Skip to main content

Day: 5 May 2013

Our pick of graduation restaurants

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in News.

Australasia

This renowned restaurant on Deansgate, although a notable WAG and Corrie star hot-spot, serves up some really elegant and opulent modern Australian food: a gem guaranteed to impress the parents on graduation day. This Asian infusion restaurant is the epitome of smart sophistication, which is nicely juxtaposed with the informal waiting staff and unexpected laid-back atmosphere.

To best sample the food, opt for ‘local style’ and choose a number of small plates to share as a table in a interactive tapas style. A few to try out include the fresh flavoured tuna tartare, the rather theatrical BBQ lamb cutlets and the extensive selection of exquisite sushi, particularly the smoked eel. Every dish is beautiful and you are sure to try something different.

If you’re drinking, I recommend a cocktail or two, a lot of which are wittily named Asian twisted classics, as well as the understated and simple Manhattan and Old Fashioned options. Although it may cost a pretty penny, this place definitely isn’t your average Wagamama and will undoubtably be a memorable experience, perfect for celebration.

Alex Williams

The French

As of March 2013, this exciting restaurant is run by Simon Rogan; it’s a guaranteed winner. The French is part of The Midland Hotel, a beautiful building which will show your family that Manchester can do elegance.

There are three menus on offer: a three course, six course and ten course. The dishes are all very much in Rogan’s style, a modern British cuisine with focus on a few well matched ingredients, for example, ‘fresh crab and caramelised cabbage, horseradish, chicken skin with crow garlic’. I haven’t eaten here yet but, knowing how popular this restaurant is, I would definitely book as soon as possible.

Emily Clark

Red Chilli

Red Chilli is that perfectly situated Chinese restaurant on Oxford Road. I know my Dad is not to be made to wait when hungry, so I’ll be rushing the family off here at lunchtime to relieve them of exam ceremony bordeom. Red Chilli serves big portions and offers a three course lunch menu for only £9 a head. The lunch menu has a good selection of rice and noodle dishes, which you pair with one of eleven sauces. The starters include soup or dim sum. If you’re savvy, you could get two meals out in one day by heading here for lunch and somewhere a bit more upmarket for dinner.

But if you’re heading here in the evening, check out the a la carte menu which includes some pretty crazy dishes, like ‘crystal pig’s ear layers’ or ‘sliced ox heart, ox tongue, ox tripe in chilli sauce with crushed peanuts’, as well as jellyfish and other peculiarities. But all the normal Chinese dishes are served besides, and I think I’ll be sticking with my favourites of pork belly and fried eel.

Emily Clark

Grill on the Alley

If you’re in the mood for a quality steak, Grill on the Alley will not let you down. The cuts include ribeye, rump, sirloin, fillet, T-bone, as well as the coveted Wagyu (£55) and Chateaubriand. How could you say no?

There are burgers, seafood, salad and fajita options if not; a pretty wide selection of cuisines. Grill on the Alley markets luxury ingredients in an unintimidating way – there are inclusions of foie gras and carpaccio of beef sitting alongside lobster mac ‘n’ cheese. Grill on the Alley prides itself on British craft beers and ales and offers several reasonable three course set menus, starting off at £20. There is also an extensive cocktail list, including a section just for martinis and nightcaps.

Grill on the Alley has received consistently high reviews and is known for its slickness. If you want a feeling of relaxed extravagance, this is the place to go.

Emily Clark

Albert Square Chop House

The Albert Square Chop House is lodged in the Memorial Hall, a beautiful Victorian building that exudes regal splendour before you’ve even entered the establishment. It is steeped in Mancunian history, making it a fittingly spectacular end to your university days.

The classic British menu is one that takes hearty food and dribbles over it a little finesse – not too much, but enough to make your meal celebratory. Expect nothing too innovative or flashy here, but instead traditional dishes done well. Think pork belly, but served in neat little squares, nestled amongst scallops and smearings of watercress puree; waiters in white shirts and waistcoats carrying towards you a plate of roast hogget. There is also a separate grilled chops and steaks menu to please even the most carnivorous of fathers.

The Albert Square Chop House is perfect for those who want the triumphant festivities of a graduation meal, but with the approachability and comfort of somewhere much more relaxed.

Jess Hardiman

Room 

Room will provide a bit of theatrics to your graduation meal: it’s the perfect place to pop open some fizz, clink glasses, and bask smugly in the sensation of your own astounding intelligence.

With giant red pendant lights casting a moody glow over dark wooden fixtures, the atmosphere is one of a slick, relaxed elegance – but the sheer size of the place means that you won’t feel oppressed or overwhelmed as you tuck into your turbot poached in red wine. The food is good and decently priced, but most importantly are the striking floor-to-ceiling windows that will allow you to look out fondly to the city that you have called home for the past few years.

Jess Hardiman

University woes: don’t let them stress you out

Written by James Jackson on . Posted in Opinion.

We all have a boring uncle who relentlessly asks what we’re going to do with our degrees, and talks about how few contact hours students receive. But despite popular perception being that student life consists of drinking Jagerbombs and watching Jeremy Kyle in your pyjamas, or alternatively distributing Socialist Worker newspapers and growing a beard, research shows that students are more likely than the general population to experience mental health problems and visit counsellors.

Coming to university can be a difficult time for young people who have often never left home before and are thrust into a setting that simultaneously demands they have insane amounts of fun, while also juggling serious academic commitment, finding their future spouse and engaging in CV-improving extra-curricular activities. This is a pretty impossible task and there are a lot of negative side-effects of the high expectations placed upon us, most obviously stress; the Association for University and College Counselling estimates that up to 10% of students will have contact with a counsellor in a single year, and this isn’t even to count people who look for emotional help in a more informal setting.

Many students, myself included, leave most of their assignments to the last minute. While this is great for keeping you up to date with Game of Thrones, it certainly adds pressure in the final week before the essay/literary report/presentation is due. Sleepless nights and panic quickly become the new normal, and this takes its toll on your mind and body. University related stress is not all to be blamed on disorganized students, however. Most courses require you to do a dissertation or final year project, worth up to a third of your final year mark, and you would have to have an inexhaustible supply of coffee, a personal assistant and an IQ of 200 not to worry about that. Studying for a degree at University is a big commitment, and (unfortunately) not the doss it’s often made out to be, particularly in the final year. You need to manage your time efficiently, as well as doing rigorous research and sticking to arcane academic conventions, such as always remembering to use the passive voice. Unfortunately, this is made all the more difficult if you suffer from mental health issues, as one in four people do.

Stress itself can seriously contribute to mental health issues, especially anxiety. Though anxiety is the subject of a number of high-minded Danish existentialist philosophy texts, it is also something very real for a large number of students. Anxiety, on a physiological level, is what happens when the body responds to a dangerous situation with a release of adrenalin, commonly known as the “fight-or-flight” response. This was great when we had to worry about escaping predators or fighting fellow cave-dwellers, but causes a lot of problems for modern students, where the biggest conflict we’re likely to encounter is whether to footnote before or after we’ve completed our essays.

Whether our stress comes from escaping rampaging dinosaurs, or completing that 6,000 word monster on Kierkegaard, the body issues the same response: adrenalin. Anxiety comes about when your body is ready to fight or run away, but there are no velociraptors in sight; the adrenalin causes weird responses like panic attacks, and your essay on Fear and Trembling can result in fear and trembling in JRUL.

If you are suffering from uni-related stress or mental health problems, you don’t have to suffer alone. The University has counselling services where you can go to talk about your problems, and, if necessary, get a note for mitigating circumstances. In my experience, the University is very understanding about the stress that life can bring. While working on my MA, I had some pretty bad stress-related anxiety, and being able to get my coursework deadlines extended really helped my peace of mind. If I had one suggestion on how the University could improve the system, I would say that they should tell you if your mitigating circumstances is likely to be accepted. Being told that the committee meeting happens after your hand in date is pretty nerve-wracking and doesn’t leave you with a lot of options.

Letters of GCSE praise for poorer students are too little, too late

Written by Alice Rigby on . Posted in Opinion.

Last week David Willetts, the universities minister, proposed a scheme whereby poorer students who did well in their GCSEs would receive letters of congratulation from the government. The letters would encourage these students to consider attending university – despite government proposals to increase the availability and uptake of apprenticeships.

Many commentators have observed that the proposals seem at best an impractical use of resources and at worst deeply patronising. The complications of implementing the policy seem to make it a difficult one advocate; for instance, is a child defined as poor if they attend a poor school or come from a poor family? The fairest way would surely be to use the latter measurement and yet this does not sit well with the stringent data protection laws currently in place.

The emotional affect of this proposal also seems complex and potentially damaging. From what I remember, the end of your GCSE period is one of the times in your life when you least want to be singled out. It is both embarrassing and patronising for your grades to be highlighted in this way. It reeks of the suggestion that your grades are almost a surprise, given your economic background, something that at 15 or 16 you’re probably trying not to be too concerned or affected by. Furthermore, it undermines the efforts of those students who may get average grades but have worked to the best of their personal abilities to get them.

However, there is a more fundamental issue at stake here which has been missed in some of the outraged responses to the perceived affect of such a letter; a letter received after your GCSEs discussing your options could well be too late to have the desired affect. In my hometown your sixth form options were decided months before you took your GCSEs and, especially for a high performing student, it was nigh on impossible to transfer colleges once this process had closed.

Even more inflexible than this are your A Level options. There are only so many GCSEs one student can take, particularly one at an underfunded school with potentially disruptive students. Once these have been decided both your A Level and some university choices will be invariably limited. One friend of mine, who had always performed to a high level in the sciences, was recommended double sciences by her school, presumably due to their own targets. This limited both her university and sixth form choices, as she chose to pursue a science throughout her academic career, due primarily to these being her best subjects.

If Willetts really wants to have an affect on the uptake of higher education he needs to communicate with students before they sit, or even select, their GCSEs. The issue at hand here is not the discouragement of poorer students; it is the lack of education given to students in general. The result of this is the widely reported disparity in outcome for wealthier and poorer students, with the former usually assuming university attendance to be their safest option and the latter leaving education altogether. To get the right students to university and more young people gaining much needed apprentice skills, future options must be discussed and explained before 13-14 year olds are asked to make their first academic choices.

Unleash the BBQ

Written by Emily Clark on . Posted in Food & Drink.

Fast approaching are those few precious days when the weather bursts into golden haze and revision is impossible. Better go and buy a disposable BBQ. Here are a few recipes that will make procrastinating worthwhile, better yet, finish your exams and celebrate with food.

Cheddar burger fondants
Serves 4
Recipe adapted from BBC Food website

450g/1lb minced beef
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp mustard
110g/4oz strong cheddar, grated
1 tbsp chopped fresh chives
1 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 slices of crispy cooked streaky bacon
1 baby gem lettuce
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 small red onion, sliced into rings
4 burger buns

Mix the beef with the garlic and mustard. Mix the cheese with the chives and set aside. Divide the beef into four and form into burger shapes. Make a deep indentation into each of the burgers and place a spoonful of cheese into the indentation. Shape the beef around the cheese until it is totally sealed. Sprinkle a little pepper over each burger and place in the fridge until ready to cook.
Cook the burgers on a BBQ, in a pan or under the grill for 4 minutes each side for rare, 6 minutes for medium and 8-9 minutes for well done. Toast the burger buns on the cut-side. Load the buns with the burger, top with the bacon, tomatoes, lettuce and sliced onion.

Grilled sweetcorn with nutmeg butter
Serves 4

4 corn on the cob
100g butter
1 tsp ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Mash the butter, nutmeg and seasoning and spread equal amounts on each cob. Wrap in foil then grill, BBQ or bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes.

Apple and walnut coleslaw
Serves 4

100 g walnuts
200 g white cabbage, finely shredded
1 large carrot, grated
50 g sultanas
2 tbsp mayonnaise
150 g plain low-fat yogurt
2 apples, chopped finely
3 tbsp chopped parsley

Bake the walnuts on a roasting tray for 5-10 minutes at 190°C. Mix together the cabbage, carrot, sultanas, apple and walnuts in a large bowl. Stir the mayonnaise and yogurt together and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir this dressing into the cabbage mixture and toss to coat all the ingredients. Top with the parsley.

Caramelised pineapple
Serves 4
Recipe adapted from BBC Food

1 pineapple, cut lengthways
4 tbsp soft brown sugar
4 tbsps of rum
Cinnamon, to dust

Slice the pineapple into eight pieces lengthways. Wrap them in pieces of foil big enough to cover two pieces, sprinkling over the brown sugar and rum before roasting at 225°C or BBQ for 10-15 minutes. Once cooked, dust with cinnamon.

My Political Hero: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Written by Ben Fearn on . Posted in Opinion.

Very few Presidents leave positive and lasting legacies, and fewer still are used as political benchmarks for decades to come. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one such President. Elected during the Great Depression, and commander in chief throughout most of World War 2, Roosevelt overcame substantial obstacles in his path, and is rightly considered one of the greatest ever US Presidents.

Born January 30th in 1882 and a distant cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, FDR grew up in a wealthy background, and attended Harvard University before marrying future civil rights campaigner Eleanor in 1905. Elected as a Democrat to the New York State Senate in 1910, he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Navy by Woodrow Wilson in 1913, before running as James M. Cox’s running mate for the 1920 Presidential Election.  However, Republican Warren G. Harding won a landslide on a minimal government “return to normalcy” platform.

In 1921, FDR contracted polio, yet he refused to submit to his paralysis, and was gradually able to walk again with the aid of leg braces. When faced with adversity in office, he once noted “If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your toes, after that anything would seem easy”. The episode deepened his compassion for human suffering, a key element of his Presidential social agenda. Elected as Governor of New York in 1928 after maintaining his links with the Democratic Party, he won the nomination for President in 1932, pledging “a New Deal for the American people”.

Whilst the boom period of the 1920s had been characterised by affluence, minimal government intervention and the 1929 Wall Street Crash, FDR caught the public imagination by calling for the Government to help “the forgotten man”. With a quarter of the workforce unemployed and all but ten of the nation’s forty-eight states forced to close their banks, Republican President Herbert Hoover was soundly defeated by a 57.4% winning margin. Political journalist Walter Lippmann foolishly surmised that “Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who…would very much like to be President”.

FDR’s New Deal coalition of labour unions, city machines, blue collar workers, minorities, farmers and intellectuals signaled not only the end of Republican hegemony, but the end of classic liberalism in America. Asserting that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, FDR’s three ‘R’s (relief, recovery and reform) permanently changed the role of the Federal Government. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 secured depositors’ savings against speculative purposes by separating investment banks from commercial banks, a legal demarcation repealed only in 1999 (arguably an instigator of the Great Recession of 2008 onwards). The Works Progress Administration signed up 5 million people by the end of 1938 (an eighth of the workforce) to work relief programmes, whilst the Social Security Act of 1935 established unemployment compensation and old-age pensions for the whole nation through payroll taxes. The National Labor Relations Act gave federal support to the right of workers to organise unions and engage in collective bargaining, whilst Lippmann’s conservative thesis was disproved by FDR’s willingness to to try “bold, persistent experimentation” to alleviate the Depression. As the only US President in history to win more than two terms (now constitutionally mandatory), FDR’s reforms received widespread public support, not least his landslide 1936 re-election with 60.8% of the popular vote.

The US entered World War 2 in 1941 after the “day that will live in infamy” of Pearl Harbour, and the “arsenal of democracy” that FDR had promised in 1940 helped to aid the Allied forces to victory, along with establishing the start of the much repeated “Special Relationship” with the UK, with Roosevelt and Winston Churchill striking up a friendship. FDR died in office in 1945, a year after his fourth election victory, of a cerebral hemorrhage.

He is my political hero, without question, because he not only challenged and reformed an outdated economic model, but he also allocated to his New Deal the less-fortunate and ‘underdog’ members of society who had been ignored during the years of prosperity. Thanks to my Year 13 History teacher Mr Edwards, my political interests and philosophies were arguably formulated by studying FDR. In terms of FDR’s legacy, Lyndon Johnson’s progressive ‘Great Society’ programmes built upon much of the New Deal foundations, with LBJ saying of his mentor “he was like a daddy to me”. Social Security remains a key pillar of the American welfare state, a programme that even George W Bush dared not to privatise, whilst Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package of 2009 was reminiscent of FDR’s “pump priming” into the economy. He is a benchmark not only for budding Democrats, but for progressive causes and beliefs.

Students on marketing internships – to pay or not to pay?

Written by Katherine Mountain on . Posted in Opinion.

The debate over whether university students should or should not be paid for experience has again resurfaced, this time with particular emphasis  on PR and marketing agencies. In August 2012, Robert Minton-Taylor, a well-known marketing academic, accused PR agencies of unethical work practices.  Whilst it is most likely that this debate has come about recently as a result of the latest increase in undergraduate tuition fees, issues of unpaid work and high tuition fees must remain separate. Unavailable work experience, paid or unpaid, is a problem that undergraduates and graduates are facing on a regular basis and deserves attention as serious issue in and of itself.

We have largely heard from professionals and academics on this matter, but as this issue largely concerns the welfare of students, the students’ voice needs to be heard. I have been working part- time in Manchester based PR Agency, Refresh PR, since April 2012. I know how much value working at the company has given me and like most other students, I know how important gaining experience is in order to secure a job post-graduation.

When I first started looking for work experience over a year ago, I knew it would be difficult. Considering there are nearly 94,000 students in Manchester alone, it is a blatant fact that demand for work experience in any industry outstrips the possibilities on offer for students. The reality is that agencies often don’t pay students for work experience because they don’t have to. Students are so desperate to find any experience to put on their CVs; they will often be willing to work unpaid.

Of course, the fact that students are willing to work without pay for companies does not justify the argument that not paying students should be the norm. Instead, it is important to consider the ethical implications of not paying a person for the work that they have undertaken. There are several factors that need to be taken into account, and I am not suggesting a blanket rule for all students and all firms.

Firstly, I would argue that a key question to this debate could be: what does an ‘intern’ add to the value of a company? What an intern contributes during their work experience is ultimately up to the company, rather than the student. It is the company that dictates the student’s schedule, where the student has the potential to flourish. If the firm simply wants an intern to make coffee and file paperwork, then that’s all they will get out of that student. Often, companies underestimate the worth that a fresh face can bring to a company.

Secondly, when does work experience stop being experience and turn into work? This could either be dependent on the period of time that the student spends at the company, or the intensity of the work they do. As Robert Minton has previously mentioned, companies can charge work that students have undertaken back to their clients; this is clearly work. However, if a student is taken on for a week or two week basis, in which they carry out tasks that introduce them to that particular field, and receive training from staff, then that arguably does not have to be paid.

The difficulty in specifying what should or shouldn’t be paid is the reason why I’m not arguing that paying interns for the work they do should be a blanket ‘rule’. Rather, at this initial time, it is important to educate firms on the potential worth that a student can bring and to nurture their talent. At Refresh PR, I started as an intern and I now have a graduate job. Whilst I was a paid intern, that initial experience in an award-nominated agency, has been priceless. Unfortunately, whilst it is crucial to boost experience on offer for students, this may mean that fewer students will be paid for their work as often companies either don’t want to, or cannot afford to pay students who come in on a temporary basis.

The upcoming CIM debate is a step in the right direction to addressing the issues of student work experience in the industry. Students need to be made aware of the fact that there are firms out there, who are willing to pay students for their work, and that they are a valued asset to a company on either a short or long term basis. For agencies, the debate provides the opportunity to find out about the views and opinions from the opposite side, and to realise the potential that young people have, who, inevitably are the future marketing and PR directors.

The Marketing Debate Chaired by The Chartered Institute of Marketing will be held in Manchester on the 18th April. It is free for students, for more information and booking, please visithttp://www.cim.co.uk/Events/EventDetails.aspx?crid=51829