We are surrounded by ghosts. We walk past them on a daily basis; some of our friends are ghosts, some of us are dating them, some of us are even ghosts ourselves. The ghosts that I am talking about are not ghoulish spectres or poltergeists. Instead, they are a barista in his mid-twenties who paints his nails and ‘forgets’ to text you back.
I’m going to tell you a ghost story. You meet your perfect man. You exchange numbers, you go on a few dates. You’re full of hope for the future! You find yourself dreaming about him on the bus and you have definitely been on his Facebook profile more times than you’d like to admit. You excitedly send him a message asking if he would like to get another drink sometime. And then… nothing.
At first you lie to yourself. He could be busy, you say. Maybe he hasn’t seen it. But then you see it: Active 1 Minute Ago. Yet still there is no response. Days pass, then weeks, until you finally accept that they are never going to text you back. They disappear from your life as though they have died, or never even existed in the first place. Because of this swift exit from your life, this phenomenon has been dubbed ‘ghosting’.
The reason that ghosting hurts us so much is the sense of absolute indifference from the other person. To feel as though someone you once dated cares so little about you, refuses to allow you even a little bit of closure, is incredibly painful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. You can also be ‘haunted’ by someone. This is essentially just ghosting, except the person occasionally likes the posts you share on Facebook, or religiously watches your story on Instagram. It is a constant reminder that, while they don’t quite like you enough to message you, they are not entirely ready to let you go either.
I understand why people ghost. Being open and honest about your feelings is frightening, and telling someone you are not interested in them is an uncomfortable thing to do. However, I can promise you that anyone would choose someone being honest with them over them simply disappearing from their life with no explanation. And so I propose a radical notion: if you don’t like someone, please just tell them.
Whether we like it or not; the Christmas break is over. You’ve been down the pub for weeks, making promises of revision that never happened, you’ve feasted on more Terry’s chocolate oranges than anyone ever should, but now we’re back. Hopefully, you’ve settled back in, sat (and perhaps failed) some exams and probably repeated “fine thanks, how was yours?” to every course-mate, housemate, and just-mate in Manchester. Week one has commenced, you’re already steamrolled by the workload, but let’s make the sensible decision to neglect all that and party like a refresher again!
Exams are over. The chances are you partied deep into Monday morning, coming to regret that when the alarm went off for your first 9am. Last week kicked off the new semester in style, with Manchester seeing a whole host of musicians perform from Edinburgh’s unique rap trio ‘Young Fathers’ to the ominous and progressive London guitar band ‘Black Midi’ and ethereal electronic mastermind ‘Richard Spaven’; but let’s all be honest most of us were probably either in bed recovering from the night before or unwittingly on our way to 42s.
Club nights worthy of note would include Baxter Dury’s sterling performance on the decks at YES giving us the best that French disco and electronic has to offer, or the slightly heavier ‘Serial Killaz’ and ‘Ed Solo’ which was sweatier than Johnny Vegas in a Catholic confessional. However, the most important global musical development of last week has to be Ariana Grande’s latest tattoo, the Japanese text of which was meant to read ‘7 Rings’, a homage to a single of hers, instead reads ‘Barbeque Grill’ – which in my eyes, signifies 2019s going to be a good one.
Now, semester two has begun, in week one your boring mates are already using work as an excuse to not go out and we’ve all started looking to summer for our next sight of fun. Don’t be beaten so quickly – Manchester still has plenty of amazing gigs and club nights coming up which deserve some attention. In the way of gigs, we have lairy, psych-rock band ‘Psychedelic Porn Crumpets’ doing a headline show in YES which will be one to see, ‘Her’s’ hitting up Band On The Wall, ‘The Lemon Twigs’ performing at O2 Ritz, and ‘Willie J Healy’ all in the next month. For something a bit more unusual I’d recommend checking out legendary ‘DJ Foods’ multi-sensory exploration into the back catalogue of perhaps one of electronic music’s most pioneering and influential groups ‘Kraftwerk’. If you’re really into planning ahead may I recommend ‘Nubya Garcia’ and ‘Vels Trio’s’ gig at Band On The Wall, and ‘Joel Culpepper’ as absolute must-sees in March?
If all that’s not enough to tickle your pickle, or you want to enjoy fantastic music from the comfort of your cold, dark uni room, don’t worry, there’s still loads for you! 2019s bringing us some fantastic new albums from the likes of ‘Methyl Ethel’, ‘Czarface’, ‘Cass McCombs’, and the long-awaited ‘Thank u, next!’ from Ariana Grande, which is enough to motivate us all blissfully through the next semester.
I first spotted this strange piece of graffiti when walking past Gemini Café. The word ‘gauranga’ is scrawled in a cursive font, in what appears to be pink chalk.
What I did not realise, however, was the frequency with which I would start to notice this piece of graffiti. In Fallowfield, on Oxford Road, by Manchester Metropolitan, and most recently in Piccadilly Gardens, my eyes are drawn to the soft, pastel pink mural.
Could ‘gauranga’ be a gang? This thought came to mind while I was dozing off in a 4pm lecture… But what kind of organised crime group would use this floral hue of pink to mark their territory? There is a certain gentleness that exudes from this word, the soft consonants and open vowels certainly seem to lend it a sense of optimism.
The mystery surrounding this unassuming piece of street art was starting to vex me – perhaps this is more a reflection of my boredom than anything else. So, like any diligent detective, I took to google to find the answer.
Needless to say, the results weren’t all too fulfilling. They did, however, provide an interesting and unexpected insight into the Hare Krishna religion. According to the internet, Gaurāṅga is the name of the incarnation of Krishna in Gaudiya literature. In fact, there are also theories that the word translates to “peace my brother” or “be happy”.
Hare Krishna is another way of referring to the International Society of Krisha Consciousness; a religious movement based in Hinduism, which was established in America in 1965. The group worships the Hindu god, Krishna, as the only God. You may have seen the group parading down the streets in many cities, dressed in sweeping orange garments, playing music, and handing out Hare Krishna literature.
Manchester’s ‘gauranga’ however, does not seem to be an isolated phenomenon. An old BBC article from 2011 recounts how the word ‘gouranga’ suddenly appeared on 150 motorway bridges in the 1980s. Despite being spelled slightly differently from the word we are accustomed to, ‘gouranga’ is rumoured to have the same Hare Krishna origin, and became mini landmarks on the motorways of the North West.
The omnipresence of the graffiti even led the indie band ‘Half Man Half Biscuit’ to embed the line “Gouranga Gouranga, yes I’ll be happy when you’ve been arrested for defacing the bridge” in their song, Twydale’s Lament.
Despite not knowing the identity of the group behind this more recent campaign, the thought of a benevolent graffiti gang trapesing across Manchester wishing us all happiness is a pleasing idea. In the grey of the Manuncian winter months, ‘gauranga’ represents a small reminder to stay positive.
Editor’s note: We are aware of allegations of a ‘scam’ charity operating in the area, allegedly under the name Gauranga, however we are not aware of any evidence that the graffiti around Manchester is associated with this supposed organisation.
Amidst a world dominated by shooters, Siege shines uniquely in a crowded market. I got into Siege about two years ago and having persevered through its admittedly steep learning curve, and I have been amazed by Ubisoft’s continuing support for the game and how I still find new tips and tricks to improve my ability.
Siege is a shooter unlike any other, though it combines some similar elements from existing games. The unique operators are akin to characters in Overwatch or Dota 2, while the twitch shooting and accuracy required is like CS:GO. Siege stands out because of its dynamic map design and how its operators interact with them. Destructible surfaces are not new in shooters, but Siege handles them well by using them sparingly, allowing defending players to reinforce a few walls to make them mostly indestructible, hindering the attacking team’s progress to the objectives.
However, if the attackers are smart enough to bring along hard breachers (characters with abilities to get through reinforced walls), they can bypass defender reinforcements. But, if the defenders are smart, they can use characters to nullify hard breachers, and so on. This is what creates the best thing about Siege; its operators, their abilities and the synergy between them.
For instance, the attacker Thermite can breach reinforced walls with his thermite charge; however, the defenders Mute, Bandit and Kaid can block his charges using their gadgets, effectively locking down the objective. But, with the SAS attacker Thatcher, his EMP grenades will disable any defender gadgets blocking the wall, allowing Thermite to blow a hole into the site, so teamwork is paramount.
There is a huge variety of operators from special forces teams all over the world from the British SAS and French GIGN to the Chinese SDU, and each character has their own unique loadout and abilities suitable for any playstyle whether that’s a “fragger”, someone whose main goal is to secure kills, a site-breacher or a general support character.
My favourite is the Spanish attacker Jackal. His role is simple: be the ultimate pain in any roamer’s (players who seek to sneak up on and flank the attacking team) backside. His awesome gadget, the Eyenox visor, allows him to identify and track footprints left by defenders in the last 90 seconds. Once tracked, the target’s position is pinged once every 5 seconds for 20 seconds, so any sneaky players planning to flank the attackers have their plans foiled. Experienced players can even estimate how recently the footprints were left. The catch is Jackal can only do this three times per round, after which point his vision is distorted when using his visor, and he cannot aim or shoot while scanning.
Image: Ubisoft
This leads to a key aspect of Siege: For the most part, the operators are fantastically well balanced. Operators with the strongest guns such as Ash are often kept in check with relatively simplistic gadgets, such as her breaching launcher, while those with the best gadgets, such as Echo’s player-stunning Yokai drones, receive weaker weapons. When operators are released in an over or underpowered state, Ubisoft is reasonably quick to respond to complaints, resulting in nerfs to the previously overpowered Ela and Lion and buffs to underpowered characters like Mute and Finka. Indeed, Lion, with his motion-scanning drone, is under ongoing scrutiny and Ubisoft are looking at a further nerf to his ability. As such, you can pick pretty much any character and their loadout and not be at a disadvantage. While in some games there are weapons or characters that are significantly worse than others, in Siege the playing field is much more even.
Furthermore, the four free seasonal updates allow the game to constantly evolve. Each season, 2 new operators and a map/map rework are added to the game, often completely changing the meta. For instance, one of the more recent operators Maverick has a blowtorch that can melt small “murderholes” into reinforced walls and attack defenders from an angle they were not expecting. As such, defenders now must now constantly pay more attention to reinforced walls, a drastic change from before his implementation. This is what keeps Siege fresh nearly 4 years after release.
Image: Ubisoft
I also revel in the fact that simply getting kills and having the best aim is not what makes someone “good” at the game. Sure, being able to accurately headshot your opponents will naturally make you win more games, but the true skill is in map knowledge, spatial awareness and clever communication with your team. For instance, a FPS-shooter legend may be able to single-handedly shoot their way to victory, but a closely coordinated team may tactically attack the site from multiple angles at once, using their gadgets together to confuse and disrupt the opposing team’s efforts, leading to a more satisfying and cooperative victory.
So, while Ubisoft have released some lacklustre titles recently, such as Watch Dogs 2 and Far Cry 5, Siege continues to be the multiplayer shooter I enjoy the most. The amount of free content added to the game since launch, the constant balancing of operators and evolving dynamic of the game keeps Siege worth playing even after thousands of hours of gameplay. Indeed, Siege’s continued popularity according to the Steam player charts is testament to its ability to draw gamers in. Perhaps other shooters that go for the classic “annual reskin of last year’s game” tactic should reconsider their business models, given the success of games that receive long-term support, such as Siege and especially Fortnite. The Steam Lunar New Year sale has just started and you can pick up Siege for as little as £8.36 until February 11th.
To many there are two Velvet Undergrounds, the more infamous incarnation began with the Andy Warhol-sponsored The Velvet Underground and Nico, a masterclass in experimental rock music. The band that recorded the latter two albums in their discography (No, Squeeze does not and never did count) debuted with The Velvet Underground, an album which will enjoy its 50th Birthday this March.
It is with this release Lou Reed wanted to redefine his band and purge the spirit of his long-time collaborator John Cale following the near collapse of the band under the weight of Cale’s incessant urge to push boundaries – to the detriment of the band’s likelihood to find a wider audience. Cale is reported to have wanted their third album to feature recordings of putting amps underwater. Ideas such as this would lead to Reed and the band shuffling away from the Welshman. Abrasive experimentation which had entirely defined their previous records left with Cale, the sound of a viola being scraped within an inch of its life was out, as was the eagerness to stay out of the musical mainstream.
The album starts with ‘Candy Says’, a sombre hymn to self-loathing and insecurity set to the mellow whisper of new incumbent Doug Yule. The witty snarl of Reed is shelved in favour of Yule’s soft, intimate and naïve whisper suspended above uncharacteristically tranquil instrumentation. The enduringly popular ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ follows a similar mold; quiet, intimate and subdued although now vocalised by Reed whose voice quivers both with uncharacteristic sincerity and desperation to stay in tune. It remains today a mainstay of 60’s soft rock.
The second song, ‘What Goes On’, brings back rock and roll, albeit with the distortion set to a more marketable level in relation to the eardrum kamikaze of White Light/White Heat. The other straight rock song on the album comes to us with ‘I’m Beginning To See The Light’ An explosive proclamation of release and optimism. I dare anyone not to grin when Reed proclaims, “There are problems in this time, but WOOO none of them are mine!”. Similarly, ‘I’m Set Free’ describes themes of catharsis and freedom. Likely alluding to the departure of Cale during the gestation period of the Album.
‘The Murder Mystery’ is the album’s strangest offering, an 8-minute mishmash of narratives propped up by eccentric keys and guitars. This culminates in an intriguing but ultimately challenging listen. The song reminds us that this is still the Lou Reed who idolised New York street poetry and the avant-garde. Songs such as this would show that his flair for conceptual experimentation was not wholly lost with the departure of Cale. Later Lou Reed albums like Berlin and Metal Machine Music would attest to this with extremely mixed results.
It was of course not as influential as its predecessors and will never get as much mention as its Banana capped heteronym. But peel back The Velvet Underground and you’ll see a fully-fledged collection of intimate, soulful and charming introspections into one of the most enduringly influential acts in modern music.
Manchester Town Hall officials have made the decision to cash out £12 million in reserves for an incidental expense, as the number of children being taken into care and the increase in poverty continues to rise in Greater Manchester.
Although the council have warned that this money will not last forever, their latest budget proposes to take around £12 million kept for contingency to carry on funding services for vulnerable people, as well as using one-off government grants to keep services running.
The Report for Resolution, published in 2017 and updated recently by council staff, states that there have been “significant pressures on its budgets for social care”, however as their three-year plan comes to an end, council bosses have come to the conclusion that this is not “sustainable in the long-term”.
Recent figures show that an extra £4.5 million will be injected into helping homeless people with housing, and £500,000 will be used in services for children in care or at risk. Last year more youngsters were referred into the system due to neglect or abuse, creating £20 million budget gap which was not accounted for, triggering added pressure to their deficit.
In the last four years, Greater Manchester has seen a ten-fold increase in the demand of temporary housing, with Town Hall officials banking around £9 million on dividends from Manchester Airport. Local authorities have around two-thirds of shares in the Manchester Airport Group, producing roughly a £39.3 million profit in 2018 alone.
Research has shown by specialist think-tank, Centre for Cities, that northern areas, such as Manchester had to pay around £651 per person due to local government cuts over the last decade, whereas people in the south paid around £287 on average.
This follows recent promises made by Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary, to invest around £1 billion into Mancunian transport links. Residents are now wondering whether transport is the main issue that needs to be dealt with to eradicate the north-south divide, or if money should be put into emergency payments for homeless people.
An unnamed second-year History and Politics student when questioned whether they think funding should go towards the homelessness or transport, said: “Deliberating over whether the council should invest primarily in homelessness or transport improvement is fundamentally flawed. The city has been shackled by a shortsighted transport policy on behalf of Westminster that had neglected the need for clear regional focus and control of future planning. An urban area the size of Greater Manchester can be equipped to deal with both of these crises, is and this is merely a financing issue.”
Despite saving around £3.4 million from the “council’s back office ‘cooperate core’ department”, by slashing the amount spent on external communication agencies, council leader Sir Richard Leese has stated that this has been “an incredibly difficult financial year to ensure out budget continues to balance, while maintaining and investing in the vital services.”
Jersey Boys is a 2005 jukebox musical following the successes and shortcomings of Frankie Valli and his band, The Four Seasons. Having seen the West End production roughly six years ago, most of the show was a distant memory to me. But when the lights went down on The Palace Theatre, some parts came flooding back.
The show has a fairly formulaic structure, with each member of The Four Seasons taking their turn to narrate the band’s story. The nature of this, along with the emphasis on the band’s rise to fame rather than their individual lives, means that the musical seems to barely scratch the surface of the characters and their stories. To start with, I did not feel much affinity to the band, but when the songwriter and pianist Bob Gaudio came in, just like The Four Seasons, everything fell into place. Declan Egan as Gaudio was full of the energy and warmth that I thought the other characters sometimes lacked. He injected much-needed life into his narration which otherwise had a danger of feeling over-rehearsed.
I was unsure what to make of Michael Watson as Frankie Valli. He didn’t strike me as having the charisma I’d usually associate with the leader of a band who left a trail of smash hits behind them. But, as the show went on, he made sense. It was ultimately his voice that prevailed, with his iconic falsetto soaring over the rest of The Four Seasons.
It was a visually pleasing production with scaffold stairs and platforms filling the stage. They were used creatively, and the pop art images that were projected onto the back wall were fitting with the comic strip style of storytelling. It was – just like The Four Seasons’ perfectly synchronised dance moves and harmonies – squeaky clean.
Costume and set changes were slick and faultless and often things appeared without me realising. Normally, this is what I look for in a piece of theatre but in this case, it felt at times clinical. Things almost ran too smoothly, making me very conscious that this show is a well-oiled machine that has been performed night after night for the past 14 years.
The Jersey Boys is somewhat of a whistle-stop tour of The Four Seasons and, because of this, we rarely hear songs in their full length. Instead it is snippets of hits which, for the most part, serves as enough. But I wanted nothing more than to hear Frankie sing the whole of ‘My Eyes Adored You’ when his wife left him. In most musicals, songs are the way into forming emotional attachment to the characters but this structure didn’t allow for that.
Despite all this, it is hard not to have the urge to sing along and smile when the iconic ‘I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ is finally sung in the second half. And you can see how the show inspired a generation of jukebox musicals such as Beautiful and Tina The Musical because it is, in itself, a good, polished production. Importantly, it doesn’t matter whether or not you are Frankie Valli’s biggest fan because, either way, it is a safe bet at a crowd-pleaser. But perhaps time is not on this show’s side – the musical is now a form which is constantly being reinvented and reimagined so, at a running time of a very predictable two and a half hours, it’s hard to not feel like Jersey Boys is just painting by numbers.
Driven by two stupendous Oscar-nominated performances, Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a thoroughly entertaining picture with heaps of memorable dialogue.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is the second film to be directed by Marielle Heller, and is a biographical film focused on Lee Israel, played by Melissa McCarthy in her best on screen performance yet. The plot revolves around a failing writer who attempted to resurrect her career by forging and selling letters from deceased writers, with the help of her friend, the flamboyant Jack Hock, played in a hilariously comedic and charismatic fashion by Richard E. Grant. The premise may not sound like the most exciting of crime thrillers, but due to the likeability of its leads, you will be invested in this story from the start. Though Richard E. Grant is fantastic, this is without question Melissa McCarthy’s movie. She perfectly utilises her skills in comedy, whilst also nailing the dramatic side of the role, creating a highly sympathetic and fascinating portrayal of an extreme introvert.
The film is set in New York, and Marielle Heller expertly creates an appropriate atmosphere for such a setting, using a soundtrack primarily consisting of jazz, and including gorgeous shots of the cityscape at night. In yet another year in which no female directors have been nominated for best director at the Academy Awards, it really is a shame that Heller was snubbed. I was skeptical of how much I was going to enjoy this film before going in, and its premise did not excite me much. However, Heller’s attention to detail in investing audiences in the world of the film’s characters has made this one of the most surprisingly enjoyable films I have seen in a long time. Perhaps the key element to my enjoyment was the witty dialogue. Screenwriters Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty must be applauded for writing a film filled with so many memorable lines. Though they have tough competition with other well-written films such as BlackKkKlansman, they are currently the screenwriters I am rooting for in the ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ category at the Academy Awards.
As much as I enjoyed this film, I do feel the runtime could have been cut slightly. Whilst it only runs at a fairly short 107 minutes, in the third act there were numerous moments in which it felt like the narrative was beginning to wind down, only to keep going, which became slightly frustrating. Though some of the most powerful scenes occurred in this section of the film, I do feel that some of them could have been cut or shortened. Despite this, I would highly recommend this film. It is one of the most heartwarming and understated examinations of loneliness I have seen, presenting the life of its protagonist as one that is in some ways tragic, whilst also presenting the liberating side of such a life.
When Crazy Rich Asians was released, there were endless op-eds, reviews, and Facebook posts celebrating the end to the white domination of Hollywood screen time. But the movie is ultimately racist.
The root of the problem lies with the complexities of representing race in a globalised film market. The film takes place in Singapore, whose racial climate has profound consequences for how the movie should be critiqued.
Singapore is a multi-racial country in South-East Asia; about 75% are Chinese, 15% are Malay, 8% are Indian, and 2% are Eurasian. Despite Singapore’s rich ethnic diversity, Chinese Singaporeans dominate the upper strata of education, political representation, economic wealth, and media representation. In contrast, Singaporean Malay communities are disproportionately represented in the country’s poorest. Safe to say that the ethnic Chinese in Singapore have a very different socio-political standing to the American-born Chinese audiences that Crazy Rich Asians was written for.
Crazy Rich Asians inaccurately shows Singapore’s population to be ethnically homogenous; most of the significant characters are Chinese even when one in four people in the country aren’t. When minorities do make an appearance, they are in unabashedly subservient roles. Such distortions in representation become highly disturbing considering Singapore’s long history of racial hierarchy.
In the 1960s, the Singaporean government implemented strict birth control programmes that targeted women from socio-economically poorer backgrounds to exercise contraception and abortion. Of course, this was impactful along racial lines – marginalised Malay and Indian Singaporeans were targeted much harder than the wealthy Chinese elite.
So the fact that Crazy Rich Asians could get representation so wrong speaks to how badly our society handles the issues of understanding racism. Discourses around racism have mainly revolved around white people as the central axis. They rarely examine how others, especially in a non-Western context, can create and participate in a racial hierarchy — even when they do not enjoy the universal status of power that Caucasians do.
Furthermore, other than the film’s uncritical depictions of wealth, the movie’s main plot revolves around rather orientalist ideas about Asians. The main conflict is between the lead heroine, Rachel, and her boyfriend’s mother. Simply put, she does not believe Rachel values family enough to sacrifice her own happiness and career due to her Westernised upbringing.
It’s a tiring stereotype that Asian people are fundamentally different from every else: that we care deeply about ‘honour,’ ‘family,’ and other outdated Confucianist principles more than any other person. This type of treatment parallels a lot of historical racism. During the height of Western colonialism, many were fixated on the idea of Asian mystique, and Asian people were boiled down to a few statements about filial piety, a certain respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors. This type of exotic alienation is at the heart of Crazy Rich Asians, in which the outrageous classism of the film’s characters only adds to their strangeness.
Look, I appreciate that people really like this movie. It is a real step forward for people who have been made to feel humiliated and sub-normal their entire lives. But the movie is deeply troubling in ways that should not be ignored.
You should go and see Mary Queen of Scots quite simply because it’s one of the most beautiful films to grace cinema screens this year.
There’s a subtlety to Rourke’s directing that’s genuinely quite startling. Her gaze is intimate, lovingly admiring Mary’s neck as it twists during a love scene. It observes her blood bloom in the water of a copper bowl. Her talent sounds just as true on a larger scale. The court scenes are burnished with candles and darkness in chiaroscuro worthy of a Renaissance painting. The Highlands, in their bruised heather, dwarf the armies winding through their midst.
The sound in this film is also remarkable. There’s a tendency to tidy up sound these days but this film rings with natural noise: the clatter of heels over stone, the rasp of swords being unsheathed, muttering in corners. However, the soundtrack itself is lazy. The main theme draws heavily on Zadok the Priest, the coronation piece, and repeats it multiple times, despite the wealth of choral music from this period.
Unfortunately, this visual feast is hamstrung by its script, and most surprisingly, its cast. I thought Margot Robbie would be a perfect fit for this role, given that she was outstanding in I, Tonya, but she fails to capture Elizabeth I’s essence. In fact, she seems lost behind the white face paint, the elaborate wigs and costume. There is none of the ferocity that won her so much acclaim as Tonya Harding. I also found Saoirse Ronan underwhelming as Mary, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Though she goes through all the motions, I felt a distance from her that I couldn’t cross. The most convincing performance came from David Tennant as the fervent misogynist and Protestant performer, John Knox. He does a wonderful turn, eyes glinting from under the hat and copious beard while he raves at pulpits. I shouldn’t have felt the most interest in him as a character. Guy Pearce had a fleeting charm as William Cecil, but once I’d thought of him as a B&M Mark Rylance it wouldn’t leave my head.
Willimon’s script could learn from Hilary Mantel’s WolfHall; he labours to push an issue in almost every line, and it feels clumsy and obvious from the start. Mantel does not attempt to gloss over the aspects of life that a modern audience would find distasteful. She focuses on the emotional content, which is far more successful. The most feminist moments in Willimon’s script, for example, the domestic scenes in which Mary’s maids’ love for her shines, are drowned out by endless speeches. There’s also blatant disrespect for historical accuracy — Rourke’s wonderfully tender rendition of Mary and Elizabeth’s fictional meeting I found successful, at which I was taken aback. However, elsewhere there’s just no need for the invention when re-telling the Tudors. It does both Mary and Elizabeth a disservice, given their incredible lives. Their complicated rivalry is worthy of retelling, but not at the expense of their individual achievements.
The 2017 Masters champion has been disqualified from the Saudi International due to his short-tempered display seen in the second round.
The world number 27 was frustrated with the lie of his ball after he’d landed in the bunker on the fourth. After failing to clear the bunker with his next shot Garcia clearly felt the sand was not properly raked and took his frustration out on the course.
“I respect the decision,” the Spaniard stated, before adding, “I have informed my fellow players it will never happen again.”
As Garcia’s round stuttered and seemed to lose his conviction and concentration, Dustin Johnson’s went from strength to strength.
It was the American’s second round of 9 under that propelled him to his first tour win of 2019. The 2016 U.S. Open champion will be hoping to add to his one major victory in the coming year.
It was a tour to remember for Welwyn Garden City’s own Tom Lewis. After a rather disappointing first round of 71, Lewis managed to finish the tournament 16 under par, placing him 3rd in the opening European Tour of 2019.
The evergreen Ian Poulter left Abu Dhabi tied 6th, he must be wondering when his first major championship win will arrive, if ever.
It is not uncommon knowledge that while playing golf “players are expected to play in the spirit of the game by acting with integrity, showing consideration to others and taking good care of the course,” as stated in the rulebook.
Garcia will be looking to make amends in the next stop of the European Tour. Mexico City will host some of the world’s top golfers between February 21st and 24th.
The key dates to look out for in 2019 are as follows; April 11th—Masters, May 16th—PGA Championship, June 13th—U.S. Open, July 18th—British Open.
Tucked away on the first floor of the Students’ Union building, you can find the University of Manchester’s very own Hollywood. If the question is ‘Where can I get hard-hitting news, entertainment updates, and a biting satire of the student experience all in one place?’ Fuse TV is the answer. The TV station is part of the Manchester Media Group family along with The Mancunion and Fuse FM.
From its humble beginnings in the Students’ Union basement in which it had “one computer”, Fuse TV has risen through the ranks to become the place where high quality video-based content and inclusive access to production meet.
In their toasty new office, Station Manager Annie Costello and Deputy Station Manager Jenna Brannock recount the history of the station. “Last year not a lot of people knew about Fuse TV, who we were, and what we could do so it was a very small membership base.
“This year we’ve moved upstairs, we haven’t got any windows, [but] the SU invested some money in us and we’ve got some new equipment. We definitely pushed harder in a good way and believed that we could achieve more, we spend a lot of time trying to help and develop people and their ideas and their abilities.”
In their new home, the two explain how a TV series can come to life. “We start with some kind of light bulb moment,” Jenna explains. “You’ve got to create the vision from beginning to end, the visuals, the character of the programmes, titles, also locations and boring stuff”.
“Jenna is good at the light bulb moment,” adds Annie. “At two o’clock in the morning she’ll shoot up with new ideas and come in the next morning and expect us to do it. So it starts with the idea and we take it through, see how feasible it is and try and recruit a team who’s interested in it as well.”
One of Fuse TV’s principal productions is the weekly Fuse News, “a campus-based, student-based” news programme that this year’s team have continued and expanded. “We’ve created a little news brand at Fuse TV,” says General Secretary and Head of News, Hannah Wardle. “Now we have our entertainment news, which is The Hot Take and we also have a news show which has gone through a bit of a refurb. It’s now turned into a politics panel show called The State of It.”
But the seemingly serendipitous creation of video-based content does not come without hard work, and Fuse TV stress the importance of collaboration and the freedom to dabble in any and all aspects of video production. “[We cater for] anyone who wants to do anything. If they want to do a bit of camera work, a bit of editing, a bit of presenting, a bit of background running they can do whatever they want, they can swap, they can change, just give it a go,” Annie explains.
“You can come to Fuse TV with anything, you can just come to have a bit of fun, or make a funny video, or you can come and build a portfolio and set your CV up with all these skills.
“We are dedicated, we stick around.”
The group explain that team spirit is at heart of Fuse TV, particularly because it necessitates a lighthearted attitude. “Everything has to be a team [effort],” says Jenna. “It’s really hard to make a TV show by yourself. Fuse TV is all a team so you have to make sure it’s somewhat enjoyable.”
This includes Fuse TV’s drunken debate show, Slurred Lines, in which its participants get drunk and discuss the moment’s most pressing topics. “I just thought we should do a programme with ordinary people in it to get more views,” says Jenna. “Everyone is entertaining when [they’re] drunk so we added that in and we went with the very basic principle of arguing about frivolous things. And that was Slurred Lines. The title came and then I was convinced.”
In the next semester, Fuse TV will have more to come, including an “unscripted comedy decoration show” which sees Hannah and Jenna parody the home improvement genre, going into students’ homes and setting themselves the challenge of doing it up with whatever meagre budget their victims give them. “It’s a whole new genre,” Jenna explains. “There’s some bold new characters coming to Fuse.”
A recent report by Nielson BookScan showed that poetry sales are at an all time high, with £12.3 million worth of poetry books sold in 2018. This financial growth is reflected in a growing range of writing becoming available — the poetry world is a broadening church.
However, there are those in denial about this growth. Booker-shortlisted poet Robin Robertson said “the poetry world is small and currently polarised: it’s often either simplistic or incomprehensible.” Others echo this sentiment, creating a myth that there are two opposing camps in the poetry world. The Instagram poets with mass followings on one hand, and the older elite with critical prestige on the other.
The rise in book sales shows a shift of power to younger poets (Rupi Kaur was by far 2018’s bestselling poet). And to debunk this myth of two polarised sides, many younger poets are publishing critically acclaimed work. Last year Danez Smith won the Forward Prize for their book Don’t Call Us Dead. Despite this, it seems every other week some elder statesmen weighs in on the shifting landscape of poetry, finding some problem or other with the more diverse range of writing now available.
When writers like Robertson or Rose Tremain continue to criticise the state of things, there’s a sense of an older generation refusing to pass on the baton, adamant to stay exactly where they are, convinced that where they’ve stopped is the finish line.
I’m cautious to criticise older writers, as the vast majority of them embrace changes to the form and content of newer poetry — many of them are instrumental in these changes. However, a few outliers’ negative views have furthered the idea that there are two polarised sides. Their criticisms are too problematic to ignore — when they talk about the changing face of poetry, it seems that they are talking about its changing skin colour.
One term that springs from all this is ‘identity-based poetry’. This is one of the more thinly veiled euphemisms used to describe the work of writers of colour. It’s ridiculous to see serious critics use the term — surely all poetry is ‘identity-based’? Was Wordsworth not writing as a white man? Was Keats not writing as a white man? What about T. S. Eliot? Phillip Larkin?
What these critics are reacting against is the ‘radical’ notion that whiteness is not the default. It seems only white writers are offered the privilege of writing universally. When a white writer uses an ‘I’ they can speak for everyone, when a writer of colour writes an ‘I’ they can only ever be talking about themselves. Whatever a poet of colour is writing, it is defined by their identity. People are free to criticise writing that they don’t like, but if they’re going to do so, they need to stop using code words like ‘identity-based’ to justify themselves.
There’s a rhythm to these things. Styles and tastes change causing a conservative backlash, but things move forward. The people that were once the avant-garde become the old guard. Let’s hope they fade further into irrelevance and let’s hope we don’t turn into them in a few decades time.
Usually, whenever we are asked “do you play a musical instrument?” on a date or during an icebreaker, the answer is “oh I used to play the such and such, but I never practised”.
Thousands of disregarded instruments are collecting dust in our old rooms at home, looking forlorn, and causing pangs of guilt every time we glance at them. Memories of reluctant hours spent sat at the keyboard or repeating scales over and over again relentlessly, usually under the watchful eye of a parent or at least the shouts of “I can’t hear you playing!” from downstairs.
There’s all this, and then there’s the searing regret of how cool it would have been have truly mastered the instrument and be able to play the piano at Oxford Road Station to impress friends or form a band with flatmates mostly for a bit of craic, but actually to show off your amazing skills a little as well.
Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not too late! Before I tell you my five reasons to unleash your instrument from its dusty shackles, I just want to recognise how hard it can be to stay motivated with an instrument.
Luckily, the Choir and Orchestra Society can help with their new repertoire as Semester Two kicks in. New members are welcome to rehearsals, so if you play an instrument that you could find in an orchestra, head on down! And if you don’t, contact their committee, you never know what score they might be able to pull from the depths of their library that could accommodate you.
The first reason why you should pick your old instrument up is that it teaches you discipline and patience which you may have never mastered as a child, and could really benefit your results. You might find that going over a passage or scale one day you might see no improvement at all, but the next day you go over the same thing again and suddenly you’re near perfect at it. Our brains are really good at problem solving in the background, so while you may see no improvement for a while, your brain is sorting it out. These skills are completely transferable to uni life. Having practised getting through the frustration of not getting something right for a while, but knowing your brain’s on the task can really help come revision time.
It will also make you a master of time management. Organising yourself to get time to practice, even 10 minutes a day, or half an hour every other day, takes a bit of planning to get done. Another reason why I personally didn’t reach my musical goals was because every week, while I’d always had the intention to practice, my lesson would come around and I’d not picked up my cello once.
It’s also good for your brain, seriously! Speaking from personal experience, I found that picking my instrument back up at uni made me feel way more receptive to my classes. While practising scales for 20 minutes or so and working on a piece for another 10 every other evening, I was so much more capable of taking on new ideas in my lectures. I was far more able to grasp the more technical elements of French grammar classes, something I had really struggled with before. It wasn’t a magical fix and didn’t make me an overnight genius, but I was able to absorb new information more quickly and comfortably. Just like exercising makes, walking up Uni Place stairs easier, practising will improve your results.
It’s a winner for your mental health. I’ve never been someone who can meditate; I hate being left in the company of my own thoughts, and the idea of ‘clearing my mind’ is completely alien to me. However, giving my brain the task of focusing on something else, not passively watching Netflix, but actively working on playing and memorising a scale or mastering a particular passage in a piece, takes me out of my head and allows my mind to be ‘clear’. I’m listening to the sounds I’m making, I’m zoned in on what my fingers are doing, and in the meantime my head has space to process other things. It gives your mind some room to think and go through whatever it needs to. Yes, the practice itself you might not find ‘relaxing’, more likely frustrating, but you are giving your mind a break. This means less stress overall, which can be very helpful come exam time.
Finally, it’s fun! As I’ve just said, once you’re passed the frustrating bit and at the part where you can play a couple of your favourite songs on your guitar, or you’ve actually mastered the piece you’ve been working on for ages, you get that sweet sweet satisfaction of being able to play something with no faults. It’s also just really cool to be able to play an instrument to a decent level, and you can let that smugness fuel you onto the next harder goal. Not only that, but joining a music society will also let you meet great friends that you can practise with and who can help you when you do reach those frustrating parts. Whether you’re joining to practise in a group, you just love the idea of playing in a concert, or you just really want to to along to the socials, it’s definitely worth it.
If you fancy playing with other people, why not head down to the Choir and Orchestra Society, or CAOS as it’s affectionately known. There’s no audition but, as a member, I’d say you’d need to be of around Grade Five or above standard to play, especially for tune instruments. Check out their Facebook page for more details.
Councillors have warned of a disparity in the quality of transport links throughout Manchester.
Transport poverty is something that affects all Mancunians, it was claimed in a motion at a recent Manchester Town Hall meeting. However, it is those in the north of the city who are left the most worst off.
At the meeting, Councillor John Farrell told of how lack of decent public transport has forced him to walk three miles from his Crumpsall home to Manchester Piccadilly in order to get transport to Manchester Airport for his night shifts.
Farrell presented this personal experience of transport poverty to support his motion that calls on the council to consider how all Manchester residents can more easily access job opportunities, particularly those living in North Manchester.
The motion also specified that the focus of transport provision should not be on those areas that are already well-served, referencing suburbs in the south of the city such as Didsbury and Chorlton-cum-Hardy.
It is considered that transport links from South Manchester into the city centre are already sufficient, with bus services along the so-called ‘Wilmslow Road-Oxford Road corridor’ journeying all night. Such services are a major method of commuting to and from Oxford Road’s universities for the large student population of Fallowfield and Withington.
Farrell said lack of transport links is “an obstacle many people in North Manchester face when they try to access the job opportunities that are there.”
Along with the lack of physical access to transport in North Manchester, the motion spoke on public transport’s financial inaccessibility: “There’s [sic] many, many people stuck at home because they just can’t afford to use public transport, even when they are there,” Farrell continued.
Councillor Nasrin Ali, who tabled the motion with Farrell, said: “Transport is becoming a barrier to employment for residents on low income.
“We have had effectively a six percent rise in cost of tram and bus fares. Train fares keep going up but it’s hard to spot any improvement in the service provided.”
The motion, which was passed with the support of six councillors, urged Transport for Greater Manchester to consider measures that will reduce transport poverty in the city. Suggested methods included subsidised fares for those returning to employment and for those travelling to job interviews.
Transport for Greater Manchester announced last month that Manchester residents aged between 16 and 18 would be eligible for a free ‘Opportunity Pass’ from September, allowing them unlimited bus travel in the region.
Then ‘Opportunity Pass’ will join the recently introduced zoned-ticket system of Metrolink tram travel, wherein fares will no longer be calculated on a stop-by-stop basis. Passengers will now pay a flat rate depending on which of the four zones they are travelling within, which is said to save some people money on their daily commutes.
The recent revamps to public transport services in Manchester come after the Transport Secretary voicing his commitment to giving more local control to the city.
Iris Van Herpen is, without a doubt, one of the most important fashion designers of our time. Her work is often described as ‘fantasy couture’ – a rather interesting subcategory to suggest for a medium like haute couture, which seeks to exclusively create custom-fitted clothing at the very highest level of tailoring. Nevertheless, it does quite aptly capture Van Herpen’s otherwise indefinable eccentricity: a unique ability to realise improbable, futuristic feats when designing clothes which (by their very nature, as haute couture) demand a traditional sense of craftsmanship, quality, and technique.
Van Herpen is most widely recognised as the first designer to use 3-D printing as part of her method of creating clothing, sending her first printed pieces down the runway in 2009. Yet this is just one example of the designer’s interdisciplinary approach: she experimented with algorithmic sculpture for her Fall-2011 couture skeleton dress, inspired by the work of architect Michael Hansmeyer. Her Fall-2013 couture show ‘Embossed Sounds’ was a foray into sound engineering, as she imprinted fabrics with sound waves that were activated by touch and movement. Such unconventional manufacturing techniques, coupled with her frequent interdisciplinary collaborations, allow Van Herpen’s work to resist the comfortable categorisations of art, sculpture or indeed even fashion. Transcendence may be at the core of haute couture’s ideals of pricelessness and timelessness, yet Van Herpen’s work with technology has really pushed the boundaries of what the medium can be. The designer’s paradoxical desire for ‘ultimate control and more freedom’ can be seen to translate into her forward-thinking sartorial vision, and actually reflects much wider realities of living in a technological age.
Her most recent Spring-2019 couture show was Van Herpen at her most inventive, as she sent out a string of captivating dresses inspired by the concept of animal-human hybrids. Specifically, Van Herpen focused on images of female-animal hybrids from ancient mythology and culture. In the very first look we were delivered an imagining of the Ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis, with Issa Lish wearing a breath-taking navy dress made out of a lightweight sheeny material, the pleats of which simultaneously complemented the curves of the female body, whilst creating a romantic effect of cascading wings. A 3-D printed birdcage dress incorporated Van Herpen’s previous sculptural programming abilities whilst imbuing an aspect of metamorphosis, with magnificent shifts of the dress between sheer material and opaque electric red according to the movements of the body and perspective of the viewer. We were left searching for faces of the Korean Inmyeonjo in a variety of layered linework, as the collection can be seen to draw inspiration from cubist ideas of perspective, all while questioning the trajectory of the human form through mythical pasts into uncertain environmental futures. It is Van Herpen’s unique and fearless confrontation of such prospects (traversing past, future, form and technology) that places her designs at the very height of haute couture.
On the 31 January Manchester City Council released the draft budget for 2019/2020 and is set to complete a three year commitment. The budget will scrutinised by a number of committees, before being considered by the Council’s executive on 13 February.
According to the Council’s press release, it will meet the three year plan, even with pressures on funding, something which Sir Richard Leese, the leader of Manchester City Council, claims “is hitting cities like Manchester hardest”.
A large amount of the budget (51%) will continue to be provided in the caring for vulnerable adults and children, reflecting the demands of residents. These priorities will continue to shape the budget’s balance, with there being a growing need for both adult and children’s social care.
An additional sum of £12m has been made available through government funding to tackle the demands of residents. The issues raised relate mainly to Social Care Services, which have been deprived of funding by Manchester City Council since 2010.
In the eight years since the Council’s spending power has been reduced by £179m (29%) . A unacceptable 13% greater loss than the national average (16%), leaving spending power per head the 10th worst in England (£355). The City Council does have the option to increase the Council’s element of the bill by 1%, but will stick to the 3.49% level as agreed at the start of the three year budget.
Further investment will be made into areas valued most according to the Council’s assessment. Child services care will receive £13.6m, £10.8m more than the £2.8m agreed. Investment for Adult Social care will increase by £7.6m, taking total spending to £11.4m. A necessary £4.3m will go toward homelessness services, whose support is vital during more extreme winters. While the £100m highway improvement programme will go ahead. Major schemes are expected to appear online this year, including £1.7m to be spent on repairing potholes.
Attempting to cope with austerity and greater demand on social services the Council has aimed to “ensure our budget continues to balance, while maintaining and investing in the vital services –from homelessness services to waste collections – that matter most to Manchester people.”
IBM has revealed its first quantum computer, the Q System One, designed for commercial use after five years of development. While classical computers work by using bits to encode information, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits to encode. While classical bits can take the form of a one or a zero, qubits come in entangled pairs in a state known as ‘quantum superimposition.’ Until the state is measured, the system exists in a state of probabilities of multiple outcomes: 11, 00, 01, or 10.
Classical computers solve problems one at a time, hence taking a lot of time. Quantum mechanics involves solving multiple problems at a faster rate. It is fascinating to see a subject that Nobel-Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics,” is now being used for computing.
IBM’s Dr. Talia Gershon compares quantum computers to the number of guests that can be accommodated on a dinner table, how many possible ways are there to arrange ten people and what is the best possible way to arrange them. A classical computer will model this by looking at each combination at a time. Quantum computers, on the other hand, will look at all 3.6 million combinations simultaneously to decide the best arrangement.
The quantum computer physically looks like the first computer built. It requires huge machines to cool electrons to a temperature near absolute zero so that they exhibit quantum effects. Hence, there may be a small chance of shrinking a quantum computer into the size of a smartphone anytime soon. However, there is an ocean of differences in terms of function. A single qubit consists of a two-level quantum mechanical system in which electrons are excited to a higher energy level once energy is applied. Quantum superimposition involves hitting the qubit with short pulses of energy. Now, an electron could be in a higher energy state or a lower energy one, but until we explicitly measure it, its properties are uncertain. IBM allows bored office workers to play around with the quantum computer to increase engagement and to get familiar with the system.
Quantum computers can have many applications. The most common of them are optimisation, biomedical simulation machine learning, and financial services. Due to their ability to solve complex mathematical problems easily and quickly, they will be used mostly by STEM researchers for calculating innumerable permutations and combinations that can help in advancing design and analysis. Artificial intelligence involves using a lot of data that goes unused. Quantum computing can help in analysing even this unused data to analyse and extract useful information in a short period of time.
Quantum computers have a lot of applications and with further improvements and implementation can be used by the public on a daily basis.
In mid-December 2018, the University of Manchester announced it would be leading a new government-backed programme against plastic pollution, named ‘Rethinking Resources and Recycling’. It is one of eight, million pound projects funded by PRIT (Plastics Research Innovation Fund), which aim to rethink how we produce, use, and recycle our plastics.
The project is set to start in early 2019 and aims to reduce demand for plastic and decrease its consumption within the city. It will also work on the development of cleaner polymers, as well as methods of soft plastic recycling and micro-plastic removal.
This news comes off the back of a study revealing water samples from a river in Greater Manchester had the highest level of micro-plastic pollution ever recorded anywhere in the world. This research, conducted by the University of Manchester, also shed light on how the high levels of pollution in urban rivers are washed out to the sea. After flooding in the area, micro-plastic levels dropped dramatically, with most of the plastic believed to be transferred to marine environments.
Micro-plastics are classed as small fragments of plastic less than five millimetres in length. They can come from the degradation of products such as plastic bags or straws, or even be manufactured in the form of micro-beads, found in many toothpastes and face scrubs.
Once entered into the environment, micro-plastics can take up to 450 years to decompose, and are often ingested by organisms such as zooplankton. These micro-plastics can build up in the food chain and have been found at high levels in fish brains and other marine animals. This is worrying given our huge reliance on seafood for many of our diets.
However, contamination doesn’t stop at food. A study looking at contamination of water sources has found that 83% of tap water samples taken from around the world contained plastic fibres. With micro-plastics even being found in the air we breathe, its obtrusion seems unavoidable.
So should we be worried? At the moment nobody really knows. Many studies are looking into the extent of the damage caused by consumption of micro-plastics, however, it remains a topic of debate. There also appears to be limited scope for avoiding such plastics entering our bodies.
We do, however, have the power to reduce its presence in the products we buy. Avoiding synthetic clothing, glitter, and wet wipes are just some of the ways we can lower our micro-plastic footprint. The extent of the spread of micro-beads in everyday products may make this difficult, but avoiding products with ingredients such as polyethylene and nylon can help you make more eco-friendly choices. This is made easier by ‘Beat the microbead’, a movement that offers a list of products which do or do not contain micro-plastics.
But in order for drastic differences to be made, these problems must be solved on a larger scale, such is the goal of projects proposed by PRIT and the University of Manchester. Research and funding into plastic consumption and the development of viable solutions or alternatives could help Manchester achieve a cleaner and more plastic-free future.
Last Thursday, Manchester welcomed a new hub for creative individuals. The space boasts multiple creative co-working areas, recording studios, art and fashion design ateliers, and a charming main hall for events. The opening of The Yard took place in Cheetham Hill, just north of Deansgate.
The owners, Jo and Mark Hamburger wish to “transform the reputation of the area by bringing artistic talent in from all over Manchester.” The venue is immediately recognisable even from the outside. The red brick is adorned with an enticing mural of a phoenix whose bright and promising colours served as a reflection of the vibrant evening still to come.
The doors open with an exciting blend of conversation and loud music. The first things I notice are the giant works of art suspended on the walls. Designed by both Jo Hamburger herself and Manchester-based fashion student Morgan Allen, the intention was to “use this space to exhibit and showcase some of the city’s outstanding talent.”
Waiters dotted around the venue provide a remarkably eclectic array of bites, ranging from fresh sushi to falafel made right in front of you. But my eyes remain drawn to the phoenix motif running throughout the space, mirroring the atmosphere of its environment: a revamped Victorian school, transformed into a scene full of life and imagination.
Following a speech from the enthusiastic individuals behind the making of The Yard, the room absorbed their contagious humour. It was evident that the entire concept of the project was eagerly embraced by the crowd. Mark invited those from all over Manchester to hire the available spaces and keep an eye out on what events to attend in the future.
The audience was composed of people of all ages and occupations, creating a welcoming environment for both students and aspiring creatives. A community was formed at that moment; the sense of belonging, despite individual differences, was palpable.
The real climax of the evening was the entrance of the cake. Major media groups BBC and Channel 4 were there to capture the breath-taking work of art. Seizing the attention of each person it passed, it displayed an impressive motif that was now familiar to the guests: the Phoenix. Front row, I had the privilege of observing every detail on the oeuvre: a satisfying way to tie the event together.
After an appearance by Kevin Keegan, live music accompanied the remainder of the night and eventually saw the guests drift off home. The Yard’s opening night finishes, promising a vibrant future of events.
You can find out more about events and hire at https://theyardmcr.com.
