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Day: 19 November 2015

Loving & Loathing: online shopping

Written by Sarah Kilcourse on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

It’s safe to say that I have a complex relationship with online shopping—we’ve shared some turbulent moments. There have been great days, like when I got my beautiful black velvet wrap dress for the Christmas ball last year, but then there was my sixth form prom…A completely different story. I ordered five dresses online, and none of them fitted—typically! Here is a run-down of the reasons why I love and loath online shopping.

Loves:

ASOS: There is pretty much anything you could ever want or need on ASOS. They photograph the models from so many angles, and give you a runway video for the full 360 effect. If you like what you see: Free postage! If you don’t like it when you get it: Free returns! Plus, online only retailers like ASOS, Missguided, Boohoo et al charge less for their own brand products because it’s so much cheaper to run an online shop. What more could you ask for?

Preparation: This may sound a tad strange, so bear with me. Looking at clothes online allows me to know exactly what I’m looking for in each shop if I brave it into the outside world. It makes shopping quicker and easier. I hate traipsing around Manchester when it’s raining, looking for my dream pair of Chelsea boots, only to discover that I don’t like any—or even worse, that they don’t have my size. Thanks to the internet, I can plan where I’m going to look, and some websites, such as Topshop allow you to check stock online.

Trends:  It doesn’t matter how many times you read Vogue, Elle, or Cosmo—nothing gives you a better understanding of what is on-trend than looking at the clothes in shops. I’m not a die-hard follower of trends, but I like to be aware. Looking at the ‘New In’ section gives a swift overview of what is fashionable right now. You can quickly gather that, this winter, we’re all expected to be wearing a lot of velvet and lace.

Loathes:

Models: I get it—they’re all very pretty, slim, tall girls, and I have no issue with that. However, saying that the model is wearing a size 10, when she is clearly a size 6, does not enable you to understand the fit of the item. It is also slightly heartbreaking when you realise how fabulous the model looks, while you’re left feeling a bit… meh in your new dress.

Jeans: This is part of a wider rant I have about trying on jeans. It is horrific. There is no consistency across any brand or within any brand for that matter. I think they might as well not be available to purchase online because the fit is so hit and miss.

Returns: The real flaw in online shopping is if you need to return an item. Fortunately, many companies do offer free returns or collect plus, but it is still a complete faff. Worst of all is the 2 – 4 week wait to get the money back on your return, especially if you have already spotted another pair of shoes that would look absolutely incredible…

Classic Review: Double Indemnity

Written by Alasdair Bayman on . Posted in Film.

What happens when you get a femme fatale, a life insurance firm, and a detached member of The American Dream? Double Indemnity, of course. Made within the reign of the Hay’s Production Code, Billy Wilder’s 1944 film noir is arguably one of the genres finest—a true gem in the catalogue of American film due to its mesmerising script, artful performances and cinematography.

Focusing upon an insurance agent, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurry) and his quest to finally achieve some sort of cohesive position in society and his life. He seeks the aid of the married, promiscuous Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) to help achieve this idea; the only small problem for Neff and Stanwyck is successfully pulling off a profitable murder scam against Phyllis’ husband, Mr. Dietrichson (Tom Powers) and the company that Walter works for, as headed by the enigmatic Edward G. Robinson’s Barton Keyes.

The ability to transcend the basic features of film noir at the time of its creation, by rejecting the societal constraints of its time, is paramount to the plaudits of this fundamental piece in modern film history.

Opening the film with the streets of a dark and dirty L.A.—as opposed to the stereotypical New York, Double Indemnity sets out on a path of switching the known formulaic narratives and features of previous film noir films out of the window.

This is not to discount such classics as Public Enemy and Scarface as inferior to Wilder’s piece, but they lack the creative fluidity that is permeating to Double Indemnity. Effectively beginning the film with its ending, Neff is injured by a bullet wound and speaks eloquently into a cylinder recorder about the whole insurance scam, as if he wasn’t slowly loosing blood.

Neff is a charming but broken man whose meaty prey for the menacing and beautiful Phyllis Dietrichson, one of film’s most distinguished femme fatales. Instantly creating a hierarchical relationship between the two twisted lovers, Wilder’s ability to convey a manner of themes and translations in a single shot is unprecedented in most modern film making techniques.

The relationship between Stanwyck and MacMurry is electrifyingly unprecedented—their relationship is witty, charming and alluring, even if Phyllis is always one step ahead of her male counterpart. Acting as a symbol for America’s dominant patriarchal society as well as being Neff’s father figure, Edward G. Robinson delivers one his finest performances, alongside Little Caesar. His quick-talking, articulate Barton Keyes is built to win, and does so.

Nonetheless, Wilder’s direction formats low-key lighting and deep silhouettes into his cinematic framework. The conjuring of this technique is known as chiaroscuro, and is a marvellous joy to behold. If only all films were filmed in black and white, and an hour and a half long.

Double Indemnity truly placed film noir’s importance in American cinema—its thematic exploration of femininities’ vindication and the pursuit of the American Dream positions it towards a contemporary context. Though both Neff and Phyllis are born to lose, it is one hell of a ride.

Live: Warehouse Project – Life And Death

Written by Oscar Talbot on . Posted in Music.

As I escape Manchester’s oily rain and enter the legendary Warehouse Project, Joy Orbison is finishing up. It is the perfect soundtrack to an exploration of the cavernous building. It’s a surreal experience; hundreds of sweaty semi-naked people bop around to Orbison’s loops, accompanied by an expert light show. As Orbison stares at his mixer, thrashing jungle pumps in the cathedral-like building. We squeeze to the front and manage to dance for a while until Orbison is whisked away.

Seamlessly he is replaced by my favourite act of the night. Recondite seem to specialise mainly in nuanced build ups and bouncy square waves. The first track stood out, sadly an as yet unreleased and nameless song, but undoubtedly one to look out for. The drops are perfectly placed and the crowd is almost crushingly packed. Almost directly under the Northern Powerhouse’s link to the south, a massive crowd is cutting loose.

Having never been to the Warehouse Project before, the scale of it amazed me. As an Oxford boy, going out usually consists of finding the least shit place before being verbally assaulted by some moron yelling along to Teenage Dirtbag. WHP is almost cinematic in scale, and Recondite revelled in the attention he received, breaking what seems to be the cardinal rule of DJing, that you have to show no emotion and just keep on twiddling a knob.

We drift into the second room, where Mind Against are playing in a sadly half-empty room. Although they are good, combining a compulsive drum track with sonorous horn-like synths, they sadly can’t compare with the more listenable Recondite, which is less dubstep and more techno.

The biggest act of the night, Tale of Us, seemed to be popular, although I was disappointed by them. Not being any sort of expert on dance music, I made a point of listening to each of the acts, and I was genuinely very excited for Tale of Us. Sadly it felt less like an avant-garde, energetic delivery of space age beeps and more like eating a large chunk of popping candy while the same slightly syncopated beat bombarded me for 40 minutes. ‘Silent Space’ was particularly annoying, feeling piercing, and a rough transition from Recondite. Maybe it was just me. Certainly everyone else carried on dancing, but maybe it was that time of the night.

NATO and the illusion of safety

Written by Colm Lock on . Posted in Opinion.

Under the shadow of the Russian bear, no one is truly safe. Britain has the luxury of distance between itself and Russia, but what of the rest of mainland Europe? What about Finland and the Baltic states? Where do they turn when Russian aggression boils up? They turn to NATO of course.

NATO is an alliance originally set up to safeguard Western European nations against Soviet aggression by preventing Russia from goose stepping into West Germany and the rest of the continent. Back then, the alliance probably could have held off the Soviet onslaught rather respectively, yet I despair to see the weakness of our alliance today.

At present, NATO is currently conducting one of its largest exercises for the best part of a decade, named Trident Juncture. It is currently taking place in the western Mediterranean where they are making a great song and dance about the whole thing and saying that it shows the strength and willingness of NATO to fight any aggression that may be targeted at its weaker partners.

This is however, total cods-wallop. The central command are very pleased with themselves for being able to gather 36,000 troops and around 30 maritime assets for this exercise, attempting to delude us that this will be enough should an attack come. To believe such lies is a sure fire symptom of idiocy. At the enemy’s disposal are over 1,000 attack aircraft, a standing army of over 400,000 with around 10,000 tanks at its disposal, and a navy numbering some 280 ships.

These numbers are colossal and NATO in its present form could not hope to match them. Should Russia choose to invade Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania or Finland with even a quarter of this force, our armies would not even be able to muster a credible defence before Putin was taking in the sights of Riga.

Now those optimists amongst you will say that I am wrong, that Putin would never try such a thing and that another European war is completely impossible in today’s day and age. Well, to you I say, read up on recent European history.

After the Holocaust, people imagined that another European genocide was impossible and then, just 20 years ago, the Srebrenica massacre occurred. If you had said to someone 10 years ago that Russia would go on to invade and annex parts of Georgia and Ukraine, while NATO sat by and watched, they would have laughed at you.

All of this has come to fruition and it has all happened because we have become naïve in believing that we live in a world where we can all sit around a campfire and sing kumbaya, holding hands and existing in a world of mutually cooperative nation states.

Russia is on the march. They rolled over Georgia to take South Ossetia and Abkhazia without so much as batting an eye. They moved onto even bigger game when they seized Crimea without a skirmish. It is only right to assume that Putin is now looking to one up himself and this time seize a whole country predicting that NATO will do absolutely nothing. It neither has the stomach nor the resources to fight a European land war or fight at sea.

The Americans have become tired of Europe constantly slashing its defence budgets safe in the knowledge that big brother America will protect them. They are fed up, and would not bare to lose thousands of troops in defence of another foreign land. Britain has trimmed its armed forces to such a shamefully small size that we could not even hope to hold the Russians off in the North sea.

We hear ever increasing reports of bombers flying ever closer and closer to British airspace and Russian ships skirting the south coast yet we do not increase our number of jets. Germany is reliant on Russia for energy and fuel while its minuscule military is plagued by inefficiencies and failings while the French cannot be relied upon.

NATO has signalled its weakness by thinking diplomacy will be the answer. The diplomatic solution, however, died when the west failed to uphold the terms of a treaty which said they would protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine. No troops have been sent to fight the “rebels” to help keep Ukraine intact, and why is this? It is because no one powerful in NATO has the balls to do so.

America is currently facing serious pressures in the South China Sea and the Middle East. Britain’s defence spending should match Americans at 3.5 per cent of GDP, yet we languish at 2 per cent. The Germans won’t fight, the French are unreliable and the Spanish and Italians lack power projection.

The only NATO member really stepping up to the plate is Poland but, being so small, one doubts their ability so significantly halt any concerted Russian advance into the Baltics.

So, fellow students, what is the answer? Some will say more diplomacy, some will say to withdraw from NATO and abandon the smaller nations to the mercy of the Russian bear. But I say there is a different answer.

It is time that we as students stopped harping on about cultural appropriation, lad culture on campus and censoring speakers. Instead, we should be demanding that our government be able to defend our rights and liberties as well as those of our fellow students in weaker nations who might not be able to defend these freedoms themselves.

Think of the peoples of eastern Europe to whom democracy is only a couple of decades old. Democracy which now is at risk from the autocratic rule of Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin cronies. Russia must be stopped, and an increase in military spending across NATO and regaining a willingness to fight is the only way to deter Mother Russia from launching another European expedition.

Review: Richard Forster

Written by Neil Greenhalgh on . Posted in Arts.

Sandwiched between a historic collection of British watercolours and the refreshingly contemporary (and very aptly named) Art_Textiles, you will find Richard Forster’s meticulously crafted photo-realist graphite drawings. The level of quality and attention to detail in these drawings is absolutely incredible, with the majority of uninformed visitors entirely convinced that they are looking at photographs. Of course, when they realise that these works were in fact drawings made to look like photographs, they instantly treat them in a different way. We undeniably treat the experience of looking at drawings different to that of looking at photographs.

A great deal has been written about this matter and it can be said that photographs are usually seen as factual documents, whereas drawings are representational and more capable of fiction. If we understand this to be true, it is no surprise that visitors should decide to change their viewing experience once they learn the reality of the medium. But what happens to the concept of truth and reality in this entanglement of fact and fiction? Are we to say that at one time the viewer was happy to accept these as documents and now spends longer looking at them, admiring their fictional scenery? Or is it more about the viewer deciding that these pictures are worth looking at more because they clearly took longer to make? To what extent could it be both?

The concept of time is as important for Forster in the creation of these works as it is for us in looking at them. Forster works in very meticulous ways, timing how long it takes for the tide to come in, taking pictures at regular intervals. Or on train journeys, taking a picture every so often on a small stretch of the rail tracks. The resulting pictures become the subject for his drawings which take a split second snapshot through a laboriously time consuming drawing process and into the realm of representation.

In short, Richard Forster’s drawings are intelligently crafted pieces of work that explore the relationships between fact and fiction, fast and slow, as well as photography and drawing.

Until the 3rd of January 2016.

Corbyn needs to play the game

Written by George Bolton on . Posted in Opinion.

According to Sarah Gordon and George Parker of the Financial Times, “Jeremy Corbyn has refused an invitation to speak at the CBI’s annual conference, snubbing the leading business lobby organisation as it tries to build bridges with the opposition leadership.”

In addition to this, the director of the Confederation of British Industry claims, “there has been no contact between the CBI and either Mr Corbyn or the new shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, since they took on their roles in September.”

As a Labour supporter, I am very discouraged by the decisions the new Leader of the Opposition has made. If Jeremy Corbyn wants to have a serious chance of becoming Prime Minister, he must win over a large proportion of the electorate, most of whom were not inclined to vote for Ed Miliband in the last election.

The right wing press slated Ed Miliband throughout his election campaign for being “anti-business.” Does not one of Corbyn’s advisors, therefore, think that refusing to speak to the CBI, with over 100 leaders of UK business present, was a huge strategic error?

All Labour supporters, whether on the left or the right of the party, should be calling on their leader to end his petulant, symbolic behaviour. Refusing to speak on the Andrew Marr show to attend a fundraising event in his constituency is another key illustration that Corbyn has not adapted to his new role as the leader of the party.

Attending every 30-people-strong cake sale in your constituency is all well and good when you are on the backbenches, but when you are the Leader of the Opposition you must prove to the wider electorate that you are capable of being the Prime Minister. There aren’t many better platforms in which to do this than the Andrew Marr show and at the CBI.

Declining to appear on probably the most respected political chat show in the country or speak to the country’s business leaders may merit a momentary round of applause from the more hard-core Corybnites, but what does it say to the rest of the country? The British electorate want a Prime Minister that can responsibly handle the economy and defend his policies under intense scrutiny, not one that sticks to his principles no matter what.

Each one of these strategic errors produces untold scrutiny from the right-wing press. The most recent example of this was the matter of bowing at the Remembrance Day ceremony. This should not be a contestable issue, or an opportunity for Corbyn to display a noble moral act. If it means not adding fuel to the Daily Mail fire, above which Jez is constantly dangling, then surely it is worth avoiding the controversy and just bowing low enough to satisfy even Britain First.

While on the topic of the right-wing media blowing things far out of proportion, it is worth noting what little fuss was made over Downing Street Photoshopping a poppy on the David Cameron’s Facebook photo. If that were Jeremy Corbyn, we wouldn’t have stopped hearing about it for months.

Let us not dwell on this—the fact of the matter is that any mistake Corbyn makes between now and 2020, if he lasts that long, will be morphed, amplified and magnified. Surely, then, it would be wise to simply minimise these events.

Some will argue that there are not many valuable lessons to be learned from Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister, but something that is plain to see is that he was a master of campaigning. He wooed Rupert Murdoch and held fancy cocktail parties with the country’s business elite and, for this, outraged the left of the Labour Party. But in the light of his more admirable achievements, such as the drop of relative child poverty rates from 27 per cent in 1996 to 18 per cent in 2010, doesn’t the fact that he didn’t adopt an adversary stance to the media and business elite seem petty?

If Corbyn’s Labour is to even put up a fight in 2020, he is going to have to come to terms with the fact that he is no longer a member of just the intelligentsia or the backbenches. He must dilute his principles, adopt some Blairite pragmatism, and try to win over Middle England.

Can we all just remember why we’re here?

Written by Adam on . Posted in Opinion.

Each year we remember those who have died in conflict. We remember and pay our respects to the contribution and sacrifices that servicemen and women have made, particularly over the past century. It is a time to remember that whilst war might be a solution in extreme cases, it is a decision not to be taken lightly, which can result in terrible consequences that last long after the original reasons for war have been forgotten. It is not a time for politicians and the media to be political point-scoring.

It is always a humbling occasion when I go to a remembrance service, and this year was no exception. Representatives of all faiths and none, public service organisations, youth movements and members of the government all reverentially paid their respects, and went about their business after the Sunday service had finished.

But upon my return home and the days followed, the British public were subject to a barrage of smears. Not only were these smears often untruths, they were incredibly disrespectful, especially when they were carried out by people claiming to be upholding servicemen’s dignity and honour.

Alongside many other newspapers, The Sun decided the next day was a fitting date to not only score a cheap political points against Jeremy Corbyn for not bowing low enough, but also to post this smear attack alongside a semi-naked young woman frolicking about in her underwear. For The Sun, a supposedly socially Conservative newspaper to plaster this image after Remembrance Sunday, right alongside an attack on Corbyn for being disrespectful, strikes me as hypocritical. This hypocrisy is consistent with the fact that Corbyn staying behind to applaud the horse guard parade by WW2 veterans was ignored. His decision to stay and to talk to veterans of old and recent conflicts, whilst many other politicians went to a VIP reception for a free lunch, was clearly deemed irrelevant. Naively, I thought the VIP’s were the veterans.

What’s more, The Sun‘s sister paper The News of the World has previously hacked dead soldiers phones, to which the Royal British Legion’s response was to suspend all ties. If that wasn’t bad enough, let’s just remember that The Sun reliably backs a party that has cut the Armed Forces’ effectiveness by a third through cuts, has decided that the best thing for low morale is to cut pay rises to Armed Forces personnel in this parliament, and has responsibility for 9,000 homeless veterans on the streets. The hypocrisy of The Sun was so bad that the outspoken Richard Dawkins waded in to both criticise the publication publicly, and question the intellectual capabilities of anyone who bought the paper.

The next faux outrage came from the Twittersphere. As anyone who attends a remembrance service knows, the service ends at about 11:30 am, with a two-minute silence held at 11:00am. This year however, as soon as Corbyn did his bow to the cenotaph and placed his wreath, Twitter was alight with claims that he did not bow low enough or even didn’t do it at all. The irony here is that these accusations of shame and lack of patriotism were coming from people who themselves didn’t bother to attend a remembrance service, and were sat on their computers at home during the two-minute silence watching the whole thing on telly. Those that did report from the scene of the crime clearly didn’t understand the significant amount of disrespect it shows to be at a Remembrance Service, supposedly in thoughtful silence, but instead tweeting rambling accusations about a man not bowing enough towards the cenotaph. You do have to ask yourself who is showing the greatest amount of dignity in this situation.

One such outspoken defender of veterans, a man who’s given himself the task of smiting down the unpatriotic, is Sir Gerald Howarth MP. He claimed that Corbyn was “an embarrassment to his party” and an “embarrassment to our country.” This is a man who has previously defended a stag do in France, organised by Tory MP Aidan Burley, with a dress code of Nazi and SS officers. Our self-appointed moral abettor is an individual to whom it didn’t seem to matter that this is categorically illegal in France. It was “just a bit of fun” and the criticism was “a very nasty witch hunt by some sections of the press”.

Howarth is also concerned about the welfare of servicemen and women, especially on the issue of homosexuality. This is because he has served in the RAF reserves for a grand total of one year (1968 – 69) and therefore is thoroughly committed to driving up standards. In 2000, he called the abolishment of the ban on homosexuals in the Armed Forces “appalling” and said that the “decision will be greeted with dismay, particularly by ordinary soldiers in Her Majesty’s forces.” Of course, this is nonsense, and soldiers have been largely indifferent to the fact that some of their number are gay, supporting their mates coming out, given that one day they may save their lives.

The last bastion of faux outrage and ignorance that decided to bombard the British public with their bile is the far-right group Britain First. As I am sure most readers of this already realise, Britain First are a bit of a joke, which is why they will only get a brief mention.

These hardcore patriots who supposedly love our servicemen and women, decided to post on their Facebook page a meme about Fish and Chips during the two minutes’ silence. Britain First also ignored pleas by Lee Rigby’s family, the soldier who was brutally murdered in London, not to exploit his name for political propaganda, and posted his photograph five times during the weekend with the caption “lest we forget.”

Lastly, Britain First activists exploited children poppy sellers with their “protect the poppy” campaign from “leftwing anarchists and Islamists.” This protection was in the form of two overweight, middle aged, unarmed men, tasked with single-handedly stopping an attack by hardcore terrorists in the suburbs of Nottingham. They of course forgot to pose for photos wearing their own poppies, or if they did have them, forgot to wear them correctly on their left breast.

As ever the vast majority of us managed to observe Remembrance Sunday with respect and regard for others. However, again as ever, the minute minority successfully harnessed the day in a tirade of hate. As benign as it sounds, perhaps laughing at them is the only way around them. Anger won’t stop them, censoring hasn’t worked, so why not just deprive them of the satisfaction, and provide them instead with the ridicule they deserve.

Why Germany can’t solve the refugee crisis alone

Written by Joel Kelly on . Posted in Opinion.

The footage from Germany this summer, of refugees receiving a warm welcome at train stations, was incredibly uplifting. This was especially true in the midst of contrasting images coming out of other European countries, and our own government’s uninspired, intransigent response.

However, many Germans now seem apprehensive of Chancellor Merkel’s optimistic “Wir schaffen das!” (We can do it!) approach to the refugee crisis. An Emnid poll from the 31st of October shows that support for the right wing anti-immigrant ‘Alternative for Germany’ party has been pushed to 8 per cent nationally, above the 5 per cent they would need to enter the Bundestag. The same polls show that approval for the CDU-SDP coalition has fallen to 36 per cent—a significant drop from the combined 41.5 per cent of the vote they received in the 2013 election. In another poll, 51 per cent of Germans responded yes to the question: “Are you worried that so many refugees are coming to Germany?” Added to this, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, is one of the apprehensive elements. This is significant, as the South Eastern area of Germany is the natural entry point for refugees travelling via Austria and the Balkans.

Of course, different polls suggest different things, and this certainly isn’t a mass movement. But, there has been a noticeable populist backlash against Angela Merkel—now in her tenth year as Chancellor. With this in mind, are these Germans right to be worried about their government’s policy?

There are some genuine reasons to be concerned. 800,000 new migrants (refugee, economic, or otherwise) is arguably too much for any country to absorb in the space of a year. That is how many Chancellor Merkel expects to be able to take in, perhaps even more. Already the strain is being felt. One teaching association estimates 25,000 new teachers will be needed. The head of the federal police claims that: “The security situation is getting worse with the growing numbers of refugees.” Ten cases have been opened into refugees suspected of terrorist activities and war crimes in their home countries. Even factoring in what the federal government has promised them, the German regions may still need up to €5.5 billion to cover the cost of healthcare, education, processing, and other services.

There may however, be some benefits to this plan. 45 per cent of German firms are having difficulty filling vacancies, and a recent study conducted by BDO and the Hamburg Institute of Economics shows that Germany now has the lowest birth rate in the world at 8.2 new births per 1,000 people. A population influx may mitigate some of these problems.

On a moral and legal level, it supports an idea which should be inviolable—that developed and stable countries should welcome refugees with open arms. They’re fundamentally different to economic migrants, as they’re driven out of their countries by pure necessity.

There has been somewhat of a cultural backlash against multiculturalism, represented in Germany by groups like Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident). Worries that Muslim migrants will cause a fundamental change in their culture are the product of a minority of small-minded nationalists who overstate the influx of Muslims, their level of cultural difference, and their relative influence. Those who bleat about the inevitable triumph of Sharia law are of a particularly paranoid bent.

Now, that is not to say that a few individuals among the many couldn’t pose a possible security risk, but a thorough processing scheme should mitigate this, as long as security concerns are put before economic ones. On the whole, Merkel is leading her country in the right direction on this issue.

However, this is not a German problem. This is a humanitarian crisis of continental proportions. To her credit, Merkel has been pushing for a continental solution. However, the proposed centrally planned quota system may prove arbitrary, be unfair to smaller countries, and violate the principles of freedom of movement. The focus should be on getting economically larger EU countries, such as France and the UK, to take the initiative when it comes to housing refugees.

Likewise, diplomatic and financial overtures to Turkey, in an attempt to get them to accept more migrants, seems risky. The country is gradually becoming more aggressive and authoritarian under President Erdoğan. The prospect of such a regime gaining closer ties to the EU will undermine the Union’s moral credibility, especially as European powers attempt to stand up to Putin.

Placing too much expectation on Germany to solve this problem will ultimately prove risky in the long term. The Germans may be in need of large groups of migrants now, but the fate of desperate people should not be contingent upon the fluctuating economic conditions of a single state. European leaders need to provide an equitable pan-European solution.

If Britain’s recovery has been as good as he claims, maybe David Cameron should adopt a little of the “we will cope” attitude himself.

The case for introducing pop existentialism

Written by Selsabil Amine on . Posted in Opinion.

What is the problem with living? If you can’t answer without making a joke, it’s probably because you already know. Existentialism deals with these questions. It concerns itself with the perpetually perplexing problem of why we are living. It’s a philosophical movement which has asked questions relating to not only existence but what it means to exist.

Though varying in form and diverse in opinion, existential thought or philosophy rejects any holistic systems of thinking which professes to answer questions relating to the purpose of life. This is because, whether that system is scientific or religious, in claiming that it can explain away ‘why’ a person exists, it takes away a person’s ability to fully confront what existentialists call the human condition.

Existentialism really developed after World War II, where this philosophy had began its manifestation in society. It began to get incorporated into novels, plays and even lifestyles. Though this was mainly a response to the consequential horrors of war and colonialism, it is back again in a new form. It appears in television shows and films, so you may be familiar with jokes about the meaninglessness of life, or comments about the severity of our isolation. These may only seem like innocent jokes or remarks, but they are actually part of a resurfacing kind of existential thought in popular culture, which is more deranged, absurd and void of its own reasoning.

Mass media exaggerates existentialism’s tough questions and fades out its progressive evaluations to the answers of these questions. It is creeping into the minds of media-literate people, some of whom have never before sought an interest or merit in philosophy or philosophical thinking. Often, the consequences of this can be brutal. We are left with an image of a meaningless life, doomed to death and spending eternity playing chess with the Grim Reaper.

Though it is natural for a type of serious philosophy to find itself in fashion every now and again, this time it comes with the issue of a mass misunderstanding of existential thought—the kind of reception of existentialism that I put forward as pop existentialism.

Rather than media texts honestly incorporating existential ideas, there is a mixture of existential thought tainted by nihilistic and absurdist outlooks. Lest I am misunderstood, it is important to note that nihilism and absurdism are, in their own right, valid philosophies. But when fed to the masses, it becomes skewed and uninformed. Nihilism, and its forms, pertains to the idea that there can be no meaning in anything in a person’s life—in that, all which is surrounding a person, will never have the capacity to engage with their journey of self-actualisation. Absurdism pertains to the limbo state of the active search of meaning in one’s life, and yet finding none, claiming it is impossible to ever find meaning, and so our pursuits are futile and fruitless.

It seems clear enough that philosophies such as nihilism and absurdism are not suited for anyone who is not specifically interested in the area. It stands to reason then that a television show or film twisting the content of existentialist thinking for a mass audience will not capture the hearts of those already embracing of these philosophies.

When beloved fictional characters appear on our screens with a joke about the meaninglessness of life, they instil an unnecessary sense of apathy about the way that a viewer sees the world. Though this does mean more people are engaged in (some kind of) philosophical discussion, this media representation is a very inefficient way to contemplate such ideas in relation to our own lives. What fictional characters seem to forget is that existentialism emphasises the self-creation of meaning for oneself, which is rather comforting in a world where we are commonly told that we are supposed to ‘find ourselves.’ This, despite society telling us the random and accidental nature of the universe, has no exerted meaning on our person.

For the common misconception of a person purely existing as meaningless matter to pervade mainstream thinking is to really be saying that you cannot find yourself at all, because you are nowhere to be found. Rather, if mainstream media did not deal with such existential questions, mainstream media would be throwing out the idea that one ought to create themselves as opposed to look for it in arbitrary social constructed categories of identity. This is because existentialism pays no real attention to how a person got to earth, but only that they are here. To the media, it only matters what a person does with their available time.

It may be that the worst part of the misrepresentation of Existentialism in mainstream media is that, as mentioned before, it is not entirely existentialist, but also nihilistic and absurdist. To have a nihilistic viewpoint carelessly infused is what a lot of popular media has been purporting to be the stuff of great philosophical contemplation. Absurdism is also in the mix, which complicates matters even more so because when presented with the existentialist question of, for instance, what does it mean to live, the nihilist contaminations answer—it does not mean anything. Absurdism adds salt to the wound by saying it cannot mean anything.

Though ideas such as these are being lifted directly from writers like Camus or Sartre, it is not fair on the layperson who happens to dip into such thinking by virtue of a media outlet seriously misrepresenting what is a great philosophical movement. What it means is that philosophical thinking can become, for people, whatever mass media desires it to be for the purposes of revenue and mere trend. If there ought to be anything beneficial from the misrepresentation of such philosophies, it should be that there exists an opportunity to climb away from popular visions of existentialist thought, and instead delve into the real thing.

It is at everybody’s liberty to—as existentialism claims, create and recreate one’s meaning, identity and life purpose, which should always be explored through the way that person wishes. Never through the eyes, or lens, of any other being.

Why it’s time to crack down on the touts

Written by Luke Williams on . Posted in Opinion.

Earlier this month, thousands of fans attempted to get hold of tickets to The Stone Roses’ 2016 reunion tour after intense hype over recent weeks. Websites crashed within minutes of tickets going on sale, and many fans were left empty-handed and frustrated.

The disappointment of missing out on tickets would have perhaps been reduced if they weren’t appearing on resale websites within minutes of selling out. This situation is all too common with those who look to buy tickets for many major events, not just concerts. I’m sure many people will have been waiting in virtual queues, desperately refreshing webpages only to find that tickets have sold out, being directed to partner websites advertising inflated tickets.

Standing tickets for The Stone Roses were sold at £64.90 with a booking fee of £5.90 per ticket. After selling out, over 3,000 tickets have been listed on GetMeIn.com alone, just days after selling out—all well above the face value. An identical situation can be seen on other websites. Tickets started from £90 for the same standing ticket, with some rising above £1,000. Add to this the further charges on top of resold tickets by authorised agencies that regulate their sale—most websites charge a booking fee of 10 – 15 per cent of the resale price, along with handling fees and delivery charges.

Ticket touts used to only occur outside venues with a small number of tickets, buying spare tickets and selling them at inflated prices or counterfeits. UK law now prevents the resale of tickets on the streets unless touts have a street-trading licence—though this is rarely enforced. The growth of official online ticket resale agencies such as StubHub and Viagogo have meant that much of the activity is now online. The regulation of the resale of tickets online has only shifted the problem. While it prevents tickets from being fake, it doesn’t stop people making vast profits from the resale of tickets.

Touts are still hoarding tickets to resell with added cost.

The unauthorised resale of football tickets is illegal in the UK, whether online or on the streets. This has meant that agencies have partnered with football clubs to become authorised sellers, bypassing the law. Currently, Viagogo has partnerships with Chelsea and PSG, while StubHub has linked with clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Everton. Arsenal and Liverpool meanwhile have their own ticket exchanges in place.

An argument is that touts utilise a scarcity in tickets to add a premium to the price of a ticket. More often than not, this could not be further from the truth. The touts add to the shortage of tickets and the scarcity is somewhat artificial. Add to this, the fact that touts can sometimes have access to tickets before going on sale. The fabricated shortage increases the price of tickets while demand remains stable.

The resale of tickets becomes an oligopoly, with a small number of sellers having vast amounts of tickets. This prices many fans out of the market, meaning only an elite band of consumers can afford these tickets. The original sale of tickets could be described as a monopoly, though some degree of regulation and justification for this exists. The price is rationalised by a reasonable cost of the services of the performer, the venue and the management.

Some argue that ticket touting is legitimate capitalism—buying and selling a commodity for profit. Ticket touts do not provide a service that does not already exist with the primary ticket seller. Online purchase and distribution is already available, and online resale by a tout hasn’t added any convenience that warrants an increased price. The primary seller already adds on booking fees and delivery charges that already increase the price of a ticket from the face value. The buyer is getting the same ticket with the same experience from the event which invalidates any such price increase from touts. A more valid argument would be if the secondary seller was adding a convenience to warrant an added premium. Why should I reward someone tens or hundreds of pounds for cheating me out of a product? It would be interesting to hear of anyone who avoids buying initial tickets to dodge virtual queues and instead chooses to pay a premium from ticket touts for securing a ticket for them.

A fact often highlighted is the risk involved with touting—the danger of losing money on unsold tickets justify the value added by touts. This assumes that with every risk, a degree of benefit should come with it. Through the same logic, artists and venues should add a premium for the risk of unsold tickets (though this is often accounted for). Again, the touts are not providing the customer with any benefit by reselling tickets that could have been bought from the primary seller and the risk involved should not allow fans to be exploited.

Some events are now requiring the ticket holder to carry ID that matches the name on the ticket. This will prevent genuine ticket holders who can no longer attend the event from reselling their tickets even for face value or less. This can also leave events under capacity if large amounts of tickets have been bought by touts. A similar situation was seen at the 2012 Olympics where many events were under capacity—though this was largely as a result of unused tickets from sponsors. Foreign ticket agencies also marketed tickets at inflated prices which also added to the problem.

Ticket touts make tickets available closer to an event, but why should these fans have their access to such tickets for an increased price prioritised over fans who planned ahead and tried to buy tickets originally?

Ticket touting is hurting the entertainment industry, and the resale of tickets with inflated prices needs to be prevented at all costs. It limits both the ability of an artist to ensure fair prices for fans and the chance for genuine fans to get hold of tickets. I encourage all fans to use apps such as Twickets and Vibe to get tickets for face value—though these companies still charge commission—and not allow touts to exploit the system for profit.

Review: Taxi Tehran

Written by Hannah Fielding on . Posted in Film.

Jafar Panahi is an Iranian director currently banned by the state from making films. Despite this, and being under house arrest for a period, Panahi has continued to make films, getting others to smuggle them out of the country on his behalf. Taxi Tehran’s setting, a taxi fitted with hidden cameras, can therefore be seen as a functional way of overcoming the restrictions placed upon him.

The film is excellent: Its dialogue, setting and characters give the audience, a primarily Western one due to Panahi’s predicament, a new perception of Iran—as a country filled with people trying to subtly undermine the state’s restrictive power.

It is easy to overemphasise the restrictions of Panahi’s own situation, and just see the message he is trying to get across in the film as the result of it. Taxi Tehran can be seen as a direct protest against government policy—a film which shows the artificial nature of Iran’s cinema rules. However, to a greater extent, Taxi Tehran acts as a testament to the power of film as a medium for protest, advocating for its use as a way of conveying interactions and emotions as well as being something to enjoy.

The film shows Panahi driving around Tehran as a slightly incompetent taxi driver. Cameras hidden within the cab reveal the conversations between Panahi and a range of eccentric characters whom he picks up. A man and a female teacher have an argument about capital punishment. Two women have a mission to release goldfish into a sacred pool to ensure a further year of good luck. A wife loudly wails over her husband who has been injured in a motorbike accident, while trying to ensure she can inherit the house.

The informal and chatty dialogue between Panahi and his passengers, combined with the filming style, make you feel like you are part of the scene, being taken on a literal cinematic journey.

The first passenger to recognise Panahi is Ovid, a character who makes his living illegally renting DVDs. He asks many questions about Panahi’s past films. His business serves as evidence that laws cannot suppress the production and distribution of films. Film is a running theme; Panahi’s past films are brought up by various characters.

Panahi picks up his niece Hana from school (played by his real life niece). Their relationship is playful; Hana demands a banana split from her uncle and makes fun of him for his bad car. The immediacy of the setting once again gives you a feeling that you are experiencing a real relationship.

Hana has been given a project to make a film at school. Her teacher has provided her with a list of rules, compiled by the Iranian government. She has been told to avoid the presentation of “sordid realism.” When Hana oversees a young boy picking up some money dropped by a groom, she encourages him to give it back, to provide her film with the right moral message. As Panahi points out in the film, reality cannot be sordid—it is just the truth.

This parallels with the ambiguity of the film’s ‘truthfulness.’ Are the characters real or fake? Does it matter? Taxi Tehran is able to reveal truths about the restrictiveness of the Iranian cinema setting through a series of presumably fictional interactions. In this way, Panahi undermines the idea that notions of “realism” can be applied to film.

It is easy to focus on what this film can tell us and ignore how watchable it is. It is not dramatic but is completely engaging, despite its slow-moving pace. Certain scenes, such as the one with the injured husband are perhaps a bit prolonged. But the conversations are subtle and the characters are realistic yet eccentric.

Taxi Tehran demonstrates the ways in which film can undermine authoritarian regimes. Filming events and conversations, whether true or untrue, gives audiences the opportunity to assign their own meanings to what they are being presented with.

5/5

Preview: Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick DeWitt

Written by Hope Abbott on . Posted in Books.

Patrick DeWitt’s Undermajordomo Minor opens with a scene that will be familiar to a lot of first year university students; the narrator Lucy (male, short for Lucian) is leaving home for a new life, where he will try new things, escape any past mistakes, and leave the people of his hometown marvelling in his wake. While he fails at the latter, his determination is admirable.

Our sheltered hero has a very simple view on life. When somebody steals his pipe, he simply goes and asks for it back; when a rival suitor appears on the scene he decides the only sensible course of action is to kill him. In other hands this could come across as a lack of depth, and elsewhere DeWitt has been criticised for making his characters too literal, but Lucy’s honesty and naivety throughout the book (including during some rather gruesome and risqué scenes) make him extremely sympathetic, and his black-and-white outlook makes for a refreshing read.

A straightforward narrative style ensures the various storylines are not laborious, and the simplicity means you are constantly focused. This is what is most enjoyable about the novel—by mixing murder, sex and loss with a familiar premise, DeWitt has produced a novel that is genuinely fun to read, without losing its emotional core. For the most part, the simplicity drives the comedy.

For example, there is a very large hole, which is plainly called “the Very Large Hole” and Lucy’s conversations with his superior Mr Olderglough are deadpan even when they are discussing murder. The whole narrative is conducted extremely eloquently—everyone in the story is very polite. Even the young vagabond, Mewe, is articulate to the extreme. The stony humour is reminiscent of Lemony Snicket, with slightly more adult themes.

The unfiltered candour reveals many an awkward situation, bordering on the ridiculous. But this still feels logical in the story, because Lucy works for a secretive Baron; so what else would you expect? The castle and its secrets are, as Lucy says himself, “quite beyond his experience,” and as a reader you relish his nervous determination. At the start of the book Lucy is childlike, delighting in extravagant lies and stories.

The war that is going on around the castle where most of the story takes place is never explained. The soldiers assume Lucy will not be able to understand it. When he witnesses a rather scandalous rendezvous between the Baron and his guests, he is not offended, but rather confused by what the point of it all was. He is not a classic gothic hero, despite the setting, and his general misjudgement of the people around him leads to more comic situations, where he valiantly tries to impress everyone.

Of course, there is a girl, and the hero must find a way to get said girl. Your sympathy for Lucy increases as you watch him struggle with his emotions. Some might find his teenage self-pity trying, but we’ve all been there before, and the speed of the narrative keeps the plot moving along. There are poignant moments both for Lucy and his companions, heartbreak and death, and despite this being primarily a funny book, these moments are still genuinely touching.

Lucy meets a stereotyped but vibrant cast of characters; the ageing butler, the mysterious Baroness, and the valiant soldier are just a few. The characters of Memel and Mewe, despite being criminals, are very kind to Lucy, and offer him help and guidance. The same goes for Mr Olderglough, the Baron, and Agnes the cook. What is interesting about them is the lack of information that is given to us about their pasts, and the secrets that they keep from Lucy.

Their stories intertwine with his own, revealing themselves slowly, with small but satisfying twists lifting the plot throughout the novel. The other characters’ anecdotes, stories within stories, embellish Lucy’s world. There are also funny little references back to previous situations in the book, complementing the fairy tale theme with a cyclical history. However our hero doesn’t really learn from his mistakes.

There are some loose ends left at the completion of the story, events never explained, mysteries never solved, and this is disappointing. This is where the novel is less satisfying, as there is no clear cut “happy ending” or closure. However, the characters and the setting are classic and the boldness of the story means you easily engage with Lucy’s adventure. The storyline has enough deviations from a typical model to be interesting without being too complicated. DeWitt finds a balance between dark humour and slapstick comedy, romance and sorrow, and life and death.

Live: HEALTH

Written by Adam Rogers on . Posted in Music.

Gorilla

27th October

8/10

LA Noise-makers HEALTH graced the Orwellian stage of Gorilla on their first headline tour in the UK for six years. The show garnered a relatively sparse turnout but those who were in attendance were quite clearly dedicated fans.

Opening with the pounding drums of ‘Zoothorns’, three out of the four members screamed their throats out into different arrays of pedal boards; there was an immediate and brutal assault on the senses. HEALTH had arrived, and they were not fucking about. This band does let up and ploughed straight ahead into the tribalistic rhythms of ‘Crimewave’, which went down a storm. Headbanging ensued and the tension in the crowd was palpable.

The band really shone when they showed their newer, poppier side. For example, the signature gated synths of ‘Die Slow’ came across as some sort of apocalyptic disco track, with the beat so infectious that the entire crowd could not help but break into dance. The same goes for the blissful ‘Tears’–the throbbing drums of this track draw you in to a dreamy state of mind.

The emotionless singing of Jacob Duzsik worked perfectly live, too, almost acting as a soothing balm to the mechanical aggression of the music. A perfect example of this was on ‘Stonefist’ from HEALTH’s most recent album, Death Magic. The studio version is crushing enough as it is, but live, it came across as a whole different level of devastating. An industrial beast barely kept in line by the pacifying drone of the lyrics: “Remember, love’s not in our hearts”.

The set was kept short and sweet, clocking in at just under the hour mark, which was almost a relief considering the fatiguing nature of the music being played. However, this worked to the band’s advantage; the set stayed focused and direct. HEALTH proved themselves to be a unique and certainly interesting band who do what they do phenomenally.