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Month: November 2012

Student 101: The Safer Sex Ball

Written by Victoria Goodwin on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Arguably the most talked about event in The University of Exeter’s calendar is the Safer Sex Ball – SSB for short.

The ball has been voted as one of FHM’s Top 100 things to do before you die. Around 4,000 students attended last years ball at West Point Arena demonstrating its huge popularity.

As its name would indicate the SSB is all about promoting safe sex, free condoms are given out as well as other safe sex literature. The aim of the SSB is to raise awareness of sexual health issues, whilst raising money for charities such as The Eddystone Trust – a Devon based HIV charity.

Perhaps the most controversial part of the evening are the costumes, or rather lack of them! Chris, a student at Exeter University, explained that students attend the ball wearing as little as possible. 2011’s theme was Fantasia, he himself told me he went as a Greek god.

As with a lot of student activities the Exeter ball has often been frowned upon as being too promiscuous and irresponsible. The message of the SSB is that it’s fine to love sex, but it is important to do so safely. Whether people choose to acknowledge it or not, sex is a huge part of university life, as such an event that promotes safe sex seems like one that is worth keeping! The ball provides students with an excuse to let themselves go in a way that wouldn’t normally be acceptable.

A friend told me she can’t wait to get a sexy costume for this year, she wouldn’t normally be one to go out wearing next to nothing but when in Rome… or rather when in Exeter get naked.

Surely there can’t be any harm in an event that raises awareness about sexual health issues and raises money for charity? If you don’t approve then as another student explained: ‘You don’t have to go! Just because you don’t agree with something doesn’t mean you have to stop other people enjoying themselves!’

If you don’t approve then don’t attend, but you’ll be missing out on what sounds like the party of the year with previous acts including Jaguar skills and Tinchy Strider… University of Manchester’s SSB where are you?

 

 

No More Page 3 campaign

Written by Zara Zubeidi on . Posted in Lifestyle.

What inspired you to make a change?

The change was inspired during the Olympics when Lucy Holmes picked up a copy of The Sun on the tube and was surprised to see that there wasn’t a topless girl on page three. That was until she hit page thirteen and saw that instead, the day’s model has simply been moved back ten pages and was still by far the largest image of any woman in the paper, despite it being the day after so many fab female team GB athletes had won gold, including Jessica Ennis.

Seeing this, she began to think about what this said about women in society, and about what children thought when they looked at the newspaper and saw page after page of pictures of men in clothes, doing things like running the country and achieving in sports, and a massive image of a woman standing in her knickers showing her breasts to men.

She thought about how Page 3 had shaped her. The more she thought about it the more passionately she felt that these pictures shouldn’t be there. She started an online petition, a Twitter and Facebook group to see if she was the only one who felt this way.

And next thing I know, I’m tweeting at all hours of the day fighting for something I really believe in. It’s time for change.

What has the response been like? 

The response has been, on the whole, absolutely incredible. I don’t think that any of us saw it coming and it just keeps going from strength to strength. We’ve been written about in both The Guardian and The Independent as well as various women’s magazines. The male response to the campaign has really knocked me for six as well; there are so many lovely blokes out there who genuinely do believe it’s time for page three to go and that it objectifies women. It was so refreshing and positive! We’ve hit 52,000+ signatures on our change.org petition, over 10k Twitter followers and over 4.5k likes on Facebook.

What has been the highlight of the campaign so far? 

For me, it’s the fact that we’re in this month’s Glamour magazine! I’m sure the other team members will say that celebrity support from the likes of Eliza Doolittle and Jennifer Saunders, having the Loose Women talk about us and gaining support from so many MPs are all highlights worth mentioning too… not forgetting the fact that on November 18th we’re putting on a comedy gala in London’s West End called Stand-Up To Sexism, which is going to be great! We’ve even had creative support, including an amazing poem from Sabrina Mahfouz ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G1-fxpOAXs )

Have you had much criticism? If so, how have you dealt with it?

Of course, there are always people who think what we’re trying to do is ridiculous. A lot of the time, I think it’s because they are misunderstanding the campaign. We are not out to ban glamour modelling or stop the girls doing what they do, we are just trying to get the images taken out of the biggest selling paper in the country so that women can be portrayed equally to men in our day to day press.

How important do you think it is for young people to voice their opinions? Can we really make a difference?

The youth in this campaign and any campaign is so important. When we look back at what Clare Short tried to do in the eighties, she was accused of being an old fuddy-duddy, but with the core team of the campaign all being below forty, there is no way anyone can play that card with us this time round. As a student, I feel like I have so much scope and so many resources that will really allow my voice to be heard. Through the union both at University of Manchester and at MMU, I really hope to spread the message of the campaign. Following all the amazing things so many young people have achieved this year, especially following London 2012, I really do believe that people aren’t simply writing off the youth any more and that actually, we can make a change.

 Link to the petition

The Ex-Factor: how not to be his psycho ex-girlfriend

Written by Emma Williams on . Posted in Lifestyle.

It seems to be the season of reconciliation, with even the sorriest of situations being salvaged with the likes of Kristen Stewart being taken back by her beau R-Patz, and even the seemingly unforgivable being forgiven in the rumoured reunion of Rihanna and Chris Brown.

But when it comes to the discussion of ex’s, many who say they’d never revisit their past use the classic line of ‘my ex is a psycho’.

Guys are generally more guilty of this than girls, with a recent article from Cosmopolitan USA journalist Matt Titus admitting that he condemns his ex to the ‘crazy’ status due to her justified reaction to his bad behaviour towards the end of their romance!

The long gaps between texts, blowing off dates and even meeting up with other girls all contributed to his girlfriend reacting as any other girl would in getting angry and asking what was going on. But how can you escape the dreaded ‘psycho ex’ stigma to his friends and new romances?

According to Matt’s teeth-grittingly embarrassing confession of his relationship exploits, you can avoid being remembered as his crazy partner from the past by…

  • “Not questioning the fact that he takes his phone into the shower with him. And the toilet.
  • If he conveniently double-books you with his mates for the third Friday night in a row, just grin and bear it. Coincidence, right?
  • When your first declaration of love is returned with him running for the hills and turning his phone off for the week, any text from you to salvage normality will apparently brand you ‘insane’.”

Let’s face it there’s only one thing that can prevent you from gaining this status, and that’s the other person’s perception.

You could be as horizontally laid back as possible, but when a guy is looking to seal the deal with a new girl, one reference to the ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’ will instantly get the guy the crucial sympathy vote.

Mormons to open church on Oxford Road

Written by Andrew Williams on . Posted in News.

The site of a once-popular student bar on Oxford Road is set to be transformed into Manchester’s Mormon hub.

Plans for a five-storey chapel, which will be occupied by followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, have been approved and work has begun on the building. The church is scheduled to open in 2014.

Located next door to the Manchester Aquatics Centre, the site – which used to be the home of student haunt Scubar – has been chosen by the Mormon church specifically because of its close proximity to the city’s two biggest universities.

The chapel will be used by 18-30 year olds for sports and social activities. Its notable features will include a rooftop basketball court, but in accordance with Mormon teachings the church will be strictly alcohol-free.

James Holt, the church’s north-west spokesman, told the Manchester Evening News that the chapel will serve as a dry haven for Mormon students who are inevitably surrounded by a drinking culture.

“We recognise the fact that for many people, the university experience is about drinking. Because Mormons don’t drink, being at university can sometimes be an isolating experience,” he explained.

Holt continued: “As well as being a place of worship, this will be a place where people can play sport and socialise. We hope Mormon parents might think about sending their children to university here because a centre like this exists.”

The news comes in the week that Mitt Romney, America’s first Mormon presidential candidate, was defeated by Barack Obama in the race for the White House.

Romney, 65, is a lifelong follower of the religion. His great-great grandfather, Miles, was a Preston joiner, and one of the north-west’s original Mormons. There are around 7,000 Mormons in Greater Manchester today.

‘Coalition to blame for low PCC elections turnout,’ says Lloyd

Written by Anthony Organ on . Posted in News.

The coalition government will be to blame if the turnout for the first ever Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) elections is as low as expected.

That’s the view of the front-runner for the job, Labour’s Tony Lloyd.

The long-serving MP for Manchester Central was speaking as four of the five PCC candidates for Greater Manchester came together at a question and answer session with members of the public, ahead of the upcoming elections.

Matt Gallagher (Liberal Democrat), Tony Lloyd (Labour), Michael Winstanley (Conservative) and Steven Woolfe (UK Independence Party) attended the session organised by the Manchester Evening News (M.E.N.) and held at the University of Manchester’s Roscoe building. Roy Warren, an independent candidate, was unable to attend for medical reasons.

The event was chaired by David Ottewell, head of politics at the M.E.N.

PCCs will be elected every four years, set the force budget and aim to form a link between police and public. They will also have the power to appoint and dismiss the chief constable.

The elections are being seen as the biggest shake-up of policing in fifty years and Home Secretary Theresa May told the BBC: “For the first time ever [the police] will have a democratic mandate for the people for the work that they’re doing.”

But the Electoral Reform Society has predicted that only 18.5% of people will vote, which would be the lowest turnout in UK electoral history.

Asked about this issue after the session, Mr. Lloyd said: “The government deserve the biggest blame for the whole thing. They haven’t said why it matters or got across that it could really make a mess of your community.

“Some people have been suggesting boycotts but there will be a police commissioner, so it’s important that people do vote, especially students, or else we’ll get a crap commissioner.”

An August YouGov poll found that only 21 per cent of people think that PCCs will “help the fight against crime” and that only 11 per cent have a good understanding of what they will do.

The same poll found that 61 per cent disapproved of candidates being supported by political parties, but with a £5,000 deposit required to stand in the elections, compared to just £500 for parliamentary elections, some candidates required party support to enter.

Mr. Gallagher, the only candidate with experience working in the police force, said that the Liberal Democrats agreed to fund his deposit to prevent all candidates from having political backgrounds, before it was known that Mr. Warren would stand.

Carole Duggan, the aunt of the 29-year-old man whose death sparked the nationwide riots of summer 2011, was present and challenged the candidates to force all police officers to co-operate fully in any investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Most of the candidates stressed the need for transparency in any complaints process, with Mr. Lloyd saying that “it’s good for police officers” since those wrongly accused can prove their innocence.

But Mr. Gallagher warned against forcing officers to co-operate, claiming that doing so could undermine liberty by allowing the government to demand the same of other groups in the future.

Asked about tougher sentencing, all candidates agreed that victims’ needs must be put ahead of those of criminals, with Mr Woolfe claiming: “The pendulum has swung too far so that the victim is no longer the primary concern.”

But he stopped short of agreeing with a proposal for “zero tolerance”, along with Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. Winstanley though said that “some judges are completely bonkers” and advocated tougher stances on crime as a way of “nipping the problem in the bud”.

The £100,000 salary of the commissioner was also questioned, as one audience member asked whether the candidates would consider donating any of it.

Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Winstanley each pledged around £10,000 a year to community projects, whilst Mr. Woolfe said that he planned to use half the salary to recruit people to help him look at cuts to the budget.

But Mr. Lloyd, who stood down from his £65,000 post as an MP to contest these elections, refused to be drawn into a “bidding war”.

He said: “I won’t enter a public auction here about who will come in as a cut-price commissioner. If we did then you’d get useless people, extremists and nutcases who can afford to do the job for nothing, rather than a commissioner you want.”

The elections will take place on 15th November and the successful candidate will take office on the 22nd.

Preview: ‘Great Expectations’

Written by Samuel Parr on . Posted in Film.

Great Expectations is considered by many as Charles Dickens’ best ever work. This seemingly timeless, coming-of-age novel has fascinated and enthralled generations ever since the very first copy was published over 150 years ago. So there is a lot of pressure on Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) as he attempts to project Dickens’s masterpiece onto the big screen whilst retaining and encapsulating all of its brilliance, warmth and heart.

Sixty-six years since David Lean’s interpretation (1946) received such critical praise – as well as being awarded with three Academy Awards – the time has come for the next generation to revel in the magic and follow Pip’s transition from orphan to gentleman.

The success of this literary adaptation weighs heavily on screenwriter David Nicholls’s shoulders as he attempts to convey all aspects of Great Expectation’s humour, wit and chemistry through a freshly written script. Nicholls’s challenge lies not only in the re-telling of the narrative, but also in the quest to engage and connect with a highly critical contemporary audience. Having flourished in the creation of One Day as writer of both the novel itself and the screenplay,  Nicholls must now raise his game, laying the foundations for this film to thrive.

The film embraces the novel’s ‘Englishness’ as Newell opts for authenticity in the casting of each role. The likes of Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient), Helana Bonham Carter (The Kings Speech), Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) Jason Flemyng (X-men: First Class) and a cameo appearance from David Walliams (Little Britain) collaborate in an all-British production. Fresh from his defeat at the hands of Harry Potter and appointed as Judie Dench’s successor as ‘M’ in the upcoming Bonds, Ralph Fiennes (Magwitch) will once again demonstrate his clinical acting prowess as well as supporting the up and coming talent of Jeremy Irvine.

Premiering on the 30th November, Newell’s Great Expectations will be immediately placed under the scrutiny of its viewers, with audiences asking the same question – does the film emulate the novel’s brilliance? So often with literary adaptations the motion picture falls short of the mark, failing to convey the emotions that the author has shaped and developed through the use of words. Will this turn out to be any different? No pressure Newell.

 

60 seconds with: ZOO magazine’s Laurence Mozafari

Written by Zara Zubeidi on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Have you always wanted to work in magazines?

Not always, when I was a little boy I went through the obligatory list of wanting to be a fireman, solider and then a policeman. However, by year 11 I knew journalism was exactly what I wanted to do. During university I was looking into newspaper journalism, as well as magazines. However I always had more of a flair for creative feature writing, so in my final year I had set my sights on men’s magazines – FHM specifically.

I found there were less opportunities in magazines during my internship and soon moved over to the web, thanks to a lot of mentoring from my boss, Adam Gold.

Ever since I have been delighted that I made the move over to the web, as there’s far more opportunities and I can still work on magazines too, where as a lot of print journalists don’t have the necessary skill set to work on both.

How did you enter the industry?  

I saw an advert for an internship at FHM on Twitter while in my third year of the NCTJ Journalism course at Staffordshire University. It was exactly where I wanted to be and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Around that time, I was finishing my dissertation and devoted myself to my FHM cover letter and writing tasks, I must have spent four or five days working on it.

Following a successful interview I started the day after my summer ball, interned at FHM for three months, then freelanced at Heatworld.com and finally was offered the job of Digital Content Editor at ZOO Magazine’s website, Zootoday.com.

What has been the most memorable experience of your job so far?

Covering the Exit festival in Serbia for FHM.com. Serbia was really cheap with great weather and lovely people – plus, the festival takes place on a really old fort with amazing acoustics.

On the last day, I was sat eating Serbian barbecue (their national dish) on an old wooden train that had been converted into a house, while overlooking thousands of people partying on the river as the sun set behind them.

Oddly, the winner of Serbian Big Brother was there too and people were obsessed with him!

Is there more to working at a lad’s mag than just gorgeous women?! 

To be honest, unless you’re interviewing them or running the photo shoots we don’t see the girls in person very much. A lot of my role involves SEO, social media, building newsletters, interviews, working on advertising ideas and of course, writing.

We all work very hard, so it gets tiring to always be asked about the girls in the mag. Personally I got into this industry to be a writer and that can get overlooked because of the nature of the content.

Do you think print media will ever be fully replaced?

I think the nature of journalism is just evolving with online, social media, tablets and video content there’s a vast number of outlets for the content. I think there is still a place for magazines, but perhaps they’re for a more niche and devoted audience than they were before.

Plus, there’s also been great success from free publications.

Visit zootoday.com

Students’ Union sticks with NUS

Written by Anthony Organ on . Posted in News.

An assembly of students has decided not to hold a referendum on whether the University of Manchester Students’ Union (UMSU) should remain affiliated with the National Union of Students (NUS), by sixteen votes to one.

The proposal was made online and then debated by a randomly selected panel of students. A vote under a three-quarters majority would have opened the issue for all students to vote for online.

Nick Pringle, general secretary of UMSU, argued against the referendum and said that he was “really pleased with the outcome”.

Several other Students’ Unions are unaffiliated with the NUS, including the Imperial College Union and The University of St. Andrews Students’ Association.

UMSU paid £55,000 this year for its affiliation with the NUS, though this figure allows it access to training for student officers and gives students access to the NUS Extra card for discounts at certain shops.

Affiliated unions are also able to make use of NUS Services, the commercial side of the NUS which buys products at cut-price deals. The NUS website claims that savings made from this service can “can equal – or even exceed – the amount of the NUS affiliation fee”.

Mr. Pringle said: “This year we estimate that the net financial benefit for the students’ union by being a member of the NUS is £120k. Just to put this into context, that amount is equal to the entire cost of the advice service combined with the entire societies budget.”

But Paul Beaumont, President of Imperial College Union, which disaffiliated in 2008, suggested that savings may be exaggerated.

He told The Mancunion that at a recent conference held at Imperial “your Education Officer, Luke (Newton), noted that our bar prices are the same as yours – even outside of the NUS bulk buying scheme”.

The proposal made to UMSU suggested that a “referendum would directly help create a much more representative, self-determined, democratic and accountable students union by giving students the opportunity to directly decide where significant amount of their money is spent each year”.

The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) disaffiliated with the NUS in 1998 but agreed to re-join when it merged with Victoria University in 2004 to create the current University of Manchester.

Manchester back on track with victory over Nottingham

Written by Tom Acey on . Posted in Sport.

Two penalty strokes from Sam Davies and an excellent goalkeeping display from Helen Stevenson saw Manchester beat Nottingham in an entertaining contest at the Armitage Centre.

Despite last week’s 5-0 thrashing at Loughborough, Manchester looked like a team who are now very much settled in the Premier Division, and they played confident, attacking hockey in recording their first win since the opening day of the season.

Captain Tulisa Fateh will be particularly pleased with the way her team responded to a late Nottingham charge, as they calmly saw out the victory by retaining possession and starving the visitors of goal-scoring opportunities.

Fateh and her defence were kept busy in the opening stages, with Nottingham playing fast, flowing hockey right from the off. An early move from the visitors was halted by a sprawling save from Helen Stevenson, before a sharp interception from Manchester’s Georgina Everett released Hannah Cobbold, who did well to test the visiting keeper as she ran away from goal.

It was a pattern which predominated for much of the first half – Nottingham dominant but wasteful, with Manchester sharper and more incisive on the break – and it was of no surprise that a swift home counter-attack led to the first goal of the game. After collecting it near the halfway line, the hosts moved the ball cleverly before it was illegally blocked inside the Nottingham D, and Sam Davies tucked away the resulting penalty stroke.

Despite not making the most of their possession, Nottingham were arguably the better side, and in the 26th minute their dominance was finally rewarded. A well-worked penalty corner drew another stop from Stevenson, but her defence failed to clear the rebound to leave an easy tap-in for the visitors.

After levelling the scores, Nottingham grew in confidence and began to open up the home defence with alarming regularity. Numerous chances were spurned in the final minutes of the half, with Stevenson again saving brilliantly to keep the score at 1-1 going into the break.

Although they might have been fortunate to be level at half-time, Manchester made the most of their luck in a superb second-half performance.

It was a performance that was typified by the second goal, which resulted from the finest move of the match. After a quick exchange of passes, the impressive Tori Canning escaped the attentions of two Nottingham defenders down the right flank before crossing sharply from the by-line into the opposition D, where Everett timed her run perfectly to slot home.

After a relatively quiet opening period, England international Sophie Crosley frequently demonstrated her quality in the second half, and it was through one of her many mazy dribbles that Manchester further cemented their lead. After breaking through the Nottingham defence, she turned away from the onrushing keeper, who could do little but bundle Crosley to the floor.  The referees awarded a second penalty stroke, and after a considerable delay (due to the prolonged protests of the visitors), Davies again put it away with ease.

Both teams were guilty of losing their discipline in the final 20 minutes, with Manchester losing three players to yellow cards and Nottingham frequently giving away soft fouls as they tried to get back into the game.

However, the home side remained solid against a wave of Nottingham pressure, and a late second for the visitors proved to be a mere footnote as Manchester calmly saw out time.

“Do demonstrations actually change anything?”

Written by Khalil Secker on . Posted in News.

In the run up to national student demo on the 21st November, this is a question I’ve been asked a lot. The last student demo in 2010 against £9,000 tuition fees had a record 50,000 students turn up – but the government ignored them and raised tuition fees anyway.

Surely then protest is useless? Surely the government just does what it wants regardless of what we say or do?

But if we look more closely, the rise to £9,000 fees was won by 323 votes to 302 – a majority of just 21. The governments’ majority was cut by almost three-quarters after a five-hour Parliamentary debate, whilst 50,000 students demonstrated outside. Twenty-one Lib Dem MPs and six Conservatives disobeyed their party leaders and listened to students instead.

We might not have won – but we made a big impact, made our voice heard and showed that we weren’t going to take it lying down.

Demo 2012 gives us a chance to impact the national debate at a time when the rights of young people are too often ignored. Here’s a question for first year students: How many of your friends from school or college decided not to go to university because they were worried about debt?

This year, 50,000 fewer students have gone to university because of the increase in tuition fees to £9,000. It is estimated that first year students at Manchester will be paying off graduate debt until they’re 50.

But what about the rest of us who were lucky enough to dodge the fee increase? Why would we go on a demo?
The answer is simple – youth unemployment is at a record high level of over 20%. This is whilst the government is cutting funding for the Job Centre and Connextions – both of which help young people back into work.

Many of those unemployed are subject to a new system of unpaid labour called Workfare. People who are unemployed and have to claim Jobseekers Allowance are offered a job that pays no wages – despite being with companies which can afford to pay them. If you refuse to accept this ‘opportunity’, your benefits are stopped and you are faced with the very real possibility of not being able to put food on the table.

Yet whilst many students struggle to find work after graduating, the university is shutting down one of the few courses where 100% of students go on to find work afterwards – Applied Youth and Community Work.
Right now, we need as many youth and community workers as we can find. Research on the summer riots showed the average rioter was male, aged 21, unemployed and with a previous criminal record. To phrase it another way, there are thousands upon thousands of young people with no hope for the future and who don’t care about the rest of society.

These are the people who youth workers focus on by working with them to build job aspirations and CV’s and in doing so working to keep them out of trouble. Even if you want to take a purely financial look at it, it’s far cheaper for the taxpayer to fund youth workers than prisons. That’s why shutting the Applied Youth and Community Work course isn’t just going to damage young people in the local community, it’s going to damage everyone else as well through increased crime levels.

But this demo isn’t just about focusing on what’s wrong. It’s chance for us to re-imagine how we want society to work in a fairer way and to make that view heard.

One of the main alternatives to the cuts is clamping down on corporate tax avoidance. Protesters and campaigners from the grop UK Uncut claim that in 2010 Vodafone was allowed to avoid £6bn in tax just 2 months after £6bn of cuts were announced to public spending by government. Conservative estimates of corporate tax dodging as a whole say that it costs the country at least £45bn. Due to consistent protests, this is being gradually clamped down on.

A Robin Hood Tax on banks is another alternative to the cuts supported by charities like Oxfam and the Salvation Army as well as two Nobel-prize winners for economics. It is a tiny tax of just 0.05% on financial transactions carried out by banks, which could raise £20bn in the UK each year to be reinvested in education and healthcare.

Demo 2012 is a chance to highlight what’s going wrong with education and society and how we can work together to fix it – that’s why the tagline is ‘Reclaim your education. Re-imagine society.’ So let’s make our voices heard and vote with our feet.

McFly

Written by Emily Clark on . Posted in Music.

Okay, so it was only Harry (drums) and Danny (lead vocals and guitar) – not the fab four. I haven’t listened to McFly for about 5 years, but I did see them in concert when I was 15 and danced and screamed for the whole thing. They’re still big enough to headline the Christmas Lights switch-on at The Trafford Centre, where I was lucky enough to interview them.

After enduring questions from three other girls about what they want for Christmas, I brought the conversation to music. “Now you’ve got your own record label, how much influence do you specifically have over your songs – do you get to decide the orchestration, a violin here, an organ there?” I wanted to know how much they actually contributed to their finished product – I wasn’t expecting them to written every line of music, to have arranged and orchestrated whole songs or even to have produced them.

Harry boasted “yeah we do absolutely everything, 100% and have done since the first ever song written by McFly. When we first started, we were working with producers that have worked with legendary musicians and artists over the years. We were completely out of our depth; didn’t know how the whole process worked. We learnt a lot along the way and took a lot of advice. Songwriting-wise it’s always come 100% from McFly, especially now Danny’s been producing.” “That’s why I’m ill” piped in Danny.

Just to clarify their definition of “absolutely everything” I asked “do you literally write out the string parts though?” Suddenly both of them animatedly corrected themselves – “nah, no, that’s what I was going to say” said Harry. “No, no, that’s far too complex” said Danny. “So you don’t arrange it?” I asked. Harry explained once they’d written a song, they decide the song would lend itself to strings and then they’d meet an orchestrator who would essentially take care of all the part-writing.

Danny said “this is what is amazing about studios, you’ve got a blank canvas and the way you speak to each other like maybe you could do this (he sings) – it’s like different language we speak to Harry, we don’t know the technical terms for fills or anything, but we’ve got this this weird language and I think all of us have got that sort of in us.”

Harry put in “having said that, Danny’s done production too and he’s put string parts on themselves with pads and keys. It was amazing for the second album because we had huge orchestras playing on the album. Orchestration is a whole other world and Simon Howells who we first worked with (the guy who did Jamiroquai) did all the strings. If you took the strings out of ‘It’s All About You,’ that’s what Tom wrote. For us it’s an incredible experience. [To Danny] Remember when Tom was singing with a forty piece orchestra, for us at the age of 18, we were just like wow. It was really cool.”

Feeling that I’d grilled them enough on production, I asked “do you have any guilty music pleasures? Mine is Call Me Maybe, can’t get enough!” Danny replied “the thing is, people often describe us as a guilty pleasure so I think it’s a good thing.” (Phew, good to know you know). But they said their recent guilty pleasures were Taylor Swift, Busted’s first album, One Direction’s first single ‘That’s What Makes You Beautiful’ and Rihanna.

Harry expanded on the appreciation of cheesy music “when we joined McFly at the age of 17, we were at the age when we were trying to be really cool, like playing drums and saying I’m into all these hardcore bands. But as soon as you’re in McFly and you’re writing pop music and you’re in a pop kind of scene, it opens you up to writing more types of music and you can actually admit you love Abba or The Backstreet Boys – like coming out.”

Danny continued “it’s important to be open-minded, especially for song writers, less of this pigeon-holing bollocks. I was stuck in it, coming from Bolton, I thought I was Liam Gallagher playing my guitar when I first got in the band. And then suddenly I was opened up to this huge world where you could appreciate any music – whether or not it’s Abba or Oasis or dance music.”

I think most people would agree that McFly have seen their heyday. But let’s not underestimate that heyday – they were the youngest ever band to have got to no.1 with their debut album. Their last album was a greatest hits, suggesting they’d creative juices were running dry. But Harry proved that wrong – “if you’re a talented songwriter like Danny or Tom, they have the ability to write all sorts of music – McFly is just what we’ve done from an early age. There are songs that we have written and recorded that people wouldn’t believe are done by us, but we wouldn’t release them.”

I couldn’t help but exclaim, “you should release them under a pseudonym!” Harry said “we’ve thought about it.” And Danny says “we should create a band! Imagine if we stuck a song down and give it to a radio and say we don’t know who this is, but it’s awesome, under a random name-” Harry interrupted, saying “mate we talked about that, do you remember.” Somehow I don’t think they’re going to.

Harry went on “it’s interesting these dilemmas, if you go through the songs we’ve got this year, it’s all so different, but do we want to release that? We want to stay true to what we’ve been. That’s the frustrating thing about being in a pop band, because you have full creative control. It’s almost easier to be in a boy band where you get given the song by great songwriters who can churn out album after album. It takes longer these days for us to get music out – we’ve spent a year writing but we’re going away in January because we’re not sure if we’re happy with what we’ve got.”

As the interview came to an end, Danny says “we’re a confused band” and chuckles.

Review: Jane and Louise Wilson

Written by Clayton Fuller on . Posted in Arts.

Under a dim light on the second floor of the Whitworth Art Gallery sits the bronze casting of a 35mm Konvas Avtomat – a symbolic resurfacing of the camera Ukrainian filmmaker Vladimir Shevchenko used to document the Chernobyl explosion in 1986.

In the days following the accident, Shevchenko used that camera to intimately record the confusion and solemnity at Chernobyl. It was only later, while editing, that he noticed alarming distortions in the film. It soon became clear that the static noise and ghostly flashes were the first visible effects of the radiation.

The film survived, its creators did not. Shevchenko died in the following months and, for the last 25 years, his camera has been buried somewhere outside Kiev — dangerously radioactive and altogether forgotten. Except by Jane and Louise Wilson, that is.

It seems a foreboding coincidence that, from a perspective directly in front of the camera, the three protruding lenses give the abstract appearance of a gas mask.

It is with Shevchenko’s camera and film, Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks, that the Jane and Louise Wilson exhibition begins its investigation of the aftereffects of man-made devastation. The twins’ own film, The Toxic Camera, contemplates the Chernobyl disaster with the assistance of interviews with surviving members of Shevchenko’s camera crew. The film includes scenes recorded in Kiev and Orford Ness —  a former hydrogen bomb testing site here in the UK.

Nearby is Atomgrad (Nature Abhors a Vacuum), a series of eight photographs, impassively featuring the desertion of Pripyat — a city within the Chernobyl exclusion zone that was once ‘considered one of the finest places to live in the USSR’ . The crumbling remains of a gymnasium and a theatre, among other rooms, are quietly disturbing. Perhaps the only consolation is the seemingly incongruous presence of thriving plant life outside the rooms. The high-resolution and large size of the photographs allow viewers to approach and ‘step into the scene’. If you count yourself among the growing number of eccentrics hoping for a zombie-apocalypse, this opportunity to bask in the emptiness and decay of such a world is not to be missed.

The Wilson sisters continue their exploration of the consequences of man-made devastation with a set of installations that conceptually, and almost clinically, examine the CCTV footage and events surrounding the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in 2010.

One of these is False Positive and False Negatives, a collection of sixteen screenprints of Jane and Louise wearing dazzle camouflage — the use of shapes painted on the face to muddle facial recognition technology. It is, perhaps, an impressive meditation on the invasive nature of CCTV recordings — though most of the suspected assassins caught on tape have still not been brought to justice.

As visitors wander from room to room within the Whitworth Art Gallery, they’ll notice a continuous presence of yardsticks. It can be easy to dismiss the impact of their meaning as artistic superficiality, but at least will yourself to contemplate Blind Landing — a representation of our reliance on technology. After witnessing the conflicting results of Chernobyl and CCTV’s role in the Al-Mabhouh assassination, it’ll be worth considering, “Has our reliance on technology gone too far?”

10 things you should know about: Leonardo da Vinci

Written by Lucy Johnson on . Posted in Arts.

1)    Da Vinci was not Leonardo’s family name but literally means ‘from the town of Vinci’ which is where he was born in 1452.

2)    He was able to write notes with his left hand and paint on canvas with his right hand at the same time.

3)    He wrote his notebooks in back to front ‘mirror-writing’ in order to keep his ideas secret.

4)    Leonardo was gay.

5)    His famous portrait, the Mona Lisa  took him all of four years to complete.

6)    He was not a man to be messed with. He threatened to use a difficult religious patron as the model for his figure of Judas in his painting ‘The Last Supper’ in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan.

7)    Leonardo was a vegetarian.

8)    Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo’s master, threw down his paintbrush for good when he realised that the skill of his apprentice surpassed his own whilst they were working on the painting The Baptism of Christ  toegether.

9)    His inventions included machine guns, an armored tank, cluster bombs, a submarine, the first mechanical calculator and an early form of solar power.

10) Despite being one of the most celebrated artists of all time, Leonardo saw his position as an artist secondary to his position as a researcher and scientist and made ground-breaking discoveries in subjects such as the biology of the human body.

 

Restaurants ask customers to donate to the homeless for Christmas

Written by Ellen Conlon on . Posted in News.

Manchester restaurants are hosting a national campaign to help homeless people at Christmas.

The StreetSmart Campaign is returning to Manchester after success last year, and is asking for restaurant customers to voluntarily add £1 to their bill throughout November and December.

These contributions are then donated straight to organisations that provide support for homeless people.

Amanda Croome from the Booth Centre, which offers advice, activities and support to homeless people in Manchester, said that that campaign had been supporting them for a number of years.

“Streetsmart is a great fundraising scheme,” she said. “Our centre not only helps people to find a new home, to sort out benefit problems and address health and addiction issues but also very importantly helps them to re-settle in the community and get back into employment.”

Last year restaurants in Manchester raised £23,000, simply by asking people to add £1 to their bill, which was then matched by the government.

This year the campaign is running until December 31st.

Glenn Pougnet, Director of StreetSmart said: “We are indebted to Manchester restaurateurs and their staff for continuing to back the campaign.

“Thanks to their efforts and the generosity of their customers we will be able to help those most in need this winter,” he added.

Manchester’s award-winning Creative Writing professor

Written by Ellen Conlon on . Posted in News.

University of Manchester Creative Writing Professor Jeanette Winterson has won two acclaimed awards in just a week.

Last week it was announced that Winterson won the Independent Booksellers’ Book Prize 2012 and she has just been named Stonewalls’ Writer of the Year.

Both of these awards are for her memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

This news follows her sell-out debut public engagement at the University, where she discussed gender and the imagination with acclaimed American author, A.M. Homes.

For the Independent Booksellers’ Book Prize 2012, Professor Winterson’s book was chosen by the public from a shortlist of 10 titles, which were put forward by publishers and a panel of judges.

Meryl Halls, Head of Membership Services at the Booksellers Association said: “We are delighted with the range and quality of the titles entered for the 2012 prize.

“This year’s winners, having competed against fantastic books in their respective categories, are outstanding favourites in UK bookshops.”

Winterson described winning the award as an “honour” and said that she was “delighted” by the news.

She told the Bookseller: “This award is particularly important to me because independent bookshops are the life of the book business and those men and women who own and run them read everything. They love books.”

The Stonewall Awards were held at the Victoria and Albert Museum and acknowledges individuals and organisations that are critical in ensuring a positive representation of gay people in the media today.

Judges included Broadcaster Alice Arnold, Channel 4 News Culture Editor Matthew Cain, England rugby star Ben Cohen, Author Val McDermid and UK Black Pride Managing Director Phyll Opoku-Gyimah.

Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill said: “As ever, I’m humbled by the dedication with which this year’s award winners have been advancing equality for millions of people. Their efforts have never been more valuable and we will never be deterred from celebrating their contribution.”

Car wash company launched on campus

Written by Ellen Conlon on . Posted in News.

A car-cleaning service has started on campus to help unemployed locals find work.

UniValet, which launched last week, aims to provide paid on-the-job training for local people who have been without a job for some time or who may have never worked.

The University has teamed up with Rochdale-based charity Petrus, and alongside working for UniValet, the employees will attend The Works, a training and advice centre set up by the University, to help them find long-term employment.

UniValet’s services will be available in car parks across the campus to University staff members, who will use an online booking system to have their vehicles cleaned while they are at work. Prices start from £10.

The car wash team will use an environmentally-friendly waterless system and will offer wash and wax services.

The University’s Assistant HR Director Steve Grant said: “UniValet is the first in a number of programmes that the University is developing in support of the Greater Manchester Commitment to Youth Employment. For many of the people who join this training programme it will be a step onto the first rung of the jobs ladder.

“This is not simply training people to clean cars; we are training them to go to work. We’re giving unemployed people in Greater Manchester the opportunity to learn about customer services, team work and punctuality and all of the other skills and attributes employers expect. Job seekers without his kind of basic experience face real barriers getting into work.”

While working for UniValet, the employees will be trained to Level Two NVQ.

UniValet’s Team Leader Darren Vickers was homeless and unemployed for 18 months before seeking help form Petrus. He said: “We’re all very excited about this new initiative and it’s great to see somewhere like the University of Manchester opening its doors to support local people in this way.

“Hopefully, this scheme will really take off, and then expand to include other big employers across the city.”

Taking a stand against modern football

Written by Matt Gibney on . Posted in Sport.

Goal celebration music, grown men wearing face paint, soulless out-of-town stadiums – the list of wrongs with modern football is almost endless. Aguero’s last-minute winner may have provided some of the most memorable footballing drama in recent memory but it can’t hide the farce the game in this country has become.

Events over the summer break only served to reiterate the sorry state modern football finds itself in. Cardiff City, a club who have played in blue since 1908, underwent a makeover which now sees them play in red. The Bluebirds have become the Dragons. Why, you may ask? Cardiff’s new Malaysian owner Vincent Tan gives two reasons: one, he sees red as a lucky colour, and two, he believes Cardiff will now be more marketable in the Far East. History and over one hundred years of tradition apparently has its price.

Closer to home, problems have also surfaced. The Glazer takeover has left Manchester United saddled with debt. Slightly further afield, Stockport County are still reeling from years of an unjust ground share agreement with rugby union’s Sale Sharks. If any of this strikes you as being wrong don’t worry: you are not alone.

STAND is a new fanzine which aims to highlight the problems of modern football in Britain. Co-editors Daniel Sandison, Seb White and Mark Smith may have only met each other on a handful of occasions but social media has given them the platform needed to stay in touch and create a fanzine which – unusually – isn’t divided along club lines.

Against Modern Football is a movement which is already prominent in Europe but for one reason or another it’s one that has never really taken off on our shores.

“With some notable exceptions, the relationship between club and fan has never been particularly stormy over here, whereas on the continent fan groups are much more political and willing to go further to make their point.” Smith explains.

“There’s almost no coverage of fan issues in the mainstream media but there’s certainly an appetite for it, which is perhaps why people have so readily got behind what we’re doing.”

He isn’t lying about the positive reception either. Dialogue on a message board soon led to a Twitter account being created. Almost instantaneously, they were trending within the UK.  Their first issue – released at the start of this season – sold out all of its one thousand copies within a matter of days. This may not seem a huge figure but with printed press struggling more than ever before, this is hugely impressive for a small start-up publication with no marketing budget to speak of. Even the national press has taken notice, with a positive report featuring in the Independent last month. Such success has seen STAND double its number of copies with its recently released second issue.

“For the latest issue, we’ve tried our best to highlight one of the biggest bugbears – inflated ticket prices. It’s a fact that if a pint of beer had increased at the same rate as top flight football tickets, you’d be spending £8.85 a pint.”

Other examples further underline how obscene prices have become. On average, ticket prices have risen by 716% since 1989. If such an increase was to have taken place within the property market, the average house would set you back over half a million. Your student budget would also take a hammering if high street prices went up accordingly, with a pair of trainers costing you £327.60.

How then, has this been allowed to happen?

“If you put a frog in boiling water it’ll jump straight back out. If you put it in cold water and boil it slowly it won’t notice it is boiling until it’s too late.” Smith said.

“I think for most people, the changes have been too gradual to notice.”

All this may leave you with the impression that STAND is little more than a collection of old men moaning but fortunately it’s interspersed with a fair share of humour.

“After reading two or three rants on the trot, things can easily become repetitive. We’ve countered that quite well I think, by including original artwork, daft humour and even poetry. In launching STAND we felt a traditional fanzine format and tone would be the best way to do things and so far we’ve stuck to that. First and foremost, STAND aims to be a decent read.”

Smith is fully aware that there is no easy solution to the problems and STAND isn’t trying to change the world. It’s just a fanzine, albeit a very good one. But by giving fans across the country a collective voice and a platform to voice their discontent, STAND might just make some people wake up and try to fix some of the wealth of problems football in this country faces.

STAND #2 is available to buy for £2 from www.standamf.com. 

Dog Is Dead

Written by Marissa Davison on . Posted in Music.

23rd October 2012 Academy 3

7/10

With their debut album All Our Favourite Stories released only 2 weeks ago, Dog Is Dead begin their UK tour with an intimate performance in Manchester. The relaxed atmosphere of Academy 3 created a perfect environment for their emotional brand of indie pop-rock.

The gig kicks off with support act Chateaux.  Not only do they sport a bassist from within our UoM ranks, but their tight musicianship deserves special mention. Playing a set of catchy indie tunes, the crowd are hyped for what is to come.

Following a decidedly less captivating second support (One-man band Beans on Toast), Dog Is Dead eventually come to the stage. They begin with the mellow tune ‘Get Low’, exposing us to their uniquely cool vibe. After playing a few more songs from their current album, they whack out the oldie ‘Burial Ground’ which gives us our first glimpse of the ever-loved saxophone solo (later to reappear in ‘Glockenspiel Song’).

A big feature of this gig is the emotion portrayed by the lead singer Robert Milton as he looks longingly to into the back of the venue delivering heart-felt lyrics in songs such as ‘Any Movement’ and ‘Two Devils’. After playing the single ‘Glockenspiel Song’ as the first part of their encore, they finish with the sing-along rock ballad ‘Teenage Daughter’.

Despite occasional mishaps; including guitar tuning issues at the beginning, a falling over saxophone microphone, and a broken drum pedal, the concert is remarkably professional and together in character. Overall, it is short and sweet. Though it is still early in the career of these five boys, they could be ones to watch. A few more tunes and a solid fan following could prove to be an excellent recipe for a truly great live indie band.

Dream Jobs – Chef

Written by Keir Stone-Brown on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Qualifications: NVQ, HNC or HND in cookery (not essential)

Salary: £8K – £150K

Location: Worldwide

 

Contrary to what television would have us believe to be a chef doesn’t mean you have to be naked, someone who clearly has anger issues or a raunchy housewife. It is necessary however that you can cook well, be prepared to work long hours and be a team player. However the potential prize at the end of the tunnel outweighs all the hardship that you may go through. To be a top chef will open a new world of possibilities with regards travel, the people you will meet and the experiences you will have. Many of the worlds top chefs own restaurants in several of the worlds finest cities. For example Gordon Ramsay, as well as owning restaurants all over Britain, also owns restaurants in New York, Tokyo, Dubai and Paris.

But where do you start on your road to chef super stardom? Most future chefs begin working in a kitchen doing menial jobs such as washing dishes, cooking chips or just chopping vegetables and then progress on to becoming a sous chef. The role of a sous chef is to prepare food and to help the head chef oversee what others are doing in the kitchen and ensure that they are doing it efficiently and on time.  He or she will also be expected to know the menu intimately and be able to cook any dish at short notice. It is only after lots of experience of being a sous chef do they progress to becoming a head chef.

It can also be helpful to gain experience at a cookery or culinary school where you will be taught some of the basics that will help you thrive in the heated environment that is a busy kitchen. Most culinary schools offer qualifications such as higher national diplomas (HND) or national vocational qualifications (NVQs), which can really enhance your CV as it shows commitment to the profession. Becoming a chef sure isn’t easy but the rewards can be out of this world.

We Ask, You Answer – Drunken tales

Written by Dana Fowles on . Posted in Lifestyle.

Last year, I got home from Uni for Christmas at 4 o’clock. By 8 o’clock I was out downing pints with some old mates. As soon as we reached the club we were going to, I started giving the bouncer some abuse. He kicked me out and, once I was some distance away from him and his bouncer friends, I shouted, “I could have kicked your asses anyway!” I then fell flat on my face. My little sister ended up having to take me home. That was pretty embarrassing.
Toby

After a bad break up, I decided to heal the pain with alcohol. My friends and I were predrinking and I had already managed to get seriously sizzled in my fragile state. Wonderwall by Oasis came on and I decided to get up on a chair, remove my top AND my bra and do some kind of sad sexy dance. One of the guys there decided to capture it on video and I’ve never lived it down.
Samantha

My best friend and I were on a girl’s night out. We met two marines, got with them and then headed back to their barracks at about 5 am. We had to be snuck into the barracks and got caught in the act. A commander emerged and began shouting at the guys. One of them shoved us into a bush to hide from the commander and then they both ran off. Digging our way out of that bush was hard work…
Lizzie

I got so drunk one Christmas that I fell into my mum’s real Christmas tree – in front of my whole family. I was scraped off the floor with pine needles sticking out of my hair and put to bed. I wanted the ground to swallow me up the next day and my mum had to get a fake replacement tree. She was not happy!
Naomi

During Fresher’s Week I got completely intoxicated and ended up stumbling down an alleyway once the night had finished. I fell asleep on the doorstep of a Fire Exit and woke up at 7 am and had to ring a taxi back to halls. That was pretty rough.
Adam

My friends and I went to Missoula on Deansgate Locks one weekend. I got so drunk that I ended up giving a man who was at least 50 a lap dance. My friends found it hilarious but I was mortified when I was reminded about what I had done the next day!
Lucy