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Day: 25 September 2014

University signs new agreement with National Grid

Written by Aileen Rose Duffy on . Posted in News.

The National Grid has confirmed its commitment to supporting energy system innovation with the University of Manchester by singing a new agreement as of 17th September. The National Grid Power Systems Research Centre is based at the University of Manchester and is the largest and best equipped high voltage laboratory at any university throughout the UK.

Established in 2002, the relationship between the University of Manchester and National Grid has remained strong, with over a decade of collaborative work that has helped to grow the research facilities at the University of Manchester.

More than 45 academics and 150 researchers work at the centre which holds six experimental laboratories; three associated with high voltage engineering, one for dielectric materials, one for protection and control and one measurement and instrumentation.

In the past year alone £3 million has been invested into the facilities at the University, enabling researchers to further develop technology to adapt, control and distribute the future of energy, focusing on reliability and sustainability.

The Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Professor Colin Bailey, said: “We have had a valued relationship with National Grid over the past 10 years and have jointly delivered projects that are supporting the development of a secure and efficient energy system”.

He addressed three key areas that the new agreement hopes to improve: Research, Facilities, and Education. Professor Bailey stated: “Technology alone will not transform our energy system, and expertise from across the University will support National Grid in delivering the energy system of the future”.

David Wright, Director of Electricity Transmission Asset Management at National Grid, said: “The role and value of research and innovation has never been more central to the future success of our company.

“National Grid and The University of Manchester have had a strong relationship for over a decade and we look forward to seeing our partnership develop further into the future.”

Black History Month at the Students’ Union

Written by Helen Chapman on . Posted in News.

Black History Month will hit the Students’ Union from October 1st with a range of events aiming to “empower, celebrate and enlighten.”

Tessy Maritim, Diversity Offier at the University of Manchester Students’ Union, said, “our theme this year is Enlightening, Celebrating and Empowering and each activity fits into one of these categories.

“My hope is that as many students as possible engage with Black History Month and I look forward to witnessing a successful celebration of Black History Month.”

The event will kick off with Open Mic, giving a platform for students to showcase talents and performances celebrating black history and culture.

In order to enlighten the student masses there will be a chance to discuss issues such as police brutality, skin bleaching and the perpetuation of black stereotypes on Wednesday 8th October with a roundtable discussion.

An academic panel discussion on Wednesday 15th October aims to empower when talking about the issue of black and ethnic minority attainment gap. Guest speakers include Malia Bouattia (NUS Black Students’ Officer) and Patrick Johnson (Head of Equality and Diversity at the University of Manchester).

A short documentary focusing on black women will be screened followed by a question and answer session. The Contact Theatre will also be hosting plays for Black History Month at the end of October, celebrating black history and culture.

Tessy Maritim, said “It’s really important for students to know that Black History Month isn’t targeted to a certain audience, rather, it’s for everyone to enjoy and learn”.

Are you afraid of the dark? Not I, Footfalls and Rockaby – a night at the theatre of Samuel Beckett

Written by Amy Barker on . Posted in Theatre.

The night began with an announcement: “The three plays will run at 55 minutes, including a 3 minute silence between each piece. We will be turning the house lights and emergency lights off. If you have to leave, there will be no re-admittance.” And then they turned out the lights.

If you think it’s dark in a regular theatre, think again. The blackness was all-encompassing, pressing heavily against my eyes; I was straining to see anything. Not I begins not with a light, but a gurgle. The Mouth is born onto the stage, a pin-prick of a spotlight illuminating the beautiful red lips and white teeth, eight feet in the air, making the ugliest noises. Then the Mouth, voiced by the fantastic Lisa Dwan, the sole performer of all three plays, starts to talk.

Not I is an unstoppable torrent of thought and emotion, spoke “at the speed of thought,” veering along a vague path of connected images, up and down, excited and bored and angry and violent. The monologue couldn’t have last more than fifteen minutes—I’d guess even ten, given the breakneck speed of the speech!—before the audience is plunged into blackness once more.

Footfalls and Rockaby are both haunting and melancholy, seeing Dwan first pace the stage back and forth as she upheld an incredible dialogue as both mother and daughter, then rocking back and forth as the Woman in her chair, contemplating her life and her death.

Lisa Dwan was an amazing performer throughout—it was hard to believe that the three pieces starred the same actress. Not I involved so much energy that I felt pinned to my seat by the force of her words. The tone of Footfalls and Rockaby are very different, but the intensity is never lost, even for a moment. Particularly in Footfalls, Dwan balances the measured pacing and the battle between her two characters with the utmost precision and the tension—and the sadness—she created was truly palpable.

For me, the trilogy was astounding, with an exceptional performance from Lisa Dwan, but it is not for everyone—evident from the whispers in the stalls during Not I. However, if you’ve never experienced Absurdist theatre before and fancy throwing yourself in at the deep end give it a go—you might enjoy it! And for fans of the Absurd, and of Beckett: what’s stopping you?

5 out of 5 stars

TV Guide – Week 3

Written by Tom Bruce on . Posted in Film.

How’s your lecture attendance going? Good? Good. Now mess it up by watching all the good films showing on freeview this week, listed at the bottom. Before that, you need to know about Cops.

Cops is the best show. This snappily named documentary style series is one a kind, a perfectly formed piece of informative, thrilling televisual entertainment. In the words of the creator, John Langley, Cops is the only “real reality show” in existence. In each episode of Cops, footage captured by camera crews shadowing on-duty police officers around the USA is edited together to bring you a half-hour programme that contains an average of three genuine criminal incidents. In contrast to its British counterparts, Cops shows you everything—the fighting, the swearing, the drugs, the car chases… even the bodies. What American law enforcement personnel have to deal with often defies belief; between meth-heads, alligators and cheese thieves, many Cops encounters are stranger than fiction. Making Cops is dangerous, and they say that no art is worth human suffering, but Cops isn’t just art—it is, for many people, their daily lives. When the screen fades to black, fading to the chatter of police radios and the steel drums of the ‘Bad Boys’ outro, the lives of both cops and cons go on as normal. You can find Cops showing on CBS Reality and Movie Mix, practically non-stop. Watch it. It’s the bests how.

Films: Forrest Gump, Monday, Film 4, 9pm; The Terminator, Monday, Five, 10.55pm; The Blues Brothers, Tuesday, ITV4, 10pm; Taken, Wednesday, Film 4, 9pm; The Social Network, Thursday, Film 4, 11.30pm; if…, Friday, Film 4, 1.50am; Panic Room, Friday, Film 4, 11pm; Wall Street, Saturday, Channel 4, 12.35am; Dances With Wolves, Sunday, BBC Two, 2pm; Space Jam, Sunday, ITV2, 3.15pm. If you’ve got Sky or Netflix, then watch whatever you want, so long as that thing is either Boardwalk Empire’s final season—Saturdays on Sky Atlantic at 9pm—or BoJack Horseman, which can be found in Netflix’s stable, always and forever.

Interview: Silverclub

Written by Samuel Ward on . Posted in Music.

The official press release for Silverclub’s upcoming EP describes how “thick analogue percussive vibrancy has a scrap with a sophisticated discoid lyricism resulting in shaky legs, adrenaline overdosed heightened senses and a fuck yeah fist in the air for every track on this EP.”

Luckily though, frontman Duncan Jones agrees that PR shouldn’t be the serious selling point of any band. “Yeah I love working with Woody at Red Laser; I think he’s probably the only label owner we know who gives less of a fuck than we do. They’re set up nicely and they shift their records, they do stuff entirely their own way and their PR is not even remotely proper, but he’s honest and enthusiastic plus he’s funny as fuck.”

However the amusing thing is that it’s all pretty accurate. I sit with Jones at the Fallow Café and sense a quiet feeling of achievement, experimentation and maybe even a “fuck yeah fist” that curls around his words; it’s a thing which is also reflected in the band’s groovy yet giddy back catalogue.

“I’ve been doing that [programming synths] since year dot, I mean I’ve been fucking around with ‘em for ages. I nicked an SH101 from high school when I was like 15. They did eventually figure out where it had gone and I had to eventually give it back. I had that and some other bits and pieces like a DX7 kicking around and some shitty drum machines and a cassette four track, which was just a massive pain in the arse when making electronic music since you have to do an entire synth line in one take and the editing on those things weren’t easy, bouncing down constantly. I am better on the synth side of it though; I’m not a great guitarist, I’m just alright, but I love to just throw everything at it.”

Considering Silverclub’s extremely DIY approach, the quality of writing and production on the tracks is an outstanding reward. The music definitely seems too smooth and well-groomed for it to be the result of “throwing everything at it.”

“Well I’ve produced since I was like 15 so I just do all of [the production] now. That first record, a lot of it seems quite naïve. I’ve made some pretty weird house and techno and electronic music since I was really young and started putting stuff out when I was 18, my first vinyls and stuff. Before that I was in jam bands and they were always pretty spaced and synthy. Pretty much all the guys I liked jamming with went off to university and I just decided not to go last minute because I didn’t want to spend three years on something I wasn’t sure on. At that point there were other musicians where I lived but whenever I’d try and play with them and get some sort of groove going they’d stop it and say ‘OK now we need a chorus to go with that verse’ and I was like ‘what the fuck are you talking about?’ This shit can be like two chords for 10 minutes.”

It’s an experience us university musicians have had too many times. For someone who’s grown around music for a long time, it’s surprising then that the band’s second unsigned record, Back to the Start, is already sounding like a huge step towards musical maturity. “Yeah, well most of that first record I just can’t listen to. We always get someone calling in after a gig and asking why we didn’t play ‘No Application’ and it’s ‘cos it’s fucking horrible,” laughs Jones.

The development doesn’t just stop with writing though, as Silverclub’s live sets have also began to fill that unsteady and highly unpopulated gap between DJs and live bands. “When we’re playing live, there’s nothing stopping us jamming out a song for eight minutes. Live we were always alright but we found none of us go see bands that much and prefer to go to club nights, to experience the seamlessness of DJs, so we thought why don’t we try it. Now it’s the only way we play now. Instead of stopping we’ll just extend the rhythm and bring it into the next one. It’s high risk but high reward. If something stops working at that point you gotta just fucking deal with it cos we’re not stopping, the train is coming. We want people to just lose it and dance. We don’t give em a chance.”

Personally, I’m excited for the show. I’m maybe even more excited to hear the tunes which will make Back to the Start sound “fucking horrible.”

Silverclub play Deaf Institute Friday 26th Sept

Interview: Professor Phil Manning

Written by Andy van den Bent-Kelly on . Posted in Features, News, Science & Tech.

It’s 11 o’clock on a Friday morning and I’m due to meet Professor Phil Manning any minute. He’s one of the most eminent palaeontologists in the country, so what could be a more appropriate place to meet than the foyer of the Manchester Museum, where the skeleton of a 7.5m long Gorgosaurus has just moved in?

As I stare in awe at this magnificent beast, Prof Manning walks round the corner and instantly begins to tell me all about it.

“It’s one of the most complete tyrannosaurs known to science because it’s pretty much 90 per cent complete, which is remarkable,” he explains. “It’s the ancestor of the T-Rex—everyone always wants to know about the Coca Cola of the dinosaurs, which is the T-Rex, but really, to unpick its family tree is as exciting a story.”

It is indeed an astonishingly complete skeleton. I learn that it was the centrepiece of this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Society, an event that Prof Manning is very familiar with, having exhibited at it twice in the last three years.

GROWING UP

We move upstairs to the quieter surroundings of the top floor. I start by asking him a rather obvious question, about what sparked his interested in palaeontology as a kid.

“Every single child goes through a phase of being fascinated by either archaeology or dinosaurs,” he replies. “Most kids grow out of it—I didn’t! I’ve been fortunate enough just to pursue that for the rest of my life. One of my friends puts it very eloquently. He says “It’s the Peter Pan subject.’ We don’t actually ever grow up.”

I was the same. I’m sure that my countless dinosaur sticker books are still lurking around the house somewhere. A huge chunk of my childhood dinosaur knowledge has vanished, so I joke that this interview ideally should have taken place 15 years ago. Prof Manning knows all too well how about the inquisitive nature of children. “People ask me what the most frightening thing about doing public lectures is,” he says. “I tell them that it’s the three-foot high experts who come to your talks!”

Professor Manning digs in various excavation sites across the world, particularly in the Hell Creek formation in the United States. He often brings undergraduates with him to assist. Whilst on this topic, I ask him if he can recall his first dig.

He smiles fondly as he reminisces. “My first dig was rendering my father’s garden to rubble!” He tells me that whilst exploring the garden of his Somerset home, he saw a bone sticking out of the wall of a shed. “I remember seeing a funny shape and thinking, ‘That’s a fossil.’ I’d already been reading books on them.” Grabbing a nearby hammer, he tore down the shed and picked up the fossil, which turned out to be a vertebra from a Plesiosaur.

“I got absolutely fried by my father for basically dismantling a shed at the bottom of the garden without telling him!” he laughs. “But I got my first fossil, my first vertebra of a sea dragon from the Jurassic era. At that point, I was lost. This was where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.”

FAVOURITE DINOSAUR

I’m sitting face-to-face with a world-renowned palaeontologist and regardless of how important and interesting his research may be, there’s one question which I’m desperate to ask him.

“What’s your favourite dinosaur?”

Not the most intellectually-stimulating question I’ll ever ask. Unsurprisingly, he’s initially reluctant to pick just one. “It’s like having a big family and being asked to choose your favourite child!” he jokes. However, he proceeds to tell me about a particularly memorable image from one of the illustrated dinosaur books he owned as a child. “There was a picture of a single fossil, and it was of an Archaeopteryx, which some people often call the missing link between dinosaurs and birds,” he reminisces. “Some would argue that it’s the first bird and I’m prone to agree. But of course it has many dinosaurian characteristics and was around at the time of the dinosaurs.

“Its ancestors were predatory dinosaurs, so technically all birds are dinosaurs. So by de facto I argue that Archaeopteryx is both my favourite bird and dinosaur. I’ve recently had the pleasure and honour of working on one of these incredibly rare fossils.”

Caught up in the moment, I begin to talk about my favourite prehistoric beasts. I tell Professor Manning of my admiration for the Triceratops and he is quick to agree. “It’s a remarkable creature, it’s akin to a reptilian rhinoceros,” he says. “Of all the ceratopsian dinosaurs, it’s the only one with a solid frill, that shield that goes at the back of its head and it’s the only one that’s made of solid bone.

“I do have a soft spot for Triceratops. I dug up the brain case of one this summer!”

I recall the countless dinosaur sticker books I had as a child. Listed below each image were multiple facts about the relevant dinosaur, including which part of the modern world they would have originated from. An abiding memory of mine is that only one would have come from modern-day England—Megalosaurus.

“Dinosaurs are a British invention, we must never forget that,” Prof Manning emphasises. “It was Sir Richard Owen who, back in 1841, came up with the idea of a distinct saurian tribe, which united these bones that people had been discovering throughout the previous 10–20 years. He didn’t come up with the name until the following year, so in 1842, dinosaurs were effectively born into the scientific language.”

I learn that Megalosaurus was first described properly in 1824. “For me, it’s the first dinosaur which was still technically not a dinosaur because dinosaurs had not yet been invented,” he explains. “But it has a much more interesting history.”

He tells me that the lower part of a Megalosaurus femur was found in the 17th Century. Of course, no one had the slightest clue what it was. Robert Plot, a renowned English naturalist, chose to name it after the object that it most closely resembled, leading to the rather unfortunate name of ‘Scrotum Humanum.’

“I’m quite grateful that particular name has fallen into disuse!” laughs Prof Manning. “Can you imagine kids going into a museum and saying ‘Mum, Dad, look at the size of that—‘ well, let’s not go there!”

CURRENT PROJECTS

Professor Manning chuckles when I ask him what projects he is currently working on. The list is so long it could probably fill this whole page. “A phrase that my splendid colleague Roy Wogelius uses is that we are ‘constipated with data.’ And we are! We have a vast data set because we are working on so many different research fronts.

“If you ask me what I’m researching at the moment, it’s everything from Egyptian mummies to the earliest life on Earth some 3.8 billion years ago, and just filling in the gaps in between. We have an international research programme which involves working on samples from literally every continent on Earth. It’s breathtakingly fun to be involved with such a diverse research programme.”

What happens next is undoubtedly the most heart-warming part of the whole interview. “I think I’ve had two vacations in ten years, because my research, my work, my life is my vacation—I love what I do. As a result, you don’t really need holidays if what you’re doing is what you want to be doing. I don’t need to take a break—if I do take a break I’m actually missing my work, which is a bizarre way of thinking of it!”

I also learn that he is currently in the process of naming two dinosaurs, although he’s not overjoyed at the prospect. “I’ve got a couple on the backburner, although I’d much rather be working out how the animals function. Give me a toy—yes, it’s easy to name a toy. But pull that toy apart and see how it works – now you’re talking!”

If you’re reading this Phil, and you’re still struggling for motivation, I reckon Andysaurus would be perfect.

DINOSAURS IN THE MEDIA

I move onto a new topic, the portrayal of dinosaurs within the world of television, film and radio. As a physicist, I have a tendency to point out obvious scientific flaws in films—the huge boom that accompanies the explosion of the Death Star still makes me shudder. Since we have no real understanding of how dinosaurs actually behaved—only what they looked like—there is a lot of speculation involved when it comes to portraying them in films. I ask Prof. Manning if he occasionally despairs at these wild guesses and often ludicrous errors. My question is met with a firm shake of the head. “Never. I never despair, because dinosaurs are a gateway into science for kids.

“Dinosaurs have been part of popular literature and in the media ever since their invention.” He goes on to quote the opening paragraph of Bleak House, in which Charles Dickens makes reference to none other than a Megalosaurus. He tells me about the famous Great Exhibition of 1851, in which the grounds surrounding the Crystal Palace were filled with sculptures of all kinds of dinosaurs. Moving on into the 20th Century, he talks about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and the iconic animation Gertie the Dinosaur.

The key point Prof. Manning makes throughout is that no matter how ridiculously dinosaurs may be portrayed, it doesn’t matter, as long as they’re still inspiring the next generation. “People have always been fascinated by them and I think that when people see them in the media, it doesn’t matter if it’s Walking with Dinosaurs, even Talking with bloody Dinosaurs, so be it!

“If kids get excited by them and take that next step to picking up a book, or even nowadays googling dinosaurs and finding information about them online, little do they know that they’re taking the first few steps towards becoming a scientist.”

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON SCIENCE

Palaeontology, just like my chosen discipline of astrophysics, is an immensely popular area of science for people of all ages. I ask Prof Manning why he thinks this is. Obviously, he is delighted that his field interests so many people, but he is quick to voice his concern about the “Science is so beautifully linked together, but it’s compartmentalised by people who don’t understand it,” he says. “Areas of more applied science, such as nuclear physics and medicine, are often sold to us by the media as being ‘core science.’ That worries me hugely, because there is no such thing as core science—all science is core.”

Prof Manning goes on to explain about his work with other departments. He was fundamental in helping to establish the Interdisciplinary Centre for Ancient Life (ICAL), which fosters collaboration between staff members from multiple schools within the university. He acts as the director of the new centre.

Professor Manning is perhaps the truest definition of a scientist, someone whose passion and enthusiasm for his field is unmatched by anyone I’ve ever spoken to. He is incredibly appreciative of the work taking place in other departments and his desire to collaborate with researchers from every branch of science shows how forward-thinking he really is. He has impeccable knowledge of so many different disciplines—at one point in the interview we spoke for a good ten minutes about astrophysics, in particular the Rosetta mission.

ADVICE

I conclude the interview by asking Prof Manning if he has any advice for people hoping to follow him into palaeontology, or indeed any area of science. His message is clear: “If you really love doing one particular thing at school, and you can get a qualification in it, do it. Pursue it.

“Often schools will give you advice to do things which you really don’t want to do, but it’s the best thing for you to do, but it’s thinking with your head. Sometimes, with science, the best place to start the thought process is with your heart.

“If you are truly passionate about something and you truly love working in a particular area, that’s the area in which you will probably make the most impact. Enthusiasm and passion are things that cannot be taught and they are things that we always seek in our best students. Because they’re the ones who tend to excel.”

After completing my GCSEs, I was unsure about what direction I wanted my life to go in. I considered all sorts of careers, although at that time I had dollar signs flashing in my eyes and only really cared about which job would make me the most money. It was only when it came to applying to university that I realised that the world of astrophysics was where I belonged. I express my relief at realising this before it was too late to Professor Manning.

“You have one chance at life,” he replies. “To do something for your whole life that you don’t truly enjoy, I would find it soul-destroying. I think it’s very good if you can pursue something you thoroughly enjoy in life. That’s so important.”

To learn more about ICAL, visit www.ical.manchester.ac.uk/

You can follow Professor Manning on Twitter: @DrPhilManning

Sigmund Freud’s Life and Influence

Written by Leonie Dunn on . Posted in Books.

The 23rd of September marked the 85th anniversary of the death of the famous Austrian neurologist, author and equally the founding father of psychoanalysis—Sigmund Freud. Freud is often regarded as one of the few seminal thinkers who have had most influence on life and literature of the 20th century. There is hardly an area which Freudian theories haven’t touched or been touched upon. Freud created a completely new approach to the understanding of the human personality, but along with his great influence came great controversy and debate.

Sigismund (later changed to Sigmund) Schlomo Freud was the first of eight children born into a struggling family. But he was soon found to be an outstanding student who thrived on literature, most notably Shakespeare, and it is often remarked that the work of Shakespeare both shaped and influenced Freud’s understanding of the human psychology. By the age of 17 Freud entered the University of Vienna and graduated as a Doctor in 1881. However, after World War One, Freud spent less time on clinical observation and turned his hand to applying his theories to literature, history and art.

In addition to his grand theories of human psychology and psychoanalysis, he was also a prolific writer, publishing more than 320 different books, articles, and essays. As W.H. Auden wrote in his 1973 poem ‘In Memory of Sigmund Freud’, “If often he was wrong and, at times, absurd, to us he is no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion.” Freud remains psychology’s most famous figure and in 2001, TIME Magazine referred to Freud as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century.

Many of us today think of Freud as an outrageously absurd psychologist—much like Esther Vilar jested to on his theory of penis envy, there is something ironically laughable and nonsensical about his theories. But this isolates Freud from his Freudian views, Freudian views which have now become, much like Auden said, “a whole climate of opinion” in themselves.

While many aspects of Freudian theory are out of date, as is expected of scientific work from nearly a century ago, it is in fact his critics who have been even slower to hit the bar, attacking Freudian views from the early 1920s as if they still have relevancy in their original form. The point is, that along with his title as a revolutionary he has also been an inspiration, whether it be because people agree or disagree with his methods—Freudian theories have changed the way we look at life and literature today.

Freud’s influence on psychology and the sciences is matched in the way it has shaped literature, art and the social movements. One of his most influential works, ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, and, equally, Freud’s work on free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious, have been of extensive importance to the Surrealist movement of the 20th Century. It enabled artists and authors alike to liberate the imagination, as people were now encouraged to embrace idiosyncrasy. Later, as Salvador Dali explained it: “There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad.”

However, while surrealists like Dali himself used Freudian theories to liberate, some of  Freud’s integral thoughts and theses stressed for other members of society to be incarcerated—namely women. Freud’s work is greatly contested over for this reason alone. Feminists can find many faults with Freud’s theory, but again we are back to the theory of ‘penis envy’. The suggestion that female adolescents experience anxiety after realising they don’t have a penis denies women a mature sexual identity. Hence, his work on psychosexual development has caused a catalogue of debate.

Although it is commonly thought that Freud died from cancer, it was in fact two administered doses of lethal morphine by Freud’s friend and fellow refugee Max Schur that eventually ended Freud’s life at the age of 83. Freud’s ashes can now be found resting on a plinth designed by his son in the Ernest George Columbarium. They are stored in an Ancient Greek urn that Freud had received as a gift from Princess Bonaparte many years before his death. Up to the present day Freud is still a household name, his work is both capacious and contested, and it comes without any doubt that Freud and his work have inspired every facet of the modern world.

Opinion: Can you fully appreciate a song without understanding the lyrics?

Written by Elizabeth Gibson on . Posted in Music.

As a languages student who keeps a music blog, I have naturally come across plenty of foreign-language songs. Many of my favourite songs are not sung in English. Some I adored before I had any idea what they meant. That got me thinking, just how important is it that we understand a song’s lyrics? An instrumental piece is beautiful without words because that’s how it was designed to be. But if a writer chooses to have lyrics, must we understand them to really connect with the song?

My first experience with foreign music was listening to French club songs when I was little. Whereas we were supposed to listen to the songs one by one, as we studied the relevant vocab, my brother and I listened to the entire CD over and over. We understood some of the lyrics but certainly not all of them. That didn’t matter. It was all about the music – and I think we also liked the sound of the French words, even without knowing their meaning.

At college I would listen to pop and rock songs in a wide range of languages, some of which I couldn’t understand a word of. I never felt deprived. I sometimes wondered what the lyrics meant and would look them up but mainly I was happy to just enjoy the song. Once I found the English lyrics to a song sung in Hebrew that I liked. I was glad I found them because they were beautiful. However, listening to the song afterwards, I wouldn’t hear the English lyrics in my head, and if I tried to overlay them it felt false. It was as though the lyrics and the rest of the song had come apart in my head and were wonderful as separate entities but just didn’t go together. And that kind of makes sense—why should English translation lyrics go with a non-English original song? It wasn’t intended to be in English.

I have realised that the number one factor in enjoying a song for me is not the music and is not the lyrics. There is a third element: the performance. I loved French ballads by Jean-Jacques Goldman before I could fully understand them because I was so touched by the love with which he sang. I enjoyed Spanish protest songs because I could hear the anger and determination as clearly as if they were in English. I love Chinese music. My Chinese isn’t fluent but the Chinese are so expressive—a happy song will be performed with real joy, a sad song with heart-aching longing. A love song with tangible desire.

In reflection, I think it is perfectly possible to understand and appreciate a song without understanding its lyrics—if the performer really means what they sing. Honesty and raw emotion do not need translating, and they are what really shapes a performance, in the studio or live. I look forward to discovering many new songs from all around the world.

88 Year Old Child Abuser Jailed for Life

Written by Lauren Gorton on . Posted in News.

After an eight day trial 88 year old John Jarvis from the South Manchester area was sentenced to a total of 20 years imprisonment for historic child sexual abuse. The trial concerned three cases of indecent assault, two rapes and three offences of buggery which had spanned over a period of 13 years.

Shockingly the child abuse came to light as a consequence of Jarvis’ own arrogance after he reported an assault to the police by one of his previous victims in December 2012.

As police interviewed the man, he explained he was simply trying to push Jarvis away after he had tried to grab his genitals, to which Jarvis told the man that “he didn’t seem to mind when he was a child.”

The man further revealed in the interview that he had been systematically abused by Jarvis as a child and that he knew of one other child who was also an abuse victim of Jarvis between 1988 and 2001.

Commenting on the case, Detective Constable Susan Hazell said, “Jarvis’ sex abuse went unreported for years and as he neared the end of his life he must have thought he’d gotten away with it.” However she added that without the bravery of the victims who had the courage to speak to the police and relive the dreadful abuse they suffered at Jarvis’ hands then he may have done so.

The man who was interviewed by the police was further commended by the trial judge for his “extraordinary dignity” while giving evidence.

The news of Jarvis, however, does not stand in isolation as another man from the Greater Manchester area has been summoned to court in relation to a separate historic child sexual abuse case.  The summons relates to 29 offences of sexual assault against seven boys during their time at St Martin’s primary school in Fitton Hill spanning between 1979 and 1982.

The summons will occur in October this year, whereas for Jarvis GMP have stated that “what little time he has left will now be spent in prison contemplating his crimes.”

Interview: GoodLuck

Written by Bianca Boorer on . Posted in Music.

GoodLuck, the trio of Ben Peters, Juliet Harding and Raiven Hansmann, have been extremely busy touring this summer. They managed to take some time out of their busy schedule to have a chat with me.

With over 600 shows since they started in 2010, GoodLuck have mixed feelings about where their absolute favourite audience was at. “We have been working our asses off in the past 4 years! We obviously love our home crowds, but I have to say that the Netherlands are a fantastic bunch and the UK audiences have also surprised us, because we heard from other bands that they were ‘tough’ to crack but we have experienced the exact opposite!”

Before all this success GoodLuck’s humble beginnings originated at the electronic scene in South Africa. “We started out performing small club gigs in Cape Town, where the aim was to bring live instruments into a club environment while keeping the dance floor full.  We started to create this blend of sounds and soon we wrote an original album of live electronic music. To be honest we had absolutely no idea what we were doing and we were totally surprised to have 9 radio singles off an 11 track album of which five of them went to #1 on the top 40. It was a total blur for us, we have been touring ever since trying to spread the message of how much incredible electronic music is coming out of Africa.”

For Ben, musical success ran in the family with older brother Dom being part of electronic duo Goldfish, winners of Best Dance Album of the year at the South African Music Awards in 2009. I asked Ben if his brother being part of the music industry had any influence on him joining, “weirdly the opposite—I always thought I’d end up in some other line of work, but through some quite unusual coincidences I was pretty much yanked into the industry. I’d given up music after school and was focusing on trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life when a friend of mine bumped into me out one night and introduced me to Carl Wegelin who was playing in a band with Jules—they asked me to come drum for them, even though I insisted I was rubbish—and that lead on to me joining Plush as a full time musician and deciding that this music malarkey wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Obviously what Dom has achieved has been a massive inspiration and it’s certainly paved the way for many other musicians to find a place in the local and international scene.”

GoodLuck’s debut album GoodLuck has tracks with jazzy undertones such as ‘Bounce me Brother’. “We struggle to fit into a box in terms of genre—we just try to make the song as good as we can which means we have about 20 genres that we have been influenced by! Overall though we love IDM and electronic music… as long as there is playing with real instruments.”

Their new album Creatures of the Night follows the same theme with a wide variety of sounds with each track having its own vibe. “We really feel that the song should dictate to you what form it wants to take—we try and showcase each song in the style which we feel suits it the best. In this day and age you can have hundreds of remixes anyway so songs/tracks can take on different forms. We just love music and the satisfaction that comes with writing a great song!”

The album cover features The Maneki Neko [or beckoning cat] which is the Eastern Symbol of ‘Good Luck’ or Good fortune due to their love of cats: “we all really love cats so we thought it would be the perfect mascot for our music.” I asked if the band had any superstitious rituals before a show, “I [Jules] like to have camomile tea—it’s like a ‘zen’ moment/quiet time, usually Ben and Raiven are too busy getting the gear set up with the Techie that they are sweating profusely before they even arrive on stage—it’s a crazy industry!” Quite a few artists have adopted the name ‘GoodLuck’ which I noticed when I came across the wrong Facebook page. “There have to be a few bands called ‘GoodLuck’. We know of one in Asia and there is also an Irish boyband called Good Luck… nothing can be purely original these days! Maybe we should start a label…’Get Lucky’ or something?”

GoodLuck plans to return to South Africa for now but definitely want to come to Manchester soon. “We are back in SA for the summer but we definitely plan to tour back to the UK next year. We heard great things about Manchester when we performed our residency in Campsbay.”

GoodLuck. “Say it four times out loud… It should make you smile.”

Top 5 Songs… you can “feel” without understanding the lyrics

Written by Elizabeth Gibson on . Posted in Music.

1. On ira – Jean-Jacques Goldman

The lyrics of this French ballad are gorgeous; however, it is the unmistakable love and tenderness in Goldman’s voice that define this song.

2. Liekkas – Sofia Jannok

Performed in Sami, a Northern European minority language, this song’s title of “warm” is very apt. The delicate chords spirit you to a cosy fireside.

3. O Anzol – Rádio Macau

This song’s Portuguese lyrics tell a grim tale but the tune is upbeat and incorporates brilliant harmonica work and a beautiful and unique voice.

4. Lluvia al corazón – Mana

The angst and adoration are clear in this Mexican rock track—even if you don’t speak Spanish, it is impossible not to sing along.

5. Dan yuan ren chang jiu – Faye Wong

I first encountered this Chinese love song in Beijing and it still never fails to move me. Simple but sublimely beautiful, as well as haunting.

Live: Rae Morris

Written by Henry Scanlan on . Posted in Music.

19th September

Deaf Institute

4/10

Blackpool based singer-songwriter Rae Morris took to the stage with gusto on Friday night. Propped upright behind a piano, she belted out celestial arrangements—unchallenging, but easy on the ears. Morris doesn’t exactly attract the liveliest of crowds; the atmosphere in Deaf was subdued, though it wasn’t helped by the fact that the room was heavily populated by snuggly couples, and was helped even less by support act Half Earth’s utter failure to warm up the crowd with a series of wailings that made me imagine Justin Vernon being trapped in a cupboard and desperately trying to get out. But after that ordeal was over and the audience were all able to breathe a collective sigh of relief, we were able to approach Rae Morris’ set with a new perspective and a new found appreciation for life outside of a Half Earth gig.

Morris has a striking presence, with her voluminous shock of frizzy hair and pale complexion when thrust in a spotlight (Kate Bush, anyone?), and a striking voice to back it up—husky and versatile, occasionally accenting notes with a playful hiccup. All charming qualities, but unfortunately the songs aren’t there to match, constantly operating on a two-dimensional slow/fast, quiet/loud, despair/relief basis, with not much in between. Her penchant for a stripped back piano section followed by a rush of strings and percussion is a ploy that has been made well and truly derelict by the X Factor. The M.O.R arrangements sadly could not hold the attention for long, but perhaps her recent collaboration with Ariel Rechtshaid, who has recently produced Vampire Weekend and Haim albums, is a sign that she’s ready to jazz things up and hopefully attract a more youthful crowd.

Nigerian Students’ Society

Written by Evie Hull on . Posted in Societies.

We all know what it’s like being away from home at university. Sometimes the atmosphere and work heavy scheduling is enough to distract us from it, but sometimes it’s a little harder. Now imagine you’re from a little further afield, continents away and, suddenly, everything gets that much harder.

This is something the Nigerian Students’ Society knows all about. The society aims to bring all of the Nigerian students of Manchester University together, helping them to feel just that little bit closer to home. By uniting Nigerian students, the society hopes to help them keep in touch with their culture and identity, which can be so easily lost in the surrounding environment of Manchester. Every member of the society is viewed as an ambassador of Nigeria and tasked with promoting a positive image of Nigeria to England and Manchester. But even if you’re not Nigerian, the society has a place for you, welcoming anyone identifying as a ‘Friend of Nigeria’. Perhaps you’re interested in Nigerian food, culture or music? If so, they’d love to hear from you.

Friday October 10th marks the Nigerian Students’ Society’s first event of this academic year; ‘Give it a Go’. They’re meeting at the Student Union Council Chambers on Oxford Road from 4pm – 7pm. It’s a free event, so any interested parties are encouraged to bring their friends for an evening of food, music, quizzes and other fun things they’re sure you won’t want to miss out on! So, as the society itself has pointed out, why not give it a go?

For any more information about the Nigerian Students’ Society or their events, please contact Bola Akinyemiju at this email address: [email protected]

Album: U2 – Songs Of Innocence

Written by Dan Whiteley on . Posted in Music.

Released 9th September (digitally) /13th October (physically)

Island Records

7/10

In a move that is either a kind gesture, a gimmicky marketing ploy or an oppressive invasion of privacy depending on the level of hatred you personally harbour for Bono, U2’s thirteenth studio album Songs of Innocence was released for free download earlier this month, immediately following its announcement at the Apple Watch unveiling. While this practice has become less uncommon over the past couple of years, this particular album launch raised eyebrows due to the fact that, thanks to Apple’s all-powerful reach over its technological kingdom, the album wasn’t just made available for access; it was automatically downloaded onto every iTunes account on the planet—including yours—without your say.

If you were to able to excuse this fairly Orwellian abuse of power and actually give it a listen, though, you’d be pleasantly surprised; Songs of Innocence is the album U2 have been trying to make for over a decade, containing nods to every phase of their long and winding career whilst still managing to sound fresh.

The record opens with lead single ‘The Miracle’, picking up where 2009’s No Line on the Horizon left off, with the fuzzy guitars and familiar ‘woah-oh’ chants recalling earlier single ‘Get On Your Boots’. Early highlight ‘Every Breaking Wave’ is the record’s standout track, with its wistful lyrics—featuring such Bono-isms as “every sailor knows that the sea/is a friend made enemy”—signature Edge chime, and soaring chorus rivalling their best loved 80s ballads.

The rest of the album, for the most part, manages to maintain the standard set earlier on; Bono’s affecting ode to his late mother, ‘Iris (Hold Me Close)’, is lovely, and the sunny Beach Boys homage ‘California (There Is No End To Love)’ is the most fun the band have sounded in years. ‘Volcano’ is the album’s only real weak point, with its infectious bassline essentially wasted on its lazy “Vol-can-o/you don’t wanna know” chorus. ‘Sleep Like A Baby Tonight’, meanwhile, harks back to the gentle yet menacing sound of the band’s Pop era, and closer ‘The Troubles’ is a brooding, string-laden duet with Swedish pop singer Lykke Li that works better than it sounds on paper.

Though it’s unlikely to become anyone’s favourite U2 album—the competition is just too stiff for that—Songs of Innocence is a welcome return from one of the world’s biggest acts, and a worthy addition to the U2 back catalogue. And to reiterate, it’s free. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Album: Motionless In White – Reincarnate

Written by Donald Spencer on . Posted in Music.

Released on 15th September

Fearless Records

4/10

Motionless In White seem to have become one of the US’s biggest exports in heavy music over the last few years, totting up huge record sales with their last two releases Creatures (2010) and Infamous (2012). Needless to say, there were some considerable expectations from Motionless this time around, expectations which have fallen flat on their faces.

Prior to the release of the record, frontman Chris Cerulli (stage name Chris Motionless) promised a roller-coaster record encompassing the raw brutality of Creatures coupled with the more experimental components of Infamous. Instead, the listener is treated to just under an hour of industrial barminess and Wednesday 13-esque disarray, a direction that doesn’t do justice to the potential of Scranton’s finest.

The record commences with ‘Death March’ and a foreboding bassdrum that drones on quite well, creating an atmosphere Motionless champion brilliantly. Unfortunately Chris Cerulli’s new vocal range comes in… “This is a new world order and it’s changing the game, so step right up to go down in flames, I want your sons, want your daughters, all creatures of the night so wave your flag if you’re ready to fight.” Sounds like hip hop to me. The song then starts to sound like a creepy nursery rhyme. You get the picture. Let’s move on.

We will forgive Motionless for their initial discrepancy, and rightfully so because track 2, title track and lead single, is the best piece of music they have ever churned out. It’s not world changing, nor does it bring anything new to the table, but it does scare the crap out of you and is catchy as hell. The listener is in for a genuine treat here, breakdowns and guttural vocals galore, this is the Motionless we need to see more of. A music video has just been released on Fearless records, a fine choice for a lead single.

Track 3 is going to be of great interest to any hardcore Motionless fans, the final part of the three part ‘Puppets’ series about someone the band clearly despise. Another track reminiscent of Creatures, it isn’t half bad, although the inclusion of Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth was a questionable choice.

Just as the record begins to gain momentum it seems to fall flat on its face and never really recovers. We hear a few monster breakdowns and heavy guitars that are testament to Chris’s promise, but on the whole Reincarnate is a boring record which just lacks any real substance and a is strange direction for the band. We hope to see their energetic and theatrical live shows will be maintained in the months to come.

Festival: Bestival

Written by Ben Allan on . Posted in Music.

4th – 7th September

Robin Hill Country Park, Isle of Wight

On September 4th, 55000 people descended upon Robin Hill Park on the Isle of Wight for Bestival. Now in its eleventh year, Bestival has become a firm fixture on the festival circuit and signals the culmination of festival season every year with its early September billing. A favourite with artists and revellers alike, I made the trip eager to see if it could eclipse the giddy heights of last year.

On Thursday Glasgow stalwarts Numbers were on curation duties at the RBMA stage, the highlight of the evening being Spencer b2b Optimo. They outshone headliners and  party machines Can U Dance (comprised of Jackmaster and Oneman)—no mean feat considering the range of hands-in-the-air anthems the Can U Dance boys drew for and their pedigree within UK dance music. Spencer and Optimo drew for a more 4/4 selection including Floorplan’s ‘Never Grow Old’, Black Cock’s ‘Juicy Sushi’ and culminating in AOL’s remix of Omar S’ ‘SEX’, all of which had the crowd moving relentlessly.

Friday saw the opening of all areas of the festival site and mid-afternoon on the small but perfect Aperol Spritz Social played host to one of the most pleasant surprises of the festival: a Plastician 80s set. A very large aside from his usual bass-driven sets he weaved through every classic imaginable, causing monster sing-a-longs to Madonna, Fleetwood Mac and Siedah Garrett as the crowd soaked in the sunshine and drinks. Friday night there was only one place to be and that was the main stage for Outkast. With the stage filled to capacity and spilling out at the sides, the duo launched into ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ and never looked back. Moving between classics that had every person present singing the words back at the stage (most notably ‘Ms. Jackson’ and ‘Roses’), all round giddiness at ‘Hey Ya’ and songs for the true fans including ‘Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik’ & UGK hit ‘International Players Anthem’.

Following the success of Outkast it was back to the RBMA stage to see the revered DJ Harvey. The long-time legend curated Friday’s line-up, culminating with himself in the headline slot. Thoughtfully snaking through disco, funk, soulful house and everything in between, Harvey provided a master class that rid the crowd of the usual head-nodding pretension found at many contemporary dance music events and had everyone grooving into the early hours.

Photo: mr exploding @ Flickr

Saturday was all about The Port; a 100ft boat containing a DJ booth that can only be described as a Funktion One powered weapon of dance music destruction. Paul Woolford was superb, providing his usual blend of house and techno including some Arman van Helden shaped pleasers for the huge crowd in ‘Spin Spin Sugar’ and his remix of ‘Sugar is Sweeter’. Following Paul Woolford was Green Velvet, another veteran who was occupying a very tough slot before queen of UK dance music Annie Mac filled the headline slot in her curated The Port line-up that night. His bigger-than-big-room house and techno set went down a treat though and definitely won the Chicago icon some new fans.

Sunday saw the culmination of the ‘Desert Island Disco’ theme Bestival had been following this year with arguably the biggest star in Disco music—Nile Rogers—leading Chic onto the main stage for the Sunday headline slot. All the expected Chic and Sister Sledge anthems were present and the set reached a perfect crescendo when they ended on an extended ‘Good Times’ as the world’s biggest disco ball (Guinness Book endorsed) rose from the perch it had occupied all weekend amid a sky of fireworks.

Photo: ukslim @ Flickr

It’s not just the music that makes a festival though, it’s the bits on the side, and this is where Bestival excels itself. Epic food, art installations, special stages, the Ambient Forest and more all create the perfect atmosphere and environment. An example is the Disco Shed; something many stumbled upon in various states of inebriation over the weekend. An actual shed deep in the Ambient Forest which belted out disco classics to plant a smile on everyone’s face in the most unlikely of locations. Bestival is like a four day sanctuary from reality and this year’s sunshine definitely helped to make it the best one yet.

Opinion: Getting the Band Back Together

Written by Dan Whiteley on . Posted in Music.

To an adoring music fan, few events are harder to stomach than the announcement that one of your favourite bands are parting ways. The realisation that this is the end of the road—that you’ll never see them onstage again, that the new masterpiece you’ve been waiting for will never come—can give rise to strangely personal feelings, despite you never having known these individuals personally.

I myself was just a starry-eyed youngster when R.E.M. last came to the UK back in 2008. Having been offered a chance to go, I politely declined, for reasons I now admittedly cannot fathom. “Don’t worry, Dad,” I said, “I’ll catch them next time round.”

They then proceeded to split up forever.

But, as inconsolable as learning I missed my only chance to see my favourite band made me, in a way it could be worse. Because if there’s one thing that’s more frustrating than leaving us wanting more, it’s when bands – years, sometimes even decades down the line—refuse to leave their legacies alone; and unfortunately, in an age where enduring and timeless music is getting harder to come by, the reunion tour epidemic is fast becoming an everyday reality. But why?

Popular opinion suggests that these reunions are so frequent nowadays simply because they’re a tried and tested business venture; if the public demand is there, the effort-to-gains ratio can be astounding. The recent Libertines’ reformation, for example, was, by their own admission, a shameless money making exercise which saw Carl Barat and Pete Doherty each earn around half a million pounds for a single show. And they’re not the only ones—The Stone Roses reunion was reportedly motivated by Ian Brown’s eye-watering divorce bill, whilst The Replacements returned to the live arena with the selfless aim of helping fund ex-guitarist Slim Dunlap’s medical treatment following a stroke.

For others, it’s a matter of pride and sense of entitlement. When Billy Corgan revived the Smashing Pumpkins in 2006 after a short stint in (the infinitely less successful) Zwan, he lamented, “I want my band back, and my songs, and my dreams,” and set out to do so, albeit with only the drummer agreeing to return. Similarly, in what is probably the most infamous of all comebacks, Axl Rose single-handedly took ownership of the Guns N’ Roses moniker and replaced the entire band with a revolving door of faceless session musicians, releasing a lone, overblown mess of an album (2008’s Chinese Democracy) since then, robbing their discography of the chance to quit while ahead. It’s an all too familiar pattern, trying to recapture old magic when the moment has long since gone.

There are exceptions, of course—The Police’s victory lap was a fun and tasteful nostalgia exercise, and Blur’s sporadic reappearances have triumphantly cemented their status as national treasures. But for every Blur success, it seems there’s several No Doubts. And really, in 2014, does anyone need No Doubt?

GMP Launch New Initiative in Anticipation of Increased Crime Towards Students

Written by Lauren Gorton on . Posted in News.

Greater Manchester Police have launched their Student Safe operation as more than 80000 students return to Greater Manchester in time for the new term. The Student Safe initiative for this year coincides with Project Ark, targeted at reducing burglaries in the Fallowfield, Ladybarn, Withington and Didsbury areas.

The initiative was launched in anticipation of an increase in crime towards students within the traditional student areas of South Manchester, with statistics showing that, last year, one in ten crimes reported in Manchester were committed against students.

Police warn of one of the most commonly committed crimes against students being burglary, one in three of which occur as a result of an insecure window or door.

In a GMP press release Chief Inspector Arif Nawaz said: “Students bring with them between £5000 and £10000 of high-tech gadgets and technology per five-student household. This includes a smartphone, laptop and TV, all of which are items craved by thieves.

“Many of these items hold more than a financial value, in fact your laptop alone contains music collections, photos and for those second and third year students lecture notes and work which contribute to your final grade.

“But unfortunately with the excitement of being away from home and their new environment, some students can become complacent with their home and personal security. Simple steps can prevent them from being a victim of crime.”

As part of the initiative, GMP will be increasing patrols in student areas including mounted and tactical aid units, with intercept teams targeting travelling criminals such as thieves who last year used bicycles to steal mobile phones in the streets.

In addition to increasing patrols, GMP are also delivering a series of talks to students via the university and have uploaded a selection of short videos to their YouTube account urging students to remain safe whilst out and about. Furthermore, GMP are advising students to download their mobile app which features a GPS navigation system to Student Safe Zones which can be used if students are feeling unsafe.

Can’t get into a University team? Don’t sweat!

Written by Will Kelly on . Posted in Sport.

Sadly, university sport teams operate on a different level to what you may have experienced in school or college. Trials are a shambles. For most teams, your trial would be you in your most hung over state, lumping your body around and trying to stand out in the midst of thousands. Schools and colleges, however, allow you the opportunity to show that you can improve on a weekly basis. Try not to be hard on yourself if you don’t get into the team straight away because it is difficult. Having been told to my face that I would most likely be in, I was really aggrieved to find out that I hadn’t made it, even more so because I found this out online.

But it’s certainly not the end of the world as the University runs very competitive leagues for societies. In terms of football, the standard is very competitive with 50 teams playing across five divisions. Playing at Wythenshawe sports ground, games come thick and fast as you’re not only competing in the league but there are also numerous cup competitions to play in. Other sports include rugby and netball, and there are also chances to participate in mixed hockey and mixed basketball teams. This is a great way to meet new people and the socials are certainly interesting! So get involved and get playing!

Review: A Most Wanted Man

Written by James Moules on . Posted in Film.

It would be near impossible—or at least a shade insensitive—for me to open this review without noting that Most Wanted Man features Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last lead performance before his untimely death earlier this year. He was one of the greatest character actors of our time, and his presence on the silver screen will be sorely missed. Despite this sadness at his departure, I was delighted to discover that A Most Wanted Man features one of Hoffman’s greatest performances; he truly did go out on a high note.

Based on the novel by spymaster John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man gives us a wise and thrilling parable about the hunt for Islamic extremists in post-9/11 Germany. When a potential terrorist enters Hamburg illegally, German special agent Günther Bachmann (Hoffman) seeks to use him as a tool to get at valuable financiers of Islamic terrorism.

Both the German authorities and the omnipresent American observers are on Bachmann’s back, watching his every move carefully; they are just as eager to use him as he is eager to use the immigrant Islamist, creating a web of paranoia and treachery around this apparently simple manhunt. When a young lawyer (Rachael McAdams) and a corrupt banker (Willem Dafoe) become potential obstacles for Bachmann, he is forced to battle against both the clock and German law to get what he needs.

Film adaptations of le Carré novels often end up being very strong pieces of cinema (see the 2011 masterpiece Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and A Most Wanted Man is no exception. As well us giving us a richly intelligent and entertaining spy thriller, the film also gives us an all too relevant look at how the so-called War on Terror has warped human society. A Most Wanted Man makes the point of noting how much of a cosmopolitan jewel Hamburg was in the days before 9/11. The Hamburg we see in the film, on the other hand, is a sinister place that is ridden with xenophobia and widespread mistrust. Nobody cares that the aforementioned immigrant was tortured and imprisoned in Russia and Turkey; the only important question is if he is going to set off a bomb. To anyone living in what we call the Western world in the shadow of 9/11, this attitude must seem eerily familiar.

But A Most Wanted Man is far from being a one-note bombardment of socio-political allegory; it’s a deeply compelling study in how the War on Terror has either harmed or completely destroyed the lives of what would be perfectly ordinary people in other circumstances. When such a shining example of cosmopolitanism as Hamburg becomes a place where people don’t trust you because of your skin colour or religious beliefs, you know that something’s gone very wrong in the world. And it is in this world that our host of characters has to live and work. It’s far too subtle for it to be called a nightmare. I think ‘bad dream’ would be far more fitting, or perhaps ‘good dream gone sinister.’ I think you get the idea.

This complex and sinister world would not have been made possible without fantastic direction from Anton Corbijn and an array of stellar performances from the cast. As you probably guessed already, it’s the late Philip Seymour Hoffman who gives us the film’s greatest piece of acting. He gives us a phenomenally nuanced character that is cunning, manipulative and driven in his goal to protect Germany from terror. I think that Oscar voters should keep his work in this film at the forefront of their minds.

Although I’d argue that it doesn’t quite reach the same titanic levels that Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy did three years ago, A Most Wanted Man is still an outstanding addition to the spy film canon that proves once again that le Carré is a master of his game. It’s an atmospheric and entertaining tale that not only gives us a great spy movie, but also serves as a fine swansong for the great Philip Seymour Hoffman.

5/5