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Day: 7 October 2013

No More Page Three: Manchester’s big decision isn’t all it seems

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Opinion.

The University of Manchester’s Students Union can now add itself to the growing list of university unions to ban The Sun newspaper in protest against Page 3. It’s time for a party, or at least, that’s what I’ve been told. But please wait a moment to pop the party poppers. Forty thousand students attend the University of Manchester. How many voted to ban The Sun? Eighteen. That is 0.045% of the student body (I’ll admit, I did have to use a calculator).

This tiny percentage of students were able to ban The Sun because of the use of student assemblies to pass policy in the SU. Twenty students are randomly selected (in proportion roughly to match the demographics of the university), and vote on items brought up by students. If they achieve higher than a three quarters majority, the motion passes and becomes SU policy. As few as sixteen students can think a policy is a good one for it to become actual, factual policy.

This isn’t the fault of No More Page 3, it’s just a stupid way to run a democratic union. But it is a huge loss for the campaign. A chance to engage students in why Page 3 is so damaging to women has been wasted. A referendum would have meant discussions across campus, flyers handed out, Facebook debates drowning in over one hundred comments (I mean, maybe I’m not too sad about the lack of those…) Thousands of students could have questioned why the highest circulation paper in the UK tells us that men do politics and sports, and women stand around with their pants on. That isn’t going to happen. Most students probably won’t even realise the Sun isn’t there. But at least that horrible paper buried shamefully at the bottom of the newspaper stand is gone.

It’s also an awfully bad precedent. The opinion of sixteen students can ban a publication from the SU. You might agree The Sun should have been banned, but what happens when it’s The Times for having offensively right wing comment pieces? Having a referendum makes it much less likely a small group can have massive influence within the SU. As it is, a tiny number of people can think banning The Sun is a good thing, and it just happens. At least the panel had a “short discussion” on the matter.

Even if those twenty students asked are representative demographically of the student body, they aren’t elected, they have no right to make policy for any of us. There’s no reason the ten or so women on the panel’s opinions will represent mine. This would at least be better if the Assemblies were well publicised, so dissenting voices could attend and try to convince those twenty students, but they aren’t. Exec team member’s projects such as Activist’s Academy have been publicised much more widely than the assemblies were. There’s no reason to think that any other newspaper couldn’t also be banned under this system – and that is not okay.

I suppose on the plus side of this whole debacle you have now read at least one reason, the one I managed to squeeze into this piece, as to why Page 3 is probably a bad thing. That wouldn’t have happened if both the ban and a referendum had not taken place.  But that only happened because I bothered to write this, because discussion is important, even if UMSU don’t agree. A referendum would have reached a lot more people than this opinion piece ever will and that would have been much better for No More Page 3.

My Political Hero: Isabel Allende

Written by Shanda Moorghen on . Posted in Opinion.

When you think of the 11th of September, you cannot help but feel a sense of belonging to a period where our world changed. However, when we think of that somber day, most of us remember the World Trade Center crashing down. Few actually know that 40 years ago on the same day, another country lost its freedom. The bombing of La Moneda coupled with the death of President Salvador Allende marked the beginning of nearly two decades of military dictatorship in Chile under the General Augusto Pinochet. Isabel Allende, noted Chilean writer, was one person who was there for both these 11th of Septembers. As she would later say in one of her most critically acclaimed books, The Sum of our Days: “Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me”.
Born in 1942, to a diplomat father and niece to President Salvador Allende, Isabel Allende is often considered a contemporary political hero in Chile.  Her father left when she was very young and her mother remarried. Her stepfather being also a diplomat, she travelled the world and continued to do so after completing school. She worked with the United Nations in Chile, Belgium and all over Europe.

In 1966, Allende went back to Chile. However, things were rapidly deteriorating in Chile. Richard Nixon did not agree with Salvador Allende’s ideology and later encouraged the coup d’état, immediately accepting the legitimacy of Pinochet’s government. It soon became clear to Isabel Allende that life in Chile would never be the same. She was a feminist, with a close relationship to Salvador Allende and leftist affiliations. She was lost all her jobs and made it on to Pinochet’s blacklist. This prompted her to leave Chile to live in exile in Venezuela for 13 years. In 1988 she left her husband and married Willie Gordon, an American citizen. Allende finally found a new home.  She was granted US citizenship in 2003 and she was living in the United States when the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Despite being targeted by Pinochet’s regime during her time in Chile, she kept fighting against the oppression and never gave up hope of seeing Chile free from military dictatorship. Two weeks after the coup d’état, Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda died in his native Chile. Being a counselor to President Allende, suspicions arose around his death. Pinochet refused to acknowledge a national mourning day in his honour. However, Isabel Allende, accompanied by thousands of people, went to give Neruda a final homage despite intense military scrutiny and threats. As a journalist in Venezuela, she often wrote about the sufferings of the Chilean people and the thousands of deaths that had occurred since Pinochet came to power. Moreover, though she is noted in the literary world for her magical realism, a lot of her work is influenced hugely by her love affair with Chile.

Isabel Allende is my political hero irrespective of her writing abilities and acclaim. Despite all that she went through, including the death of her daughter precipitated by medical negligence, she maintained her core beliefs and fought for the rights of the free people of Chile. Though she creates whole new magical worlds in her books, in this world, the real one, she is a hero for a generation of Chileans.

The myth of the preferred A Level damages education

Written by Alice Rigby on . Posted in Opinion.

Students are bombarded with advice when choosing what to pursue after compulsory education at the age of 16. Some choose apprenticeships, while others choose to study for vocational qualifications like GNVQs. Despite these other options, the vast majority still choose A Levels as a route to university courses or employment at 18.

With that comes yet more choice and the government have recently initiated plans to put further pressure on schools to encourage students to select specific subjects. They propose a new league table that would rank a school on the basis of how many facilitating, often referred to as preferred, subjects its students took. However, a study based on admissions information for popular courses released by Russell Group universities due to a FOI request showed that the concept of preferred subjects seems seriously misjudged.

What many students will recognise in amongst all of the data and discussion over the study’s findings is the complexity of subject selection advice at A Level. One of the features of the A Level system is that the range of subjects studied by each student narrows hugely at 16, with a maximum of four being the norm. There is a frightening amount of pressure on 16 year olds to have an idea of what they want to do after school or college as they need to commit to this through their selection of subjects.

When preferred subjects are thrown into this mix, the pressure only intensifies. High performing pupils are encouraged to take the classically academic subjects on the grounds that this will give them the widest range of future options. The list bypasses apparently less rigorous courses such as Economics, Politics and English Language. Conversely these are some of the most broadly studied subjects at university level.

When students are discouraged from studying them at A Level they have no experience of what these subjects are actually like. This could have a dual effect; on the one hand, it could prevent them from taking these subjects up at university due to their lack of knowledge comparative to students in the past. However, it could also result in some students taking these subjects and later regretting their selection.

The rumours surrounding preferred subjects could have an even more dramatic impact. Teachers, parents, universities and the media may discourage pupils from applying to more rigorous universities and courses in this country on the basis of their lack of ‘facilitating’ subjects. This would be tragically misleading. The study into preferred subjects showed, for example, that applying with drama among your three or four A levels seems to almost guarantee entry into essay based subjects. While the data is simplified and the combination of subjects not considered, it is clear that this ‘black listed’ A level is not actually the total turn off for university admissions tutors that it is touted to be.

While drama is often not a student’s chosen career path, they may enjoy the subject and want to continue it in conjunction with other, more applicable, A Levels. It is not unreasonable to suggest that taking the subjects you enjoy is much more likely to translate into success. If you are genuinely interested in a subject you are more likely to participate in classes and complete work with a degree of enthusiasm.

The most damaging consequence of recommending A levels on these grounds is that the focus is placed firmly on outcomes. Students are already aware of the almost overwhelming pressure to get certain grades. Asking students to keep in mind, from the moment they choose their A Level subjects, a certain post-18 pathway only adds to this pressure. What is missing from education in these circumstances is any sense of studying for the sheer pleasure of it. For a student who may well be in education voluntarily for another 3 or 4 years, it’s not hard to believe that this could be a helpful outlook.

There is some sense in recommending certain subjects to certain students. Some degrees simply require specific subjects, such as economics with maths in most cases. Some A Level combinations may seem so unusual that a student will at least have to consider how they will justify their decision-making on their personal statement, for instance. Some subject choices may actually damage the opportunities some students are considering and this should be openly discussed with them. Similarly, having a loose idea of their preferred outcome can help channel students abilities throughout the relatively rapid A Level process.

However, the myth of preferred subjects being some kind of holy grail for high performing universities is clearly just that, a myth. The damage that perpetuating this idea does to students pressurised into taking specific subjects, with their future held to ransom until they do, is clearly excessive. What should be encouraged, at the first stage in their education when students really get to choose their own path, is a sense of pride and enjoyment in the selection they make. Only then will students achieve the results, both personally and in their education, which will enable them to be most successful, whatever the route they end up taking.

To knot or not to knot?

Written by Emmanuel Demuren on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

Image: Instagram user ‘neojarvis’

If you’ve attended any festival, art gallery or been around pretty much anywhere on our glorious Island over the last couple of months you’ll definitely have encountered the “top knot” in some form, whether you’ve noticed or not. For those of you unsure of what I’m rambling on about, I’ll start by clarifying what I mean by a top knot. A top knot is a style which involves growing hair longer on the top, with the sides significantly shorter/shaved. The top is then tied into a knot. So there you have it (the name leaves little to the imagination, no marks for guessing I’m afraid). It’s a knot that goes on top of your head.

Images: Instagram users ‘rikkitheodosi’ and ‘braduk’

Now, independent ladies have been donning the top knot for years so what’s the big deal some of you might be inclined to ask? Well, boys have crashed the party and they’ve got no plans to leave anytime soon. The top knot is everywhere. Everyone brave enough to don the style tends to be slim, tall and bears at least some slight resemblance to Proudlock from Made in Chelsea. You know exactly what I’m talking about; the Shoreditch look.

 

Images: Instagram users ‘matthewmillions’ and ‘bobbyfiddaman’

So, what’s my verdict? Yeah, it’s alright I guess. As it goes, I like Proudlock, he’s pretty jokes. However, I will say that if you are donning the top knot, then you should be prepared for haters to hate… but that’s what they do right? If they don’t, Tumblr I’m suing you.

Image: Instagram user ‘marviiin89’

Yes, in some cases top knots are incredibly ambitious but so are a lot of fashion trends. Do your thing. One more comment on the big man himself… last one I promise; a little birdy tells me that he’s got a new barnet lined up for the upcoming series, care to hazard a guess?

Bee Cultured

Written by Abbie Mia Roberts on . Posted in Arts.

Ever wondered why the bollards of the city are embellished with little golden bees, or why the clock face of the Palace Theatre mysteriously replaces its Roman numerals with this emblematic creature? Your daily commute may have even been perked up slightly by a narrowly-avoided tread over the tiny etched bee sprucing up an otherwise boring concrete paving slab. Well, this enigmatic little mascot pasted around town is the ‘Manchester Bee’, the proud symbol of our city. Why? Because it represents the hard-working nature of Mancunians during the Industrial Revolution. There you have it, a hearty little snippet of Manchester knowledge to impress your friends in the pub tonight!

Feature: No More “Bring Me the Hair-straighteners”

Written by James Birtles on . Posted in Music.

While flicking through numerous TV channels over the long summer holidays, something caught my eye. It was on BBC Three’s dire coverage of Reading  + Leeds 2013; they were showing coverage of Bring Me The Horizon’s live set at Reading.

Why would this catch my eye you may ask? Well, Bring Me The Horizon have always seemed to be one of these bands people love to hate. They have been bottled at Reading and Leeds before, heckled during their support of Welsh rockers Bullet For My Valentine and are subject to abuse by trolls on pretty much all of their videos on Youtube. But now they were on the Reading and Leeds coverage with a crowd singing every word back instead of exchanging bottles filled with fluids.

Locally, the jump in Bring Me’s popularity can be seen with their two dates headlining Academy One (with support from Pierce the Veil); when I first saw them in Manchester three years ago, they were only playing one date at the Club Academy.

Their album, Sempiternal, which was released earlier this year led the band in a completely different direction and suddenly, they have had increasing airplay on Radio 1 and with it their fan base has grown. Having reviewed the album for The Mancunion and giving it five stars, the point of this piece is not to detract from a great album, but to point out it’s by no means their best.

As you can probably guess, I am a BMTH fan. I have been a fan since [2006’s] Count Your Blessings and have seen them numerous times (six, to be exact). Maybe because of this, I am cynical to these “new fans” or maybe it’s just me being a snob; for years, I suffered through the jokes of “Bring Me The Hairspray/Hair-straighteners” and “Oh why don’t you listen to proper metal like Judas Priest/Iron Maiden etc.” But now these are the people telling me “You really gotta listen to this album! Bring Me are amazing”.

That doesn’t bother me as much as those who suddenly make a band their new favourite because they’ve only heard the latest release. In this instance, give these a copy of Count Your Blessings and they’d turn their nose up at it due to its different musical direction (being deathcore not metalcore).

A change in musical direction introduces a major problem. Those fans that made you and stuck by you through all the shit can be alienated because of your live shows. For many fans, Bring Me set-lists have lost their past with no songs from [2006’s] Count Your Blessings and [2004’s] This Is What the Edge of Your Seat Was Made For having made the final cut. Yet, we still hope that one day see ‘Pray for Plagues’ or ‘I Used to Make Out With Medusa’ will make a comeback on the tour and that you won’t cut songs from Suicide Season disappear too.

It is great that a band I supported through thick and thin and argued their musical credibility are on the rise. Just don’t forget those older fans. Also, if anyone thinks I’m still wrong regarding BMTH, I’m more than up for another argument.

Feature: The Music Behind the Murder

Written by Tom Ingham on . Posted in Music.

Kill, kill, drive, kill, fly a helicopter, kill, carjack, kill …wait, is this Warren G? Grand Theft Auto has reached iconic status in the world of gaming. Allegations of influencing murders have meant the game is largely recognised for its nonchalant approach to violence, however growing up GTA meant so much more to a generation that had Franz Ferdinand hailed Best British Group in 2005.

Admittedly, the main source of satisfaction in GTA comes from rampaging around town at high speeds whilst shooting hookers, but as enjoyable as that is it can become monotonous after a period if you don’t have a decent soundtrack to complement the terror.

GTA: Vice City was the first biggie in terms of soundtracks, with the likes of Ozzy, Kate Bush, Luther Vandross and Grandmaster Flash gracing the airwaves. The game is a mix of respectable, established artists, and Spandau Ballet. Despite the jukebox nature of the artists Vice City was a real education, and more importantly a first big exposure to some of the sounds only previously heard emanating from your parents car – I often heard Luther blaring from my Dads Rover 200 late at night, but strangely he never seemed to set off anywhere.

As enjoyable as Vice City was the real daddy is of course San Andreas, set in 1992 the game expanded to include three metropolitan cities, introducing gamers to the legendary Radio Los Santos. Having been raised by a Progressive Rock enthusiast and an Al Green nut, I can boast having been to five Jethro Tull concerts (with a sixth on its way), so you can imagine the shock I received as an 11 year old hearing ‘Nuthin But a ‘G’ Thang’ for the first time. Radio Los Santos offered kids who seemed doomed to live their whole lives listening to Hall & Oates a slim chance of normality. To have Lynyrd Skynyrd, N.W.A and Hank Williams all in one package was a truly wonderful thing, and my first real peak past 70’s, cape wearing indulgence.

But just as I thought I was on the road to becoming a Gold Teeth regular, Vice City Stories happened. If being set yet again in the 1980’s wasn’t bad enough, this game not only featured five songs from Phil and the Genesis lot (Genesis really should have changed names post-Gabriel, but that’s another article) but also the man himself. Frustratingly the object is to save Collins from murder in the missions, but nevertheless he’s the first recognised musician to appear in the Grand Theft Auto series, lending a charming, animated performance of ‘In the Air Tonight’ to the game.

Now, on to the latest chapter in the series, GTA: V .This is by far the most sophisticated operation yet with 17 radio stations, plus original contributions from the likes of Tyler, The Creator and an original score that adapts to the actual gameplay (apparently anyway, I’m no gaming expert). Split into three volumes, the one I’m interested in is Vol.3 which features the much loved Radio Los Santos as well as new station FlyLo FM that plays original compositions as well as a hefty chunk from Flying Lotus’ back catalogue. All of this is most impressive, but the inclusion of ‘Party All the Time’ by the one and only Eddie Murphy tops the lot – an absolute treat!

I can’t say I’m going to shell out for the game that’s taking over the world, mainly because I ditched my console some years ago now, but I am glad to see that what I always considered the most rewarding part of the game just getting better and better. And if you don’t like running over policemen, park up somewhere in Blaine County and just enjoy the tunes, guilt free – although I would kill someone so as not to arouse suspicion.

 

 

 

 

From the Vault: Nas – Illmatic

Written by Matt Gibney on . Posted in Music.

In a decade full to the brim with great hip hop albums, Illmatic deserves to rank alongside the very best. Released in 1994 – a time when hip-hop was dominated by the g-funk sounds of west coast artists such as Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre – Illmatic helped to cast everyone’s attention back to New York and ignite the renaissance of the city’s hip hop scene.

Nas enlisted the help of a number of producers for the album including DJ Premier, Large Professor, Pete Rock and Q-Tip. The beats are hard but a heavy sampling of jazz and funk melodies provides the album with an accessibility that has endeared it to many. This production masterclass proved to be the perfect platform for Nas’ street poetry. Employing polysyllabic rhymes, highly intelligent wordplay and his own expansive lexicon, Nas persistently excels himself as a lyricist throughout the album. Highly complex rhymes never compromise immaculate flow as the listener accompanies Nas on a journey through his gritty and often extremely bleak streets of Queensbridge, New York. No track illustrates this better than ‘N.Y. State of Mind’. Over a dark and jazzy DJ Premier beat Nas informs the listener “I never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death”. Yet despite the tough realities of Queensbridge – gang violence, drug addiction and urban decay – a sense of lingering hope still permeates the album. Nas isn’t slating his environment; he’s merely telling it how it is.

Illmatic isn’t without its critics, with many claiming it lacks the length and thus the depth of hip-hop’s other great works. Clocking in at less than forty minutes it’s definitely not the longest but Illmatic retains a focus and coherency rare in all but the best hip hop albums. The phrase “all killer, no filler” has never been more apt. When asked in an early promotional interview to explain the album title, Nas claimed it meant “the ultimate”. It’s a bold title to bestow on your debut release but, when the listening experience is as consistently excellent as this, who are we to disagree?

Hero Doctor helps victims of Kenyan mall massacre

Written by Sean Doherty on . Posted in News.

A former University of Manchester PhD student has talked about his experiences working as a volunteer doctor following the tragic Kenyan mall massacre last month.

Dr. Innocent Orora Maranga, who completed his PhD at the University’s Institute of Cancer Sciences and is currently a consultant gynaecologist in Nairobi, gave his assistance to those affected in the terrorist attack which caused 67 confirmed deaths.

He highlighted the continuing strain on Kenyan hospitals, “The Westgate siege is over, thank God, but we still have tens of people still admitted in various hospitals across the city….mostly in Intensive Care Units with serious injuries; mainly gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries from explosives.

“My involvement was mainly on receiving casualties ferried in by numerous ambulances. The first day of the attack was the most chaotic when ten ambulances could arrive at one go. Those on duty couldn’t manage by any stretch of imagination.

“But thanks to the many volunteers who arrived simultaneously including the hospital emergency response team, the situation came albeit slowly under control.

“Curious onlookers jammed the hospital to see for themselves what was unfolding – and this at times added to the chaos.”

Dr. Maranga, who founded the Kenyan charity CRT-K, an organisation which pays for free screening and treatment costs for low-income women with cervical cancer was thankful of his training at the University of Manchester.

“Looking back at what I’ve seen and experienced over the past few days, I can’t help but be grateful for the invaluable training I received in Manchester. Working long hours on my doctorate, staying at it even when results are nothing but discouraging was not in vain.

“The additional training I attended on ‘Manchester Leadership Program’ came in handy on organizational skills and handling/participating in emergency volunteer situations came into play.

“To cut the long story short, I left Manchester hardened and prepared for a tough merciless world! I have no regrets whatsoever for the four years I spent toiling in Manchester.

“I must stress however, that my contribution in this tragedy was but a small sacrifice, there’re many unsung heroes and heroines who went into extraordinary levels to save the hostages. Mine was just that tiny little screw which tightens the spoke of the wheel to enable a bicycle to move!”

UK first as Manchester students open food bank

Written by Pippa Allen-Kinross on . Posted in News.

Manchester students have opened the country’s first student-run food bank.

Volunteers at the Universities’ Catholic Chaplaincy started the venture, which includes students from the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and RNCM.

The students began the project after seeing increased levels of poverty through their work with a mobile soup kitchen.

Joey Ferrigno, Project Manager at the Manchester Central Foodbank, told The Mancunion, “We thought that we should start a food bank as a pro-active measure that would prevent more people falling into this situation.

“In order to combat this problem, we as a society need to admit that there is one so that we can go about solving it.  Too often this problem is swept under the rug and away from where it can be seen by the public.”

Despite being tied to the Chaplaincy, Ferrigno insists that faith is not an issue where the food bank is concerned: “The food bank is open to anyone regardless of faith (volunteers and those we serve).

“As Christians we try to not judge anyone who walks through our doors, as it takes a lot of bravery and humility for any individual to walk into a food-bank.”

The Poverty Commission has warned that 1.6 million people across the Manchester region are at risk of being in severe poverty, whilst it is estimated that 47% of children in the Manchester Central constituency are below the poverty line, the highest level in the UK.

However, Tory MP Paul Maynard has spoken against food banks during a recent food poverty summit in Manchester, claiming that those in need could become too reliant on the help.

He said: “I value personal responsibility… I do not believe that immediate food relief should be the role of the government.

“We can’t make food-banks part of the welfare state. What I don’t want to do is normalise food poverty.”

In response, Joey Ferrigno told The Mancunion: “The food that we give is never paid for and is provided by donations.

“More importantly we do not solely give out food but also act as a signposting agency.  What this means is that we refer people onwards to other agencies we feel can best help them in their crisis.

“There are many provisions in place to prevent people becoming reliant on the food bank.

“We only provide individuals and families with three days of emergency food, which is the time it takes for a new agency to process you.  We can only provide food to each individual three times in a six month period, which prevents creating a dependency culture.

He added:  “I agree that we don’t want food poverty to become normalised. The first goal of a food bank is to put itself out of business.”

The food bank is open Wednesday 10-12 a.m. at the Manchester Universities’ Catholic Chaplaincy, next to the Church of the Holy Name.  It hopes to eventually be open three times a week.

Anyone interested in volunteering for the Manchester Central Foodbank should email [email protected] or go to the Chaplaincy Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.

University of Manchester ranked 8th for students’ quality of life

Written by Pippa Allen-Kinross on . Posted in News.

The University of Manchester has come 8th in the country in the University Quality of Student Life Survey by Lloyds Bank.

Of the 91 institutions studied, the top three universities were Durham, Loughborough and Cambridge.

Manchester led the way in the number of pubs and clubs in a university city, with nearly 250 different establishments to choose from, but the highest satisfaction with their social lives was reported by students in Sheffield and Newcastle.

Factors such as course satisfaction, graduate employment, crime rates, social life, sporting facilities and living standards were taken into account.

The University of Durham not only had above average course satisfaction, with nine in ten students happy with their degrees, it also ranked as having the lowest crime rate in a university town, with just 0.88 incidents reported per 1000 residents.

The survey also showed up discrepancies in graduate salaries, with up to £10,000 difference between graduates from higher and lower ranking universities.

The average salary for students leaving university currently stands at around £21,000. However, students at the London School of Economics had an average salary of £27,388 after six months, whilst those at Cardiff Metropolitan University can expect an average of £17,118.

Nitesh Patel, an economist at Lloyds Bank, said: “The top ten universities for the best quality of student life are a mix of the old, such as Oxford and Cambridge, and the relatively new such as Newcastle and Bath.

“They all score well on course satisfaction, good employment prospects and high salaries.

“Many of them are also rated highly for a good social life, particularly in the provincial cities in the north.”

Concerns raised over discrimination in GP exam

Written by Inez Dawoodjee on . Posted in News, Science & Tech.

Ethnic minority medical graduates may face discrimination in the GP exam, researchers from the University of Manchester have found.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, unearthed failure rates for ethnic minority candidates from international backgrounds that were significantly higher than those of white, UK-trained candidates, taking the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP) exam – required to become a licensed general practitioner in the UK.

Ethnic minority candidates who trained abroad had a failure rate of 65 per cent in the clinical assessment exams, compared to their locally-trained white colleagues with a failure rate of 4.5 per cent.

“With continuing dependence on international medical graduates in meeting the workforce needs of many developed countries, including the UK, understanding the barriers that these doctors face in entering and completing specialist medical training is important,” said Aneez Esmail, Professor of General Practice at The University of Manchester, and a member of the team who produced the report.

Information was taken from approximately 5,100 MRCGP people who took the exam, over the period of 2010 to 2012. Data was also taken from another 1,175 candidates who trained abroad.

These results came out at the same time as a British Medical Journal Careers investigation, which found that ethnic minority doctors are nearly three times less successful in getting posts in NHS than their colleagues (13.8 per cent as compared to 4.8 per cent). Black or Black British candidates were the least likely group to obtain secure jobs in hospitals with a 2.7 per cent success rate. Doctors of mixed ethnicity had a success rate of 3.5 per cent and Asian and Asian British doctors had a 5.7 per cent success rate.

Reasons suggested for the differences in pass rates between international and locally trained candidates include different training standards as well as cultural factors like English fluency.

“The vast majority of international medical graduates come from the Indian subcontinent and from countries where the discipline of general practice is very different. International medical graduates will therefore have much less direct experience of this specialty than their UK counterparts,” the report outlined.

But, Black British and ethnic minority graduates also had a lower pass rate than white British graduates – 17 percent compared to 4.5 per cent – in their first attempt of the clinical assessment skills exam. There was difficulty explaining the change in pass rate between locally trained graduates from different ethnicities.

The researchers said they “cannot explain differences between white candidates and black and minority ethnic candidates who have trained in the UK.”British-trained candidates would all “have had similar training experiences and language proficiency.”Cultural factors and training standards would not account for the differences in pass rates between different ethnic groups, the report said.

The authors also said they “cannot exclude subjective bias owing to racial discrimination in the marking of the clinical skills assessment as a reason for…” the difference in pass rates.

“We believe that changes to the clinical skills assessment could improve the perception of the examination as being biased against black and minority ethnic candidates,” said Professor Esmail, also the Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility and Equality and Diversity at the University.

“For example, the diversity of the examiners could be more reflective of GPs in the UK and the actors who represent patients should be drawn from a more diverse group to reflect the reality of general practice in the NHS.

“Our report also recommends additional training for international medical graduates to better enable their adaptation to the UK health care system.”

Michael Schmidt on the life of an editor

Written by Annie Muir on . Posted in Books.

Michael Schmidt OBE FRSL is, in his own words, “an anglophone Mexican publisher.” As the brains behind Carcanet Press and the PN Review, he is deeply entrenched in the literary history of Manchester. He has published five books of his own poetry, seven poetry anthologies, two novels, two works of translation and six works of literary history/criticism. I was fortunate enough to go and speak with him and his colleagues at the Carcanet Press offices on Cross Street.

Tell us a bit about what you do, and your association with Manchester.

I started Carcanet, the publishing house, when I was 19 or 20. I was an undergraduate at Oxford and ran a magazine which went belly-up, so I started a press out of it and we published little pamphlets. These were very successful and received good reviews in The Times Literary Supplement so we started books, and we went from debt to debt, from weakness to weakness, and now we publish 30 to 40 books a year.

I came and taught at The University of Manchester for about 23 years, and I set up the creative writing program with Richard Francis, first at undergraduate and then masters level. And when I came to Manchester I realised that I really wanted to have a magazine again. Magazines are to my mind the most wonderful thing you can have as an editor because you’re always discovering new writers and in touch with readers. If you get really enthusiastic, the next month you can publish the thing you’re really enthusiastic about, when of course if you’re doing books it takes a year before you can get it out.

So I set up Poetry Nation (now PN Review) with the then head of English, C.B.Cox, and the very first issue was published in 1972 from Manchester University Press. It’s gone from strength to strength, partly because of the association with C.B. Cox, he was well-known as the editor of the Critical Quarterly, and so he would say to Kingsley Amis ‘send us a poem’, and he would. It was one of the magazines that would help you make your reputation. Every issue has a poet whose never been published before. The last issue had two totally new poets. It would be boring just to edit according to familiar names.

In Lives of the Poets (1999), you said that you decided you wanted to publish poetry when you were 19. Why did you want to be an editor?

I love English, but I’m a foreigner. I’m not a native English speaker, but I’ve always loved English poetry from a very early age, and I guess it just seemed to be a way of engaging with contemporary work that was being produced. It’s very different working with a living poet and working with a poem in process, rather than reading a poem on the printed page.

And I think I very early on distrusted other editors, because I’d see that there were (and still are) effectively only two or three poets that appear in all the bookshops, people whose presence may be a media presence, but the  media presence then makes people want to read their poems. Whereas there are some very good poets who really ought to have been available at the time they started writing, but weren’t even being printed at that stage, because they hated the media, or they didn’t think media had much to do with the art.

I think the whole sort of approach of Carcanet, and PN review, has been that what you are sold as literature isn’t necessarily the best literature. Some of the people you’re sold are very good, and some of the people you’re sold are crap, and the development of an individual judgement is really quite important. I also have a really profound belief that English literature is literature in English not literature in England, or indeed in Britain, so there are some wonderful things happening in New Zealand, Australia and so on which really could inform and extend our pages, and just as we could inform and extend theirs.

I read that you were working on a follow-up to Lives of the Poets, called A Life of the Novel.

I’ve finished that now; I’m still doing the page-proofs. It’s awfully long! Much bigger than the poets. (I laugh because Lives of the Poets is of epic proportions.)

Is your next project going to be Lives of the Editors?

That would be really boring! (Laughs) Well, there was a project I had when I left Manchester University, which was based at the John Rylands Library in Deansgate. We have access to the copyright of a number of famous writers, including Hugh MacDiarmid, Robert Graves, Edgell Rickword and so on. They were all major editors or had relations with major editors, and the idea was to publish online what we’d call the backshop, or the backmatter, of these figures. So you can see how the correspondence between Edgell Rickword and his friends informs his writing: sometimes they will write to criticize, sometimes write to comment…

There was a wonderful conversation I had many years ago with Robert Lowell, the American poet. He said the worst moment in his life was when he won the Putlitzer Prize at the age of thirty something, because all of his friends who had used to read and comment on his work stopped talking about his poetry, because they felt in a sense he’d gone beyond them, or  moved under another sphere. And so he felt completely unread.

Also, when I was doing my history of the American novel I found out that Tom Wolfe’s novel Look Homeward, Angel was completely re-written by his editor. Also Charles Monteith at Faber & Faber completely re-wrote, and reduced by two thirds, Golding’s Lord of The Flies. So editors are really important.

What does the Manchester Literature Festival mean to you?

I think it has become, now that it is a literary festival rather than just a poetry festival, one of the major literary festivals in the country. The directors always bring the people that everyone wants to hear but they also, almost always, bring unexpected people as well, so it both answers expectations and extends expectations, and every year there are new people there. I don’t attend as many events as I probably should though.

Are you going to any this year?

The ones I’m in! (Laughs) No, I’ll go to some of the readings too I hope.

 

Face your fears day

Written by Beth Currall on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 8th October) marks the UK National Face Your Fears Day. This could be an interesting day for everyone who decides to take the plunge and confront their worst nightmare, and it could have a life-long effect on some.

For many of us, spiders, heights, ghostly happenings and darkness trump the list of things that scare us the most, but I suspect it might be quite difficult to arrange a bungee jump or a séance within the next 24 hours. However, it would be a perfect day to get over the small hang-ups that linger in everyday life: for example, go and tackle that 400-page book that you’ve been meaning to read, go and apply for that job that you don’t think you have a chance of getting, or find that person you’ve had a crush on since your Fresher’s week and let them know you fancy them.

You could even use this day to transform your lifestyle, such as joining a fitness class that you’ve always been too shy to attend, or signing up for a fun run. Go to the doctor’s about that health concern you’ve had for a few weeks, or book an appointment to the dreaded dentist that you’ve avoided since you were a toddler. Try and whip up a recipe you’ve never attempted before, or, for the rather undomestic readers, tidy your floordrobe or put on your first load of washing! Don’t let the term ‘fears’ restrict you or make you feel as though you have to do something extravagant to accomplish the aim of the day; use it to your advantage. For all you know, the smallest change to your life could make the biggest difference.

The high-streets coolest cover ups

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

ZARA Wool cardigan with funnel collar – £59.99

Zara.com

ON TREND: In the Pink

Tick all the boxes for style and colour with this pink Zara jacket, featuring the favourite outerwear colour choice for this Autumn/Winter. Taking inspiration from London Fashion Week and confirmed by the likes of Mulberry, Christopher Kane and John Rocha; pink is the colour to be seen in this season and will look even better come winter, paired with flushed rosy checks that Manchester’s cold weather brings.

H&M Bouclé Jacket with a wool blend and lapels – £34.99 GBP.

Hm.com

ON A BUDGET: Oversized

This ‘Borrowed from the Boys’ style Jacket is perfect for A/W13. ‘Size does matter’ was the message that carried very strongly from London Fashion Week, with designers such as DKNY, Acne and Carven driving the trend forward. The trend has since trickled down to be found on the high street and everywhere from Topshop to Primark are making the most of the cosy and oversized style. What’s best about this jacket is that it can be worn now, whilst there is still warm(ish) weather in Manchester but can also be carried through to winter by layering jumpers underneath.  There is also 20% off in-store at H&M for students with the Unidays App.  So get down there to get more fashion for you money before this great discount expires!


AMERICAN APPAREL Oversized wool coat featuring single button closure and a suede collar £154 .00

store.americanapparel.co.uk

GOOD INVESTMENT: The Long Wool Coat

Personally I would be hoping for a harsh winter to justify buying this coat. Sure it’s a bit pricey but it’s 15% off online right now, if you sign up for their newsletter, so that’s okay, right? This coat is also totally in keeping with the oversized trend, which works just as well for menswear as it does womenswear. Plus, the coat is also a unisex style, so girls can borrow it as well! Designers including Topman Design and Oliver Spencer favoured this particular style at London Fashion Week, because of its smart-come-laidback look.  The practical nature of this coat is also a bonus as it is as smart as it is casual, making it a worthwhile investment. And again, layering is key for taking this coat into the colder months.  If you’re looking for some inspiration for what to team this up with, have a look at the work of designers Paul Costelloe, Officine Generale and Richard James for some inspiration.

 

 

 

From the Vault: Freaks and Geeks

Written by Moya Crockett on . Posted in Lifestyle.

The opening of the first episode of Freaks and Geeks sets the tone of what’s to follow. The camera pans across a typical American high school soccer field before settling on two blonde teenagers sitting on the bleachers. He’s a football player, she, a cheerleader. “You seem so distant these days, Brad,” the girl says softly. “Is it something I did?” Brad can’t say anything at first, but eventually, he manages to croak a response. “Ashley, it’s just – I love you so much, it scares me.” They embrace tearfully, the music changes, and the camera dips below the bleachers, where the Freaks hang out.

Created by Bridesmaids director Paul Feig and co-produced by Judd Apatow, Freaks and Geeks aired from 1999-2000 on NBC. Set in an ordinary Detroit suburb in 1980, the comedy-drama series centres around Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini) and her younger brother Sam (John Francis Daley), as they attempt to navigate their way through their teenage years. Lindsay desperately wants to shake off her association with the Mathletes and ingratiate herself with a new group, but in a break from most representations of American high school, she’s not fussed about being one of the popular kids. She’d rather hang out with the “Freaks”, stringy-haired slackers who skip classes, smoke and talk about Led Zeppelin: Nick (Jason Segel), Ken (Seth Rogen), Kim (Busy Phillips) and Daniel (James Franco). Lindsay’s stumbling transition from very, very good girl to army-jacket-wearing, sort-of-but-not-really-rebel is the driving force behind much of the show. Most of all, she wants to impress Daniel, the Freaks’ manipulative but irresistible ringleader, but is petrified at the prospect of helping him cheat on a maths test, hosting a house party or doing anything that might get her into trouble. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Sam has his own issues to deal with, which are – refreshingly – given just as much screen-time as his elder sister’s. He’s in love with a cheerleader, targeted by bullies, and his hilarious best friends are excruciating geeks.

If these issues sound rather low-key, that’s because they are – but this is one of Freaks and Geeks’ greatest strengths. The world inhabited by Lindsay, Sam and their friends is completely prosaic and therefore utterly relatable, which is a surprisingly rare quality in a teen TV show. For most of us, our secondary school years resembled the ludicrous glamour of Gossip Girl, or the improbable romantic entanglements of Dawson’s Creek, as much as they did a National Geographic documentary. Our teenage memories are likely to look a lot more like Lindsay and Sam’s: clumsy social navigation, awkward attempts at romance, and the frequent intrusion of embarrassingly normal parents who insist on you sitting down for dinner and doing your homework. That’s not, however, to say that the storylines in Freaks and Geeks come across as trivial or inane. They are treated with all the sincerity that one feels at school, when the fact that you didn’t know who a band were really did feel like the worst thing that could possibly happen. And to top it all, it’s really, really funny. (Sample line, from Lindsay and Sam’s dad: “Everyone’s a Democrat until they get a little money. Then they come to their senses!”)

Sadly, as Barbra Streisand sang, “the good things never last,” and NBC cancelled Freaks and Geeks in 2000 after just 12 episodes. While the show has since acquired cult status – and many of its key players gone on to staggering Hollywood success – this does little to ease the pain of never knowing what happens to the Weir kids and their friends. But if you think you can handle the pain of saying goodbye to a pitch-perfect high school series after just one season, I’d advise you to dive in. If nothing else, you get to look at a 21-year-old James Franco – and who doesn’t want that?

Fire at Manchester Student Village sees 1,000 evacuated

Written by Sean Doherty on . Posted in News.

Over 1,000 students were evacuated from their hall of residence last Monday after a kitchen fire broke out.

After one student left a frying pan unattended during a late night cooking session, Fire and Rescue teams were called to Manchester Student Village on Lower Chatham Street at 2.58am.

The fire fighters managed to contain the blaze in the private halls sixth floor kitchen and used a special ventilation fan to clear smoke from the property.

No-one was hurt as a result of the fire but it did cause significant damage to the communal kitchen and caused smoke damage to the rest of the floor.

Councillor David Acron, Chair of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, has put out a plea for students to stay safe while cooking.

“Every year our crews deal with a spate of cooking fires when freshers come to Manchester.

“Leaving home and beginning to look after yourself is an exciting time, but please take care.

“It’s easy to get distracted when cooking – that’s when a fire can begin with devastating consequences.

“Always stand by your pan or better still if you’re on your way home from a night out stop at a takeaway.”

Nick Lake from MCR Students, the group which run the halls, praised the quick response of staff working during the night the fire broke out.

“Our facilities team responded as required, raised the alarm and carried out a textbook evacuation.

They deserve credit for their professionalism and it highlights the need for residents to take fire safety more seriously. MCR Students works closely with GMFRS to ensure the risks to residents are reduced and its properties are as safe as possible.

The damage was restricted to the one kitchen, with smoke damage in the apartment hallway. Testament to the construction of the building, the actions of our team and the quick response of GMFRS.”

Monday night also saw residents evacuated from Wilmslow Park halls of residence after a smaller fire broke out there.

For a free Home Safety Check, which could include the fitting of smoke alarms please call Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service on 0800 555 815 or visit www.manchesterfire.gov.uk.

Top 5 Autumn Statement Necklaces

Written by Elizabeth Linsley on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.


Beaded Interwoven Necklace, Zara, £19.99

This eye-catching necklace will instantly make any outfit shine. The pink colour is very on trend this autumn and will brighten up an otherwise all black winter ensemble. The detail in the necklace means you can keep the rest of your outfit simple, and still look like you’ve made an effort.

Tia Rope and Chain Twisted Necklace, boohoo.com, £12

Boohoo stock a range of statement necklaces and with many under £10 they are incredibly purse-friendly! This plaited gold and monochrome necklace looks much pricier than it is and is simple enough to be worn over a sweater to university or with a chiffon blouse for a classier look.


Limited Edition Lynsey Luxor Necklace, New Look, £14.99

This unusual New Look necklace mixes shades of embossed metal, looking fresh and fashionable and the subtle metal tones work well with a range of colours.. Wear with leather and denim to contrast with the different the textures.

Coral Statement Necklace, Warehouse, £16

A statement necklace for the statement shy, this is an easy way of tapping into the trend for accessory virgins. The white, silver and coral colour combination will go perfectly with autumnal shades of navy and forest green, while the classical pear shaped stones and diamonds contrast with the spikes to keep the design interesting.

Rope V Drop Necklace, Topshop, £18.50

Although the design of this necklace is bold, the simple colour scheme makes it easy to wear with a variety of outfits, from your hot pink Pout dress to your grey marl Deaf Institute tee. It could also be work with a checkered shirt to liven up your university wardrobe.

The death of Mr Darcy

Written by Elizabeth Mitchell on . Posted in Books.

In advance of appearing on our shelves this coming month, an extract of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy was published in The Sunday Times Magazine on 29th September 2013. First appearing in The Independent in 1995, Fielding’s column about the 30-something working singleton grabbed the imagination of women up and down the country. A year later saw the release of the novel Bridget Jones’s Diary, followed by the 1999 sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason. Riding on their success, the multiple award-nominated film adaptations, starring Renée Zellweger, were released in 2001 and 2004 respectively.

So, what has Bridget Jones been up to for all these years? In many respects, things haven’t changed that much: Bridget still drinks copious amounts of alcohol (although she’s matured from Chardonnay to cocktails) and obsesses over self-help books, and Daniel Clever seems as sleazy as ever. Then again, Bridget has grown up, both in terms of age and with the times. She’s been catapulted into middle age: she’s now 51 and preoccupied with wrinkles. She has two children, Mabel and Billy, leading to nit-related dilemmas and parental playground warfare. Instead of habitually checking her voicemail, Bridget’s obsessed with the number of Twitter followers she has. Oh, and she’s a widow.

This bombshell was dropped on readers in no uncertain terms. At the end of the last novel, we left Bridget having just been proposed to by the slightly-awkward-lawyer-yet-gorgeous-heartthrob Mark Darcy. The third instalment starts five years on from Darcy’s death, with the knowledge that he became Jones’ husband and the father of her two children. Although how he died will not be revealed until the book’s release, the published extract featured Bridget lamenting over Mark’s death as she struggles to form a relationship with Roxster, a 29 year old toyboy. Twitter users flocked to express their discontent at the robbing of Bridget’s ‘happily ever after’ as well as their love for the deceased Darcy.

Although I personally had a day of mourning, maybe Fielding’s distressing move had a motive. The thing most readers ultimately love about Bridget is the sexual scrapes she got into as a singleton. Unattached as a widowed single mother of two, the predicaments can only be bigger and better than ever.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy will be released on 10th October

Travel: Gardens of Versailles

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Waking up in the Gardens of Versailles on a misty summer morning should be a joy. But you’re not allowed to sleep in the Gardens of Versailles, so my night hadn’t been the most restful. Every time something heavy crunched among the trees my eyes would be wide open again. What if it was the gendarmes? What if it was wolves?

At 3am there had been a thunderstorm right above my tent. My GCSE physics was telling me what a bad idea it was to be the tallest thing around, pitched here by Louis XIV’s enormous ornamental boating lake, the Grand Canal.

It was a scenic spot though. The whole Gardens are, though ‘gardens’ is perhaps a technical term here, since the plants and landscaping do their very best to imitate plastic ornaments, as if organic shapes are somehow shameful. Gardeners wander round with ten-foot cookie-cutters, which they place around the privet and trim. Renaissance music is piped through hidden speakers and fountains carefully tinkle. Barely a leaf is out of place.

As a jewel of the Renaissance, and an expression of man’s complete control of the landscape, Versailles must have been magnificent and awe-inspiring (and the Palace itself still is). These days its geometry, order and muzak make it an overly gilt rival to Homebase.

Despite this, elements of wildness manage to creep in. If you pause by the gleaming statues, you realise these are scenes of sex, murder and betrayal hidden beneath – the vicarious Tarantino thrills of the Sun King’s court. A slippery rat lives by the café, children don’t know the rules and flustered staff blow their whistles.

At night the tourists and sparrows return to roost, the muzak fades when the fireworks stop, and the wild things are free to roam. The mosquitoes emerge from the standing pools in the relandscaped woods. The thunder, presumably too polite to speak during the day, lets off steam. Badgers (or wolves?) crunch amongst the trees.

At 6.30am I strike camp. I swim in the Grand Canal, still hot from the day before. This is an uncommon moment of peace in a place that teems with 6 million visitors a year.