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Day: 27 March 2015

Live: This Is The Kit

Written by Jacob Evans on . Posted in Music.

The Deaf Institute

5th March

9/10

This is the Kit delivered an intimate, friendly performance showing off their new (so new, it’s not even out yet) album, Bashed Out. After the crowd is suitably warmed up by Rozi Plain (whose band, confusingly, are This is the Kit on slightly different instruments), Kate Stables and her band take the stage to play their own gentle brand of folk rock. Largely a showcase for next month’s Bashed Out, Stables and co. shine throughout, with relatively traditional folk sounds combined with huge, shimmering lead guitar that brings to mind Belle and Sebastian at their most soaring.

The set flies by, with tracks like ‘Misunderstanding’ and ‘Nits’ drifting by in a beautiful haze, whilst apocalypse song ‘Silver John’ moves into louder, grander territory. The music is consistently excellent, but This is the Kit make the evening a magical one through their intimacy with the crowd—they all head into the audience to start chatting after both Plain’s set and their own, and maintain a light-hearted, warm rapport with the crowd throughout. A couple even get engaged during the set, with a wry request from Stables for a member of the crowd to “turn around please,” it’s clear that tour dates with The National have taught the band the art of showmanship.

If there is any criticism, it’s only that the songs all have a largely similar mood, with the tempo only really rising in a couple of songs. But the rarity of the explosions of sound perhaps only make them even more cathartic, and the steady haze the sound tends to stay in is a gorgeous one—a steady, drifting fog that slowly envelops the audience and carries them through Stables’ delicate musings. As the crowd is finally pulled from its reverie after the fan requested first single, ‘Two Wooden Spoons’, it’s clear that This is the Kit have something very special indeed.

From Freshers’ to fashion week

Written by Kassi Allcock on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

Looking back at old photographs from Freshers’ Week in my first year, I am relieved to say that my style has taken a huge turn for the better. Jeans that were so bleached that they were almost transparent, 30 or more floral pieces spilling out of my wardrobe, and bum shorts upon bum shorts upon bum shorts. Even my hairstyle was something to be ashamed of, wearing a doughnut-style bun smack-bam in the middle of my head… because that definitely looks like a natural messy bun, doesn’t it!? Only 18 months later, I can declare that my fashion sense has evolved. The reason? Being a student in Manchester.

In first year, I was provided with a very generous student loan, meaning that I couldn’t just ‘pop into town’—every outing was a fully blown shopping extravaganza. With a big lump sum in my bank account, no thought went into the clothes that I was buying; everything was an impulse purchase. This made my style a mish mash of everything, and I owned no staple pieces that I could wear timelessly. A year and a half later, my student loan barely covers my rent, but my wardrobe has thankfully improved. Who would have guessed it? Being a stingy student has done my fashion sense a world of good, having to think everything through before heading over to the till. Do you really need yet another floral top? No Kassi, you definitely don’t. Thankfully, I am one of the lucky ones with a part-time job, which makes a treat every now and then that little bit easer. And who can forget student discount? That’ll be the absolute worst part of graduating next year!

As somebody who doesn’t drink, or go out often, I can save a little money that would otherwise spent on alcohol and going out clothes. The majority of my friends, however, have drawers full of special outfits destined only to be seen by the inside of a club. At least two of my flatmates in first year had an entire box full of fancy dress outfits—everything from Where’s Wally to a tribal warrior. In the adult world, away from university, who would possibly need such a vast collection of costumes? Walk through Fallowfield after 9pm painted blue from head to toe, and everyone will just assume that you’re dressed as a smurf or an avatar. Walk through Fallowfield at any time of the day in your pyjamas, and no judgmental looks will be headed your way. Students can get away with wearing practically anything… so take advantage of it whilst you still can!

Flare, there, everywhere

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

Flick through Vogue first thing in the morning and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d been transported back to 1973 à la Life on Mars. And in a fashion sense, you have! Wander into Topshop and prepare to be hit by a tidal wave of suede skirts, peasant tops and chunky platforms jostling for space among ethnic pendants and wide brimmed hats. “But we’ve seen these guys before,” you say, “they’re old friends.” Well now there’s something more notable on the fashion radar. That’s right, love ‘em or hate ‘em, flares are back in town.

Personally, I’m delighted! I have been waiting for this day for a years, suppressing my love of flares whilst the fashion police deemed them criminally unstylish and banished them to the depths of 1999. The thing about flares is that they are just so flattering, no matter what your shape, be it apple, pear or string bean, a pair of flares will give you an enviably slim yet curvy silhouette. What other style could do that for you? Skinny jeans are notoriously unforgiving, peg-legs belong behind a desk, boyfriend jeans can be  a little too butch, mom jeans are just an abomination and even the flare’s little sister, the bootcut, is still stuck in the early noughties, covered in embroidery and diamantes.

But sadly even flares have their downfall—they’re not the most practical or versatile of styles. Whilst skinnies can be teamed with any footwear, flares can only ever be worn with heels unless you wish to look footless or get end up with soggy, frayed hems covered in Manchester’s speciality mud. I’d also recommend keeping the rest of your outfit fairly modern; stay away from patterned shirts, matching jackets and sweater-vests unless Donny Osmond is your style idol. If he is, it’s time to take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and think about what you’ve done.

Feature: The American Dreamer

Written by Tom Bruce on . Posted in Film.

“Hell, if somethin’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” This is an incontrovertible mantra, and one which was espoused by father of modern journalism Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on many occasions, not just in his writing career but in his daily practitionings as an avid consumer of drugs and carefree inventor of semi-plausible-sounding words (such as the one back there I just made up). Hunter Stockton Thompson did not lead an ‘Ordinary Life’, as the titles of his many lurid confessional travel books (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Generation of Swine) might suggest, and his death was no subtle affair either; having blown his brains out with a 44. Magnum in front of his beloved portable IBM Scelectric typewriter, his incinerated remains were fired from a cast iron 18th century cannon and out into the Coloradan mountains by actor Johnny Depp.

It was that same scoundrel of the seven screens that portrayed the Good Doctor in the most successful feature film to depict him on screen, Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of the aforementioned Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which became the best cult movie about druggies since Easy Rider. It’s probably better in fact, given the decades of separation between the central issues of the Vietnam war and the wildly irrational war against drugs which, after enough time had passed, seemed so chaotically, pitifully futile.

Depp’s shameless showcasing of every single possible stage of depraved, narcotic-dependent madness is masterful—one cannot tire of it. In fact, the only thing he missed out was the constant indulgence in egotistical mania that came with Thompson’s genius storytelling, perhaps the man’s only vice (after chain-smoking, bourbon, rum, cannabis, cocaine and LSD). Benicio Del Toro’s performance as Raoul Duke’s (this was one of Thompson’s many real life code names) bloated, homicidal lawyer Dr. Gonzo is even more memorable and indeed more quotable than Depp’s. What many don’t know is that the character was based on a friend of Thompson’s called Oscar Zeta Acosta, a free-living attorney who went missing at some point during the summer of 1974. Subsequently, he became the fall guy for all of Thompson’s law breaking misdeeds.

On to The Rum Diary, another film adaptation about Hunter S Thompson’s life based off of one of another one of his vaguely autobiographical novellas which also happens to star Johnny Depp as the Gonzfather. This film sucks the life out of all that was good and (more or less) true about Hunter’s first foray into fictional writing. It is soulless. It is unfunny. It also doesn’t benefit from cameos or on-set contributions provided by Hunter on Fear and Loathing. Thompson had killed himself by this point and ship captain Bruce Robinson, in his attempt to rekindle the Gonzo spirit and also relive his own heady days as the writer/director of Withnail and I, failed to raise a glass to the legend or a smile amongst the audience. Johnny Depp is also terrible. Not quite as bad as Depp in the Rum Diary but nowhere near as good as Depp in Fear and Loathing is Bill Murray, who took on an exaggerated looney toon version of the author in Where the Buffalo Roam, which was the first movie about Thompson and which was set during his decade-long stint as a grapefruit addict/investigative journalist for Rolling Stone magazine. It’s an awfully overstated film, but then again, so was the life of its subject.

For fans of the non-fictional figure, it’s worth checking out ‘Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision’ on YouTube, an intriguing—and rather sobering—on the road BBC documentary following a reclusive Thompson towards the end of his writing prime.

Hunter S. Thompson saw many things, and through his writing he encouraged an entire generation to see things differently. Politics, war, terrorism, sport and drugs were his main interests, and as he rose to the pinnacle of his very own revolutionary brand of ‘Gonzo’ journalism (basically what the Vice news network is), he stammered and hammered his way into a variety of elitist circles that no other booze-crazed sex fiend will ever find themselves in again. He got beaten up by Mohammed Ali one time. If that incident isn’t deserving of a film then, really, what is? Now all Thompson requires for a proper send-off is a two hour, off-the-chain biopic starring Sam Rockwell (the Rum Diary days) and J.K. Simmons (the later years). Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. And written by Charlie Kaufman. Because hell, if something’s worth doing…

Breaking the tumour-sphere: Graphene shows anti-cancer properties

Written by Daniel Han on . Posted in News, Science & Tech.

The world’s thinnest material, graphene, discovered by two University of Manchester physicists, has been shown to be effective against the growth of cancer stem cells (CSCs).

This was demonstrated by a team of researchers led by Prof. Michael Lisanti and Dr. Aravind Vijayaraghavan at the Manchester Centre for Cellular Metabolism, a group in the university’s Institute of Cancer Sciences.

Graphene oxide, a derivative of graphene, was originally known to have biomedical applications due to the non-toxic nature of graphene and its ability to work at a cellular level.

Dr Vijayaraghavan said: “Graphene oxide is stable in water and has shown potential in biomedical applications. It can readily enter or attach to the surface of cells, making it a candidate for targeted drug delivery.

“In this work, surprisingly, it’s the graphene oxide itself that has been shown to be an effective anti-cancer drug.”

More amazingly, whilst being completely harmless to other cells in the body, the molecule itself shows anti-cancer properties. Nano-flakes of graphene prevent CSCs forming clusters of cancerous cells, known as the tumour-sphere.

CSCs are incredibly difficult to target as current treatments, such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy, only kill the ‘bulk’ cancer cells, leaving the cancer stem cells unaffected. These cancer stem cells are responsible for metastasis, the spreading of cancer within the body, which accounts for 90 per cent of cancer mortalities.

Graphene oxide has shown that it could be used effectively to prevent tumours of CSCs growing in the body without any detrimental effects to other cells.

Furthermore, varieties of graphene oxide formulations tested against six different cancer types showed promising results. The nano-flakes showed effective inhibitive results on breast, pancreatic, lung, brain, ovarian and prostate cancer.

This suggests it could be effective against many other types of cancer, if not all. The magic of the graphene oxide nano-flakes lies in their ability to block processes that occur at the surface of the cells, the cell membrane. The researchers have suggested that an overall better clinical outcome may be delivered if graphene were to be used with the existing cancer treatments.

At this stage, further clinical trials and tests must be done in order to implement this as a medical treatment. It’s a long way to the cure for cancer but this may have been a crucial step forward.