wider array of listeners, have produced a rather good selection of songs. Not astounding from a typical pop punk album by any means, but still pretty impressive.

Blasting straight into ‘The Infected’ with enough punch for an undecided listener to continue on, it is evident that the now four piece are still true to their sound. Single ‘Stuck In The Middle’ is one of the stand out tracks, along with ‘Falling on You’, both of which have received their fair share of streaming across social networks over recent months.

The raspy vocal interchanges between bearded frontmen Alan Day and Dan O’Connor always brings an additional value to the rhythmic set of guitars and solid drumming, most apparent in tracks ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘Fight The Future’. A response to those doubting their efforts? Just take a listen to ‘Fairweather Fan’, where they shout out “You’re becoming what I hated, close-minded and jaded about what isn’t yours”, whilst also giving a shout out to their previous album, Rise Or Die Trying.

The disappointment is ‘Just Drive’, which sounds like a filler track- mediocre verses with a chorus only slightly better.  However, recovering from this with final track ‘Only The Meek Get Pinched, the Bold Survive’ shows the bands softer side, creating a softer melodic piece with an anthemic chorus that is most likely to be sang back to them at their future shows.

Overall, a good addition to the Four Year Strong music stream of powerful pop punk.

Live: Skrillex @ Warehouse Project

Skrillex
Warehouse Project
1st December
5 stars

Sonny Moore, aka Skrillex, has had a wide range of publicity this year. He was, at one point, named by a collect few, as the ‘most hated man in dubstep’ but more recently was nominated for the BBC Sound of 2011 award and his first European tour has been extremely popular with every date selling out.

While Feed Me, the direct support to Skrillex, performed a good setlist, much of tonight’s crowd are still stood at the bar, killing time before Moore graces the stage. The Hertfordshire DJ doesn’t let it bother him though by performing stage dives, generating a little more interest.

As Skrillex’s infamous Macbook is lit up and the lights go down, he opens the set with a remix of Avicii’s ‘Levels’. Stood up there, he resembles a child that’s had a sugar rush and who is bouncing off the walls. The crowd go just crazy. Two extreme highlights of his setlist made up predominantly of remixes are Benny Benassi’s ‘Cinema’ and La Roux’s ‘In for the Kill’.

While the setlist is mainly made up of remixes, a few of Skrillex’s own songs are thrown in, including ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ and ‘My Name is Skrillex’. ‘Rock n Roll (Will Take You to the Mountain)’ proves that he is not just a glorified remixer and the lights are absolutely amazing, along with the accompanying video played throughout the song.

Everything about tonight is simply amazing from the setlist to the light show. While people will continue to hate on Skrillex, likely for the rest of his career, it is unjustified. So what if he is the most hated man in dubstep? After tonight there are over 1800 people who’d disagree with you in Manchester alone.

A tribute to Shelagh Delaney

‘It’s a bugger of a life, by Jesus.’ Shelagh Delaney 1938-2011

Allow me to set the scene. It’s post-war Britain, 1958, The Notting Hill race riots rock London and there is growing support for Sir Oswald Moseley’s fascist movement. The living standards of the middle-class in the South of England are rising while the Northern working-class remain untouched, but the Prime Minister Harold MacMillan nevertheless proudly declares “people have never had it so good”. Homosexuality is illegal and censorship of the media is prevalent. Women are being pushed out of employment and back into the domestic sphere as there is a renewed emphasis placed on the nuclear family and women’s place as wife and mother. Now into this scene a most unlikely character strides up to the spotlight and snatches the microphone: Shelagh Delaney. Unlikely in that not only is Delaney a woman, not only is she exceptionally young at just nineteen years old, but she is also working-class and from Salford, the world of slums, dereliction and continuous grey-skys as depicted by L S Lowry. And so it is even more remarkable that from the depths of this silenced socio-economic stratum of society, Shelagh Delaney’s play A Taste of Honey emerges into the public eye, swearing, kicking and spitting like an intoxicated John Cooper Clarke, it lets out a scream which shakes the 1950s sensibilities to the core. Alcoholism, grinding poverty, homosexuality, profanitys, interracial relationships, single motherhood and prostitution, A Taste of Honey brings everything the 1950s had so neatly swept under the carpet, out into the harsh light of day.

Salford, once industrial capital of the world, but now in 1958, a heartland of over-population, chronic economic depression, crime and poverty. A Taste of Honey showcases the unceasing misery and remorseless hardship of life for the Salford poor. Delaney’s protagonist: a seventeen year old working-class girl, unmarried yet pregnant with a black man’s child is the epitomy of the marginalised and voiceless. And Delaney is the one person uniquely qualified by her background, age and sex, to give her a voice. And what a voice it is. As in her subsequent works, Delaney’s females are not weak and subservient as the cultural landscape would have suggested. They are assertive, shockingly rude and astoundingly resilient. Her characters speak in a harsh Manchester vernacular which reflects the brutality of the landscape, but in the face of the sever depravation of their surroundings, they show intelligence, wit and humanity. This was the working-class that Delaney knew but this was the first time they had been portrayed as such because never before had the voice in the dark come from one of their own.

Beyond the resounding achievement of A Taste of Honey as a play and film, Delaney continued to have success, including her play: The Lion in Love (1961) and her 1967 films The White Bus and Charlie Bubbles. She also wrote the 1985 film: Dance With a Stranger, staring Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett. In it we see the events leading up to the 1955 execution of Ruth Ellis – the last woman hanged in Britain. The case of Ruth Ellis highlighted the bias of the system in that Ellis was hanged for what she was, not what she had done. Had she not been a working-class scarlet woman, and had the man whom she shot not been from a public school and a middle-class family, her conviction would have been for manslaughter, not murder and thus her sentence would have been prison, not execution. There was a great deal of publicity for the case and so we can be sure that the controversy surrounding it would have been heard by Delaney at the time. It is testament to her strong sense of justice that two decades later she would write a screenplay on the event. Delaney sense of social responsibility also reached beyond her written works to involvement in political campaigns against nuclear proliferation, apartheid in South Africa and the 1967 bombing of North Vietnam.

Shelagh Delaney was born on the 25th of November 1938 and died November the 20th 2011, five days before her 72nd Birthday. She will always be remembered for bringing the plight of the marginalised and working-class into the public eye and with it, a little more goodness to the world, for otherwise, as the closing line of A Lion in Love observes: “It’s a bugger of a life, by Jesus.”

My cup of tea

Four out of five stars

Not My Cup of Tea has as its backdrop the estranged society of 1970s England – an idealistic and somewhat naïve group of young people who in the spirit of the blossoming ‘hippy age’ reject the mentalities and lifestyles of their predecessors. But this is a play as much of hypocrisies as of definitions, with no indulgent reminiscing of the years of free love and change, but a provoking personal drama of the consequences of living in a self-created ‘idyll’, to which much credit must be due to the writer and director Polly Goss.

The first half of the play was rather slow, and there was a slight confusion at the interval as to what exactly had happened. However, its presence was certainly not unnecessary through the successful and often amusing introduction to our central characters.

The first half also saw Merlin Merton’s beautifully made film which not only lit the play up through the power of another medium, but had moments of real artistic excellence. Generally the use of media was very effectively used throughout the play, and an excellent example of the power of music in theatre. And all this could not have been without the truly superb supporting roles of Sophie Ellerby, Joe Mellor and Laurence Williams as the darkly witty ‘Victor’ who realised and openly brought out the more philosophical elements of the play.

But the play’s real power is in its almost undefined nature – we may superficially be seeing the upheavals of a certain generation, but in its unrestricted philosophy the play’s messages are a powerful testimony to confusion of what it is to live.

Not My Cup of Tea ran at the Thaw Studio between 23rd and 25th November as part of Manchester Drama Society’s Autumn Showcase

How to Solve with revolvers

Four stars out of five

I have always been a little sceptical of student theatre fearing amateur performances and cheap costumes. However, after seeing Solve these misconceptions have been dispelled. This piece of new writing left me feeling shocked, upset, and even at times full of laughter. The play centres upon the idea of a world, not unlike our own, which is heavily overpopulated.  In order to solve this problem a brutal regime has been put in place: a regime in which strangers are called up to effectively, kill one another. Most of the play takes place in the waiting room, as characters wait their turn to enter the room in which they must kill, or be killed. The fact that the plot is so relevant to our own time makes this play that much more poignant, causing the audience to dwell on possible solutions for our own overpopulation problem.

The relevance of Solve to our own worries and apprehensions is perhaps due to its position as a piece of new writing, written by a second year drama student at the University of Manchester. Ali Michael who plays the leading role, Edward, in this harrowing tale states that ‘Piers has been writing this play for nearly 8 months now. It has been a massive project for him especially considering that it is such a complex and dark concept for a play. But after months of toil the finished product is truly remarkable for a 20 year old. Having watched it from its infancy I am hugely proud and quite awe-struck by the finished article.’ The play is indeed, well written and complex – as a second year student myself, it is inspiring to see what students can and do achieve. The themes of this play were so resonant with the audience that long after the play had ended, these topics continued to be discussed, most prominently where the well being of the greater good overtakes our own personal morality.

Most of the action in the first half of the play is off stage, as the audience is left to watch the tensions that play out in the waiting room. The tension on stage mirrors the tension that pervaded in the audience when characters left to enter the solving room, leaving the audience to wonder what will happen to these characters, who will survive. This tension led to some incredibly poignant moments, for example when Jasmine and Robert, a couple, were requested to enter the solving room together a few members of the audience were left in tears. Alongside the use of off stage action, the play employs the use of bright lighting. A blinding white light was used to signify the fact that a gun has been shot, this left the audience startled and confused, just like the deeply immoral system that this play conveys.  Alex Simmons portrayal of the sinister, deeply disturbing Gregory was fantastic, terrifically highlighting the aggression of this society.

For me sadly, the second half of the play failed to convey the tension and excitement of the first half, focusing instead on the interrogation of Edward by the police, and yet, it was effective in conveying the deep rooted corruption of the system. The dialogue between Edward and the two policemen was uncomfortable, sometimes steering towards a somewhat fantastical critique of the police force. However, the main themes continued to keep the audience gripped.

After watching Solve I am a convert to student theatre and undoubtedly will be going to watch more of it, and would compel others to do the same.

Pieboy clothing brings you the Official Manchester Scarf

By Fahim Sachedina

The Manchester Scarf is finally here! From the people who brought you the “Manchester Beanie”, and delighted you with the melodic tones from the “Manchester’s Gorgeous Girl” video, Pieboy Clothing brings to all you lovely Manchester people, The Manchester scarf! Whether you’re looking for something to keep you warm through the Winter months, or the perfect Christmas gift, or you just want a truly memorable piece of Manchester, then our scarves will do the trick.

Make sure you find your way over to our stall as soon as possible in the week!

The stall, outside the Student’s Union at the South Campus, will run from approx. 10am each morning and we’ll shut up shop no later than 4pm.

In keeping with the festive spirit there’ll be copious amounts of mince pies to accompany your Pieboy experience.

In addition to all this, we will be hosting a Flashmob Party on Tuesday, so LIKE our page on Facebook for more

details on this exciting and fitting way to round off the year in style!

Here’s the event page for more details: https://www.facebook.com/events/149539595152629/


Try not to miss out alright?

Spate of violent attacks on Leeds students

Ten people were beaten up and two students were left hospitalised after a group of masked men embarked on a series of brutal attacks in Leeds last week.

The news comes after 16 more young people were attacked by a similar gang in the Woodhouse area of the city.

One Leeds student who had been attacked described how he was punched in the back of the head until he fell to the floor and then had his jaw stamped on; after the muggers told him that “he hadn’t run away quickly enough.”

“They took my University keys and my University fob but the only reason they stopped was because a car drove past and spooked them,” he said.

A student who managed to run away from the attackers said that the attackers seemed to show no fear.

“It’s madness, I was with eight other decent-sized lads, and it was early in the evening when people were still walking round and it was still light, they didn’t care though,” he said.

A father of one of the victims of the attacks even went as far to say that he didn’t want his son to return university once he had recovered.

Leeds student, Jamie Fallows, said that he was “really concerned” by the recent violence.

“The University of Leeds has now put on a special student’s only bus going from their campus to halls of residence and I think that Leeds Met should be doing the same,” he said when commenting ion the university’s response to the attacks.

Local MP Greg Mulholland has demanded that talks take place between the university, the police and local councilors in order to stop the attacks.

Police have made six arrests in connection with the attacks; including two men, aged 14 and 16.

 

 

 

25,000 public sector workers strike over pensions dispute

Manchester city centre was filled with over 25,000 striking public sector workers on November 30th, protesting against the planned changes to their pensions.

Picket lines were set up at dawn and teachers, health workers and social workers were among those who joined the mass two-hour rally, marching from Castlefield, down Deansgate and towards Oxford Road.  They were addressed by trade union bosses at Whitworth Park.

Public transport was disrupted and roads were closed. Manchester’s public services ground to a halt, with only five out of 158 schools staying open and just one trial taking place at the city’s two crown courts.

Rena Wood, from Manchester Unison issued rallying cries to those not on strike, saying, “Stand side by side to fight because everybody deserves a decent pension.”

David Cameron said of the negotiations, “we have to make sure that public sector pensions are good for public sector workers, but affordable for everyone else who is going to work and contributing to them.”

Figures from the Cabinet Office suggest that over 900,000 people were striking on November 30th.

Poor Bristol students told to get a job

Bristol will become the least affordable English Russell Group university for students from low-income backgrounds from 2012, research by a student newspaper has found.

Students from low-income backgrounds will have to find other ways of funding their degree at the university after the institution cut its bursary system for people from poorer families.

One-third of Bristol students currently receive a sum of up to £1,260 a year to cover the cost of studying at the university; but this system will be scrapped for next year.

The move comes despite the fact that all other Russell Group universities, including the University of Manchester, have committed to ring-fencing their bursary systems despite funding changes due to take affect next year.

In a briefing to University Council members on the new access measures, the university states that the purpose of the change is, “to send a simple message to students from the lowest income families that they will pay no more in fees than they do now.”

“Our Student Recruitment team believes the key message that has been heard by prospective students, particularly those from the poorest backgrounds, is about tuition fee debt and our fee waiver packages are intended to address this.”

However, it has been contested that since fee waivers don’t affect students until long after graduation they offer little support to students while they are actually studying at the university.

Bristol’s access agreement suggests that students who would have needed a bursary to cover their living costs while at university should find part-time work to make up the shortfall.

While the access agreement used to state that students eligible for state support would have sufficient funding to cover “normal maintenance costs”, the new agreement instead says that, “state support…and some part-time working should comfortably ensure that eligible students have sufficient funding at their disposal.”

It has been argued that poor students shouldn’t need to work in order to live and study in Bristol because this unfairly benefits wealthier students, who will be able to dedicate more time to their studies and participate in clubs and societies.

Stephen Williams, MP for Bristol West, told Bristol University’s student newspaper, “Students should be able to take part time jobs while at university in order to supplement their income, but it shouldn’t be necessary for them to work in order to meet the basic costs of studying at Bristol. Working for long hours would be to the detriment of study and it would not be fair for students from richer backgrounds to be able to devote all the time that they wish to study and so obtain a better degree result than their poorer compatriots.”

Top tips for being a good Secret Santa

1.     Establish a price range – there would be nothing worse than handing over a box of Celebrations to someone who’s bought you an M&S hamper, champagne and all.

2.     Decide on an objective – jokey or heartfelt, genuine or ironic. Make sure everyone is on the same page otherwise those glow in the dark condoms might not go down so well.

3.     Don’t take big risks – if buying for your boss, an elderly relative or someone you maybe don’t know that well steer clear of Ann Summers. Stick to standard festive offerings, who doesn’t love an annual hot water bottle?

4.     Don’t leave it until the last minute – a 98p potato masher from Tesco wrapped in white A4 paper is a bit of a giveaway.

5.     Actually keep it a secret – it’s in the name and makes for a much more interesting gift exchange.

6.     If in doubt head to Urban Outfitters – the novelties range has something for everyone from Sudoku toilet roll to artsy photography books. Sorted.

New years dread

It’s getting to that time of year again: hurried phone calls, “casual” texts and subtly probing conversations start. “What are your plans for New Years?”

It is one night of the year that the only thing worse than going out is staying in. The extra pressure to have the best night EVER and yes you know it, start the year as you mean to go on.

So if this means watching The X Factor in your onesie with a tub of ice-cream in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, I dread to know what 2012 will have in store.

Once an appropriate event is selected the competition really starts, subtle yet determined as everyone earmarks exactly who they will be kissing at midnight. Remember, if you pick a shocker then you may as well go to bed for 2012. Better luck next year.

New Year is the end.  It marks the end of Christmas festivities and heralds the start of work, a new diet or the realisation of how unprepared you are for looming January exams. All the time accompanied by the mantra: new year, new you. No pressure then.

Oh I wish it could be Christmas, everyday?

The atmosphere, the sudden rise in cheerful moods (apart from the scrooges) and chilly weather all encompass to me that special time of year that so many people sing and dance about. Not to mention maxing out their credit cards for of course, Christmas.

I have in fact, never celebrated Christmas. My family and I are Muslims and thus what I used to use as an analogy when I was younger was that, “your Christmas is my Eid!” The confusing looks I’d receive from other children when Eid would land a week before Christmas due to the lunar calendar Islam is based on. They thought I was cheating celebrating twice.

My Christmas days consisted of me trying to find something to do: my whole family in the same predicament. “I’m bored” my youngest brother would exclaim. But there was nothing we could do but watch whatever film was being showcased that particular year and watch as my phone vibrated into oblivion from all the “I know you don’t celebrate Christmas but Happy Christmas anyway” texts.

It is now, however, nice to be surrounded by the warm atmosphere created from the sadly, very economical reasons that Christmas has become more and more found upon in the west. For example; many of my native Spanish and French friends can’t remember a Christmas where they didn’t go to mass in the morning. The chance of hearing this here, however, is limited.

I mention this solely because for the celebration of both Eid-al-adha (celebrating the start of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca) and Eid-al-fitr (post Ramadan); it is not Eid, without visiting the Mosque. It is engraved in my memory and it wouldn’t feel like Eid if I didn’t go and see everyone else celebrating; with the difference being that everyone in the Mosque here are not just family, but also friends, all under one roof.

Significantly, the story of the birth of Christ is actually related in the Qur’an. Muslims are not completely blind to the celebration and of course, many predominantly Muslim countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa will have minorities celebrating Christmas.

Obviously, the notion of giving and receiving presents in the nature of good will is a very open-handed gesture. I have most years taken part in secret santa’s and bought close friends gifts.  And I wouldn’t miss the Manchester Christmas Markets if you’d offered me top editorial position at the Mancunion (well, perhaps).

Eat, be merry and immerse yourself in the multi-cultural and religious society we live in.

Family merriment

I’m afraid I’m one of those really annoying people who wish it was Christmas all year round and get positively giddy at the sight of tinsel.

I put up my decorations and listen to ‘I wish it could be Christmas Everyday’ on repeat by mid-November.  I don’t understand how people can get grumpy at the idea of extending Christmas for as long as possible – the food, the drink, the lights, the frost, the Coca Cola advert… I can’t get enough!

And every family has their own unique Christmas tradition. Mine is an annual skiing trip to Austria, which always results in one hilarious anecdote or another in consideration of the fact that my mum hates both skiing, and cold weather.

I remember one particular year when my aunt thought it would be a wonderfully festive experience to take a midnight sleigh ride to the top of a mountain. Not wanting to ruin the intense excitement that overwhelmed us kids, my mum reluctantly agreed.

Firstly, I have never seen a person successfully wear so many layers and still manage to walk and secondly, I’ve never seen someone look as positively gleeful as when the sleigh driver offered round a large bottle of Schnapps.  My mum’s a pretty small woman but I learnt very quickly that, when she’s cold, she can put Schnapps away like it’s water! Needless to say, with the thickness of the snow, the many layers of ski clothes, and the half litre of schnapps successfully digested, walking became a bit of a struggle once the sleigh ride ended.

As we were trekking up the very last snow-ridden hill, babbling to each other about the joys of Christmas, I turned around in the darkness to find that my mum was nowhere to be seen. After searching for several minutes, I frantically shushed everyone when I heard a mischievous giggle piercing the silence.

When I followed the sound, it took me to a pair of familiar snow boots, poking out of a nearby fir bush. It turns out that, mid-conversation, my mum had toppled over head-first into the nearest natural landmark and found it so irresistibly cosy that she had decided to stay there.

You might open presents, carve a turkey, make a toast – but you’ve never truly experienced the spirit of Christmas until you’ve dragged your intoxicated mother out of a snow-capped fir bush, by her ankles.

Have yourself a very veggie Christmas

It started back in ’85 when the hair was big, shoulder pads were in and The Smiths were blaring out of every teenager’s stereo for all to hear – including my mother’s. Her infatuation with Morissey combined with the release of Meat Is Murder led to her to make a life long conversion to vegetarianism.

And so my siblings and I were destined to a childhood full of Linda McCartney, Quorn, lentils and other questionable pulses. It wasn’t all bad, it was just what we were used to and with friends’ parents not knowing what to serve up when we went round for tea we consumed more rounds of pizza and chips than any child could ever dream of.

There was just one time of year when my carnivorous curiosity began to creep in and I started to consider a life outside of mycoprotein food products, Christmas. What were these meat filled feasts that everyone at school drooled about? What on earth is a pig in a blanket? My mind boggled.

Past Christmas dinners in the Howes household have been somewhat different, up to and including a year of pulling crackers around a table of Quorn spag bol (and a cheese sandwich for my incredibly fussy younger brother).

We’ve taken the more traditional and festive route at times with all the trimmings piled up high unfortunately let down by their accompaniments: a nut roast or, even worse, Quorn’s Family Roast – essentially a slab of salted plastic.

At 14 I succumbed to peer pressure, moved to the dark side and became the through and through carnivore I am today but with no clue how to baste, stuff, cook or even buy a turkey I was subject to many more vegetarian Christmas’ for years following.

It wasn’t until reaching university, when in our cramped and sticky kitchen of Weston Hall three other girls and I slaved away to cook a faux Christmas dinner for six ungrateful boys, that I picked up invaluable life/cooking skills and swiftly ran back home to London with them.

I have since taken the Christmas cooking reigns straight out of my poor mum’s hands to bring some much needed meat to the lives of both me and my brothers, who have also turned their backs on vegetarianism.

But there may be some out there who aren’t so lucky. Some who still involuntarily have to endure a chickpea-lentil-pumpkin-mush concoction swimming in gravy just to make it taste a little less like something excreted  by next door’s rabbit.

So when December 25th comes around and you’re tucking into your turkey, stuffing six cocktail sausages into your gob at once or have prawn vol-au-vents coming out of your ears, please just take a minute to remember those less fortunate than yourselves.