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Day: 18 November 2012

New: Crystal Castles – (III)

The release of their eponymous debut album in 2008 saw Crystal Castles pioneer a unique brand of raw, glitch-electro. Two albums later, the Toronto duo have broadened their musical horizons considerably; Ethan Kath claimed to have disposed of all his old recording equipment to aid this musical revamp. Various influences are evident through the record, yet it still retains the unmistakable Crystal Castles identity. III is their most streamlined and mature effort to date.

The pair’s willingness to evolve is underlined by ‘Sad Eyes’ which contains a polished trance hook that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Tiësto set, were it not for Alice Glass’ woozy lament “you can’t disguise sad eyes”. Elsewhere, Kath’s production excellently compliments the vocals. ‘Insulin’ sees Glass unleash her now trademark Banshee screams, first aired on debut single ‘Alice Practice’, and in turn, Kath’s accompaniment is explosive and harsh, whilst ‘Transgender’ exhibits Glass’ more melodic verse and, sonically, is suitably subtle.

The lyrical themes of III stem from Glass’ anger at societal injustice, but her recent revelation that “A lot of bad things have happened to people close to me … it’s profoundly influenced my writing as I’ve realized there will never be justice for them” prove this to be a more personal matter than it first appears. She often takes the position of an apparent spiritual guardian aiming to fix the problems society could not, “I’ll protect you from all the things I’ve seen” she promises on ‘Kerosene’ in a mournful tone that still retains a strong sense of resolve. Glass is lyrically arresting, and her refusal to do more than one studio take based on her belief that the first is the rawest expression of an idea contributes to the feeling of purposeful urgency flowing through III.

‘Child I Will Hurt You’ sees Crystal Castles achieve a level of emotion they could only formerly reach with a guest spot from Robert Smith. The use of a vocoder, which acted as a barrier to engaging fully with Glass on previous releases, lends an angelic quality to the vocals, whilst the production is similarly elegant, meaning the album closes on an exceptionally beautiful and affecting note.

 

The Manchester Students’ Food Co-operative

I think the first thing we always try and do is dispel the myth that everyone involved in the Students’ Food Co-operative is vegan/votes green/carries a jute shopping bag everywhere with them in case of emergency. Of course, some of our members and volunteers are those things, but most people are just greedy, appreciate good food and are trying to avoid Fallowfield Sainsbury’s hell.    
 
We started last year, as a student-run buyer’s co-operative that provides ethically sourced food at cost-price to Manchester’s students. The idea is that we buy in bulk a wide range of goods – both dried wholefoods and fresh produce – direct from suppliers and then sell these on to our members at cost-price, who all pay £2 to be part of the co-op. We sell a huge variety of things: organic red pesto, crystallised ginger, coffee beans, Green & Blacks chocolate – as well as pastas, pulses, nuts and dried fruits. We like to think we take requests, criticisms and compliments all equally, and try and get as much feedback as possible from our members, and are constantly changing what we order in to try and get a more interesting selection of produce.
 
We also run an organic and local vegetable box scheme – it’s £7, ordered a week in advance via email or Facebook, and provides enough for a week with two people who eat an average amount of vegetables. We try and make it a bit more interesting than just loads of muddy root vegetables (even though there are some of those too) and so far have had celeriac, red pak choi, kohl rabi… perhaps not hugely exotic, but an improvement on that delicious student staple of baked beans.

If you’re interested, email [email protected], or go to Manchester Students’ Food Co-operative on Facebook.

The Function Room

There’s a new night club on Oxford Road, upstairs from Odder Bar. Before it was called The Function Room, it was a bar with a sofa-cushy-peach beer vibe. Now it’s a lot more modern, with space for a sizeable dancefloor. Think of it as a lighter version of 5th Ave – but unusually combining intimate and industrial, with its many metal roller shutters.  The atmosphere was a bit more relaxed as well, and its clientele isn’t solely student-based. The bar doesn’t offer a particularly wide variety of alcohol, then again, what it does offer is good: dark and light bottles of Krusovice beer, some nice flavoured Stolichnaya vodka, Weston’s Stowford Press cider on tap, rum cocktails and so on. The prices are mid-range – a £3.30 Becks is the cheapest pint of lager, the Stowford Press is the same price. A glass of red or white wine costs £3.40.

I was at The Function Room for their ‘More Bounce’ Thursday night, described as hip hop, funk and soul. In reality, DJ Lee Majors only played us hip hop; bring back the funk and soul. The Function Bar prides itself on its club nights, playing combinations of hip hop, funk, disco, electro and house. As well as More Bounce,  Friday and Saturday nights have Murkage, Thank FUNK, Consortium, Chips With Everything, Disco Transisco and Clique on rotation.

The busy bar staff were very friendly and offered me advice me good advice about the beer. But in all honesty, I’m not sure I’ll be back soon. If I wanted a night out dancing with my friends, I’d go somewhere where I liked the music. That isn’t to say the music is bad; just not to my taste. If I wanted to talk and drink with my friends, I’d go to the nearest pub, where we wouldn’t have to shout at each other to have a conversation and where there were enough tables to guarantee a seat. This bar offers a mix of both bar and club worlds, a bit like Fallowfield’s 256. To students who like to dance to hip hop, house and electro and occasionally want a sit-down, this bar is for you.

Event Listings

Thursday 29th NovemberMore Bounce (weekly) – Hip Hop

Friday 30th NovemberConsortium – Alex Coulton, Hodge and Brunks

Saturday 1st NovemberGet It On – Manchester DJs on rotation

Friday 7th November Thank Funk It’s Friday – Funk, Soul, Groove, R&B

Experience: Edinburgh

Sometimes you just want to escape the city without having to queue at security, check in bags and get ripped off by buying £5 burgers on the plane. An easy, cheap getaway perfect for even the most broke of Manchester’s students? Edinburgh. You could spend an entire week in the Scottish capital without seeing all it has to offer so if you’re heading up north for the weekend here’s a quick guide to what Auld Reekie has to offer.

Day 1

Drop off your bags, grab your camera and head out onto the Royal Mile. The road connects the castle at the top to Holyrood Palace at the bottom and the entire Old Town and New Town have been labeled as World Heritage sites, remaining preserved in their Medieval and Georgian styles. Take a trip up to the castle for some amazing photo opportunities and to look down at the bustling Princes Street Gardens and the Grassmarket below. If you’re wanting a spooky experience however, as many who visit what is said to be one of the most haunted cities in Europe are, forget going inside the castle. The Edinburgh Vaults were rediscovered in the eighties and are now thought to be filled with the ghosts of Burke and Hare’s victims and those trapped during the Southbridge fire.

The underground passages hosted Most Haunted Live during 2006’s Halloween and this year between the 27th and 31st of October you can book midnight tours of the vaults – the ultimate way to spend this year’s All Hallows’ Eve. Similar creepy experiences can be found at The Edinburgh Dungeons and the old plague riddled Mary King’s Close. To relax after an evening of paranormal activity numerous student friendly bars and pubs can be found on Cockburn (yes, that’s really its name) Street, leading off the Royal Mile.

Day 2

In search of culture? The city is home to five National Galleries and the Scottish National Gallery is situated on The Mound – conveniently next to Prince’s Street, home to the high street shops, if art isn’t really your thing. Museums can be found throughout the city with the National Museum of Scotland being free of entry charges and full of everything from Egyptian mummies to robots you can interact with.

The museum is located near George IV Bridge, near which you can find W. Armstrong and Sons vintage shop. If you are looking for top hats, bomber jackets or just something quirky to dress up in, look no further. If you don’t mind hopping on the bus, easy to do from the roads surrounding Prince’s Street, then visit two of Edinburgh’s most famous residents. Yang Guang and Tian Tian are the two giant pandas who now live at Edinburgh Zoo. A busy day might have left you craving some comfort food, head back to George IV Bridge and grad dinner for less than a tenner at The Elephant House where J. K. Rowling spent time when writing Harry Potter (they even have themed Hogwarts toilets to commemorate the event).

Stay – easyHotel rooms are available from £19 per night per person.

Get there – Coaches leaving Manchester Coach Station daily and cost £30 one way.

Fuse FM star wins Best Female at Student Radio Awards

Congratulations are in order for Fuse FM’s Hattie Pearson after she won Best Female at the national Student Radio Awards this month.

Pearson, from the University of Manchester Students’ Union radio station, netted the accolade for her show ‘Hattie’s Happy Hour.’

“It’s a great stepping-stone for me to be able to approach people and say ‘here I am I’ve just won this, take me seriously,” she said.

As part of the award, Pearson will have a one-off show on Radio 1 next year.

“The idea is for it to become a permanent thing, but at the moment it will be a one-off,” she said. “But you never know what it can lead to.”

The award ceremony, hosted by BBC Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw and Capital FM’s Dave Berry, took place in London on November 8.

She added, “The award ceremony was really cool and it was such an inspiration.

“One of the highlights was – I have a massive tattoo down my arm and Nick Grimshaw said he really liked it.

“Student radio is a massive part of the radio industry, it’s where the radio industry look for people today.”

While studying for her degree in English Language Miss Pearson hosted a weekly  radio show on UMSU’s Fuse FM, as well as working part-time as an assistant producer at BBC Radio 6 Music and as a freelance producer for alternative radio station Xfm.

“Radio was always something I wanted to do,” said the Newbury native. “Before I even came to uni I spent a month in Africa working at a French radio station in Senegal doing the news in French everyday, which was probably the weirdest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

“I never wanted to do a degree in media production or broadcasting or anything like that because I didn’t really see the point. I wanted to get a normal standard degree from a decent uni and do all this stuff on the side.

“My advice to people is don’t give up. If you want it that bad you need to prove yourself, because there is not that much paid work in this industry, especially entry level.

“The competition is so fierce you need to make sure people know that you’re better than the next person and not afraid to get up at 4 o clock in the morning on a weekly basis even though you’re doing a degree.”

The runners up in the Best Female category were Rachael Cole of University Radio York, who snatched second place and Claire Chambers from Nottingham Trent University’s Fly FM.

The award for Best Station went to University Radio Nottingham, and Ethan O’Leary of University of Sunderland’s Spark FM snagged Best Male.

Other categories included Best Newcomer, Best Interview, and Best Live Event.

In her spare time Miss Pearson organises club nights in Manchester, such as Girls on Film at the Deaf Institute on Wednesdays.

Tax evasion campaigner urges Starbucks boycott

A leading expert on tax evasion has advocated Manchester students boycott Starbucks coffee on campus.

Speaking to The Mancunion last Monday, John Christensen, director of Tax Justice Network, said direct action should be taken against the multinational company for their alleged practice of tax-avoidance.

“Should this be something they should be taking direct action on? I would argue yes – support a boycott,” he said. “Companies don’t like boycotts, they don’t like the reputational harm.”

Starbucks have been in the news recently after appearing in front of the Public Accounts Committee, accused of large-scale tax evasion in the country.

The American corporation’s coffee is sold on the University’s North Campus at the Students’ Union’s Biko North Cafe.

“I think the student body in Manchester needs to think very carefully, there are alternatives to Starbucks,” Mr Christensen said. “Do they want to support companies that are undermining the economy in this country and elsewhere?

“Corporate responsibility begins with paying tax, you cannot run a democracy without tax.

“The litmus test of corporate social responsibility is not how many orchestras and how many kindergartens they’ve given beads and bangles to, its are you paying tax in the right amount, in the right place, at the right time.

After studying the affect of tax havens on developing countries Mr Christensen, from notorious tax haven Jersey, decided to do some secret investigating.

“In the early 1980s, after finishing my first degree, I went undercover,” said the former student of the University of Reading, Oxford and London School of Economics.

“I went back to Jersey, got a job at a major accounting firm, worked inside their optional division, and found out how these things happen, “ he continued. “Rather extraordinarily I was recruited by the government of Jersey to become their senior economic advisor.

“When something like that happens, not only is the salary very tempting, but it was too good an opportunity to explore how governments shape tax havens, the relationship between Jersey and the City of London and the relationship between Jersey and the [British] government.

“I was the only person in Jersey who knew what I was doing. I had a team [in England] who knew what I was doing, there were three of us, but it wasn’t until I came back to London in 1998 that what I was doing became public knowledge.

In 2002, having worked on an Oxfam report on how tax havens affect developing countries, Christensen helped found Tax Justice Network to draw focus to tax avoidance, an issue he believes students should pay attention to.

“This is a real potent issue, because it affects everyone,” he said. “And in an age of austerity when governments are saying we have to impose cuts, we’re saying well hang about if you were to tax multinational corporations on their products and tax the wealthy people who are using off shore accounts to tax evade, there would be no need for any of these austerity cuts.

“Students are having to pay massive fees which my generation did not have to pay, precisely because the government says we can’t raise the tax revenues we need to pay the universities.

“I would suggest to students this is a totally artificial argument, far from there not being revenue out there, there is an awful lot of money out there being held offshore evading tax and avoiding tax.

“So this impacts virtually everyone in this country.”

General Secretary of the Student Union Nick Pringle said in a statement, “I think that Starbucks should pay their taxes and that the Students’ Union should provide services and products that students at Manchester want.

“And that if John Christensen was a student he could influence the products that the union does and doesn’t sell.”

MMU student presents manifesto at Brussels

A Manchester Metropolitan University student has delivered a manifesto on climate change to the European Parliament.

Tehseen Mirza, a first year student of Biomedical Sciences, was chosen by the Make the Link – Climate exChange project to present the proposal in Brussels.

She said: “I felt quite privileged, I felt like I was representing a lot of people, including loads of young people in the UK.

“I think that young people need to get involved in the issue because people in power now won’t live with the consequences as long as the youth of today.”

Make the Link is a three year project funded by the European Union and aimed at linking European youth groups with those in Africa to promote action against climate change.

Three years ago, Ms Mirza was chosen as one of only six people worldwide to take part in the project’s youth scholarship programme.

She said: “I was 18 at the time. I was volunteering and received an email about the opportunity so I applied.

“I was really happy to be chosen to represent the UK, I felt quite privileged.”

She presented the manifesto to a workshop of around 30 MEPs as part of a campaign to involve the European Parliament in action against climate change.

She said: “They were quite intrigued that we had come up with something like this and taken such a big stance on the issue. They were all willing to sign it.

“I hope it gets passed next year and that it provides a base for decision-makers to act on. Then we could see changes being made in the future.”

Asked about her future plans, she said: “I’m looking into a career in Biomedical Sciences but I’d definitely like to keep up my work on the voluntary side.”

The issue will be voted on by the European Parliament and the verdict will be announced in February.

Tory MP stoned off campus

A Conservative MP was pelted with rocks, eggs and tomatoes as he was due to give a talk at the University of Sussex.

Mike Weatherley, MP for Hove, East Sussex, had been invited by the Conservative Society at the University to debate squatting laws. The format of the event had previously been changed from a lecture after coming under fire on Facebook.

Weatherley has been a target of criticism from squatters since his election to Parliament in 2010, due to his campaigning for the criminalisation of squatting.

Despite the incident taking place on campus, the University of Sussex denied student involvement.

“We believe that the violent disruption was led by activist protestors from outside of the University, not by our students”, said Vice-Chancellor Professor Michael Farthing.

“The Squatter’s Network of Brighton, however, rebuffed these claims.

“There were students, squatters, and supporters present”, read a statement on their website. “The government consultation on squatting came out as 90% opposed to banning squatting, [which] is why a broad range of people chased him off campus today”.

Just before the debate was about to start, a group of around 50 people surrounded him, shouting “Whatever they say, squatting will stay”.

“As soon as I walked in to the lecture theatre, someone attempted to punch me”, explained Weatherley.

Campus security escorted the MP to a room in a different part of the campus while the group followed throwing rocks, eggs and tomatoes at him. He was eventually escorted to safety in the back of a police van.

“Weatherley was literally chased away[…] woo hoo!”, tweeted Sanjeedah Choudhury, an Associate Tutor at the University of Sussex.

“We condemn the behaviour of these individuals”, said Matt Boughton, President of the University of Sussex Conservative Society. “Our society will not allow violent groups to impeach our freedoms.”

Shisha bosses walk out of council meeting

Shisha bosses met with council members to discuss the future of their venues on the Curry Mile but some refused to stay and walked out after 20 minutes.

As The Mancunion recently reported, Shisha bosses requested the meeting to discuss compromises with the law to allow for them to continue with their smoking businesses indoors, illegally.

One shisha café owner was asked to leave the meeting by the chair of the meeting, Manchester City Council deputy leader, Jim Battle. Ten other traders then walked out in protest.

Councillor Battle said: “The meeting was very productive, however a number of traders tried to disrupt the meeting and as a result I asked them to leave. But the meeting continued in a constructive manner. The majority of people stayed and afterwards said it was the right thing to do.”

“I think a group of people came along with the intention of being disruptive because they didn’t want to hear what was being said,” he added.

Ali Alaw, of Star Café was asked to leave the meeting. “I directed a question to the council’s legal officer and Councillor Battle interrupted and answered on her behalf,” he said.

“When I queried this he dismissed me and asked me to leave. It was a public meeting, he had no right to dismiss people.”

Shivan Amin, of Shalal Café walked out with Alaw. “They were just telling us their own points, and wouldn’t listen to what we had to say,” he said. “The attitude was awful.”

The shisha bosses put forward their own alternative ideas in order to ‘compromise’ with the law, as The Mancunion previously reported. This included the possibility of using strong extractor fans or special ‘smoking licenses.’

“I was asked about the use of extractor fans but clearly the legislation doesn’t allow for that,” said councillor Battle. “The law is clear and must be complied with.”

“The hope is that there will be compliance with the law from now on. If that’s not forthcoming then it will be enforced by a team made up of the fire service, the police, excise and customs and environmental health,” added Battle.

Mohamed Haider, of Passion Shisha Lounge said: “I think the meeting went very well. The law has been clearly explained in various languages and everyone knows where they stand.

“The council are trying to help us run our businesses legally. Any law changes that people want would have to go through parliament.

“If these places shut down, it will make it fairer for places like Passion Lounge, because at present we do business properly and we’re losing out to the illegal traders.”

 

 

Public vote for best research photos

Winners have been announced for a contest featuring photographs taken by University of Manchester researchers.

The ‘Images of Research’ competition asked for images showing how research affects the wider world, and fifteen shortlisted finalists were displayed online and at the Deansgate John Rylands Library.

The winning photo, named “Borders Beyond Borders”, was taken by Benjamin Tallis, a PhD researcher looking at how borders in the Eastern region of the European Union relate to a nation’s identity.

He said: “This is a great boost for my research, both in raising the profile of the issues it deals with and in confirming that it is of interest to people.”

The image was captured at a Soviet war memorial in Lviv, Ukraine at a moment when hundreds of birds erupted from the trees and filled the sky.

Runners-up included an image of hands covered in UV paint showing bacteria thriving on them, and a computer generated photo of a 305-million-year-old arachnid.

Mr Tallis, who has previously had his photography exhibited in Didsbury, said that he has “been into photography for a long time.”

“I thought that the competition was a very good initiative, providing a way of promoting visual research as a way of understanding the world,” he continued.

He believes that measuring the “impact” of research shouldn’t be about putting it into economic practice but about making it more accessible to the public.

The photo was taken on a cold December day after a visit to the monument.

He said: “As I was about to leave, I heard an amazing sound: thousands of starlings exploding out of the trees behind the monument, streaking the sky in swirling black swarms.

“It was one of those moments where you fill up with feeling and emotion but it’s really just a wonderful time.”

He managed to compose himself long enough to take the photo in what he described as “an instant reaction,” hoping that he “would do justice to what was an amazing moment.”

Asked about his future plans he said: “Whatever I do I know that I’ll continue to take photos, I get plenty of moments of inspiration.”

Mr Tallis won a £200 Amazon voucher for his winning entry, chosen by a public vote.