The Founder Volume 6 Issue 3

Film 

Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight 

in Paris’ 

Review Page 15 

Arts 

Julia Armfield addresses 

our lack of literary ladies 

Page 10 

thefounder 

the independent student newspaper of royal holloway, university of london 

free! 

Volume 6 | Issue 3 

Wednesday 26 October 2011 

thefounder.co.uk 

On campus bank put to NatRest 

Christian Leppich 

Students and staff alike make constant 

use of the Natwest branch on 

campus as the only source of obtaining 

free cash withdrawals and even 

taking financial advice. This is all set 

to change when, on the 9th December, 

the branch will close its doors. 

The university, however, is making 

assurances that the closure will be 

delicately handled to minimise the 

inconvenience to the vast numbers 

that make daily use of the bank’s facilities. 

The most prolific issue that the 

closure of the branch raises is that 

of whether or not the cash machines 

will either remain or be replaced. 

Were the Natwest machines to be 

removed, the only remaining cash 

point on campus would be located 

in the bar of Medicine, a machine 

that charges £1.50 for every withdrawal. 

Those in the universities 

financial department agree that 

leaving a single cash point to service 

the entire campus would be an 

untenable arrangement and, as a result, 

they have stated that they have 

the complete intention of providing 

cash points in the current Natwest 

building for the foreseeable future. 

In addition to this, the loss of the 

presence of a staffed branch that 

manages many students’ accounts 

(due to the popularity of the Natwest 

Student Account) as well as supervising 

the difficult financial situations 

of various foreign students 

that attend Royal Holloway, will 

undoubtedly be awkward. However 

the matter is merely one of geography; 

with Egham town centre’s close 

proximity to campus, and with the 

High Street’s numerous banks, students 

are unlikely to feel dramatically 

inconvenienced by the closure. 

Although those in the university 

claimed that they could not disclose 

the specific reason for Natwest leaving 

the campus, they could reveal 

that the decision to close the branch 

lay with Natwest rather than the 

university. The most likely reason, 

fittingly, is probably a financial one; 

with Natwest’s owner RBS (Royal 

Bank of Scotland) recently banning 

all staff Christmas parties, it is evident 

that the financial crisis is still 

causing a significant drive for cost 

cutting and the staffing of the Royal 

Holloway branch could conceivably 

fall under this banner. 

The Assistant Finance Director for 

Royal Holloway, Jenny Febry, stated 

that she believes that it is “in everyone’s 

interest to have cash machines 

and banking facilities on campus.” 

This of course raises the possibility 

of another bank or alternative facilities 

replacing Natwest in the Spring 

Term, although the university has 

yet to announce any such plans. 

The Natwest branch will remain 

open until the end of the Autumn 

Term, with the major disruption of 

losing the current cash machines 

taking place outside of term time 

in the Christmas break and during 

which the university hopes to have 

found a substitute for the current 

machines. Although the future of 

any bank’s presence on campus remains 

as yet unclear, the reassurance 

from the university of replacing 

the cash machines prior to the 

Spring Term ensures that campus 

life should remain largely unaffected. 

Features 

Lydia Mahon tangles with media 

discrimination in the search for missing 

people 

20» 

Comment 

Toby Fuller asks why the country is so 

against drug legalisation 

4» 

Music 

Harun Musho’d reveals the RHUL students 

vying for a demo with Charlie Hugall in the 

ULU Music League 

11» 

HARBEN LETS 

your oldest and largest private landlord 

www.harbenlets.co.uk 07973 224125 

HL

2 The Founder | Wednesday 26 October 2011 

The Founder 

The Independent Student Newspaper of Royal Holloway, University of London 

Email: editor@thefounder.co.uk 

thefounder.co.uk 

For the latest news, reviews, and everything Holloway, get online 

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tf editorial team 

Editor-in-Chief 

Jack Lenox 

Editors 

Ashley Coates & David Bowman 

News Editor 

Jessica Phillipson 

Features Editor 

Felicity (Fizz) King 

Film Editor 

Nathaniel Horne 

Arts Editor 

Julia Armfield 

Music Editor 

Harun Musho’d 

Designed by 

Tom Shore & Jack Lenox 

Pictures 

Amy Taheri 

Joshua Staines 

Julian Farmer 

Sport Editor 

Ben Hine 

Sub-Editors 

Mariella de Souza 

Tarli Morgan 

Art Director 

Tom Shore 

The Founder is the independent student newspaper of Royal Holloway, University of London. We distribute at 

least 4,000 free copies every fortnight during term time around campus and to popular student venues in and 

around Egham. 

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Editor-in-Chief 

or of The Founder Publications Ltd, especially of comment and opinion pieces. Every effort has been made to 

contact the holders of copyright for any material used in this issue, and to ensure the accuracy of this fortnight’s 

stories. 

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© The Founder Publications Ltd. 2011, Unit 6 St Saviours Wharf, 23 Mill Street, London SE1 2BE 

Royal Holloway Pearson 

partnership 

Alleged 

Sexual Assault 

in SU Gender 

Neutral Toilets 

David Bowman 

Editor 

Following Friday nights military 

themed SU night a male was arrested 

after a sexual assault allegedly 

took place in the new gender neutral 

toilets. The top floor of the union 

was closed off to all attendees and 

SU staff were not informed of the alleged 

incident. 

The toilets were introduced with 

the intent to “provide a safer alternative 

to traditional male and female 

toilets” according to the SU 

website. At the time of writing no 

official information regarding the 

matter has been released although 

the police are still investigating the 

incident. 

Although a number of students 

questioned the practicality of the 

toilets and many speculated that an 

incident such as this was inevitable 

the SU has stated that the toilets are 

going nowhere. 

Victoria Brown 

This summer it was announced 

that Royal Holloway and publishing 

giant Pearson would enter into 

a partnership that would allow the 

publisher to offer four vocational 

degrees at further education colleges 

across the country. The university 

would validate and substantiate the 

degree, whilst Pearson, one of the 

world’s principal publishers, would 

develop it. 

Pearson, which does not have 

the power to award degrees itself, 

expects the courses to be available 

from September 2012 and is in talks 

with colleges that could potentially 

teach the degrees. This move comes 

after the recent publication of a 

government white paper on higher 

education written by the Minister 

for Universities and Science, David 

Willets, outlining plans to “make it 

easier for new providers to enter the 

sector”. Although other companies 

such as McDonalds offer degrees in 

partnership with universities, this 

is the first instance with a company 

that already offers other qualifications; 

Pearson provides vocational 

courses such as BTEC’s and HND’s 

and owns the exam board, Edexcel. 

At present in the UK there are five 

private companies, one of which is 

for profit, that have the power to 

award degrees; a status that Pearson 

ultimately hopes to obtain. In 

his recent government white paper, 

David Willets detailed plans to set 

aside 20,000 places to degree providers 

charging less than £7,500 a 

year with it expected that the majority 

would go to private companies 

such as Pearson and further education 

colleges. This has been seen as a 

move to remedy the fact that many 

universities will be charging £9,000 a 

year from 2012. Pearson announced 

its plans to offer vocational degrees 

at “competitive” prices after meeting 

with Willets in December 2010, after 

the minister also met representatives 

of the Education Management 

Corporation (EDMC) and Apollo, 

two private American companies 

currently under investigation for 

improper student recruitment practises. 

The meetings have attracted 

criticism from both the opposition 

and the lecturers’ union. Labour MP 

Barry Gardiner describes the meetings 

between Willets, who spoke at a 

2010 Pearson conference, and these 

private companies as “extraordinary 

and appalling” whilst the general 

secretary of the lecturers’ union has 

expressed concern at the idea of 

‘for-profit’ degrees commenting: 

“Events in America have shown the 

for-profit model is fraught with danger 

for student and taxpayer alike”. 

However Rod Bristow, the president 

of Pearson UK, has stated 

that the degree would give students 

greater choice letting them “study 

closer to home, [and] do some of 

it online”. The course is expected 

to cost £7,500 or less in light of the 

outlined government plans yet currently 

no fees have been announced 

and it is unclear whether this 

amount will be set by the company 

or the colleges and whether it can be 

removed from the state subsidised 

tuition scheme. The deputy principal 

of Royal Holloway, Professor 

Rob Kemp, has said of the partnership 

that: “Our founders, in opening 

colleges for women in the 19th 

century, were the first to address the 

challenge of widening access and we 

are delighted to continue with tradition 

today by supporting Pearson in 

this initiative”. 

NUS approves 

day of protest 

Alistair Hemmings 

The National Union of Students 

(NUS) has given its official approval 

and support to a day of protest on 

the 9th November 2011 in opposition 

to the increase in student fees 

imposed by the coalition government 

last year. 

The NUS staged similar protests 

throughout November 2010, which 

ended in violence, rioting, an assault 

on the Conservative Party 

headquarters, and an attack on the 

car of Prince Charles and Camilla. 

Royal Holloway students from the 

Anti-Cuts Alliance (ACA) staged a 

sit-in in the Founders Picture Gallery, 

but none were arrested or seriously 

injured in central London. The 

then NUS president, Aaron Porter, 

was quick to condemn the violent 

actions of the protesters last year, so 

the decision of the NUS to vocalise 

its support for this bout of protests is 

an interesting one that could potentially 

backfire. 

An estimated 50,000 people took 

part in the previous demonstrations, 

which cost an estimated £7.5 

million in policing costs. The figure 

was taken before the costs of the 

clean-up operation and compensation 

claims made due to the widespread 

damage caused by protesters. 

This round of protests has been organised 

in coalition with the more 

radical organisation, the National 

Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, 

raising the question of the potential 

for more radical consequences as 

a result. Whilst the NUS only supports 

peaceful student protests, it 

seems that there is little that they 

can actually do to stop the protests 

from becoming violent.

The Founder | Wednesday 26 October 2011 

Record number European 

Students in British 

universities, but non-EU 

students still pay the price 


News Editor 

High times on the Green 


A 36 year old man has been arrested 

after police raided his house 

on Elmbank Avenue and found approximately 

23 suspected cannabis 

plants growing in the garden. 

This ended two weeks in which 

four raids were carried out in Addlestone, 

Chertsey, Egham and Englefield 

Green, all producing similar 

amounts of cannabis plants. Despite 

this, police maintain that the incidents 

were not related and argue 

that Runnymede does not have a 

drug problem. Inspector Nield insisted 

that these incidents were the 

result of tip-offs from the community 

which coincidentally came at 

the same time. 

Egham Residents’ Association 

spokesperson, Genna Clark, said: 

“It’s great that the police are getting 

results and closing in on these people 

but it is still very disappointing 

to have this sort of activity on the 

doorstep of your community.” 

Cannabis is used for a variety 

of purposes, such as for its fibre 

In a new report from Universities 

UK, it has been revealed that a record 

125,000 students from the European 

Union were awarded places 

at higher education institutions in 

Britain last year – 35,000 more than 

ten years ago. The total number of 

students – both undergraduates and 

postgraduates – in the UK has increased 

by 28 per cent over the last 

decade to just under 2.5 million. The 

report provides statistics from over 

130 institutions of higher education 

across Britain. 

As EU students contribute towards 

the maximum number of 

university places, they are in direct 

competition with UK students. Despite 

the increasing number of British 

students applying for university 

places every year, the percentage increase 

of those going to university is 

less than that of EU students, with a 

20 per cent increase in British students 

and a 40 per cent increase in 

EU students over ten years. In addition, 

EU students are entitled to 

the same government subsidised 

loan as UK students, causing concern 

as figures show the amount of 

money owed by European graduates 

increased from £42m in 2008 

to £167m just a year later. However, 

EU students still only account for 5 

per cent of the total student body 

and many students from the UK are 

able to enjoy easy access to enriching 

exchange programmes due to 

our friendly relations with the rest 

of Europe. 

The report also revealed that the 

largest rise in admissions came from 

foreign students outside of the EU 

who do not count towards the cap 

on places and can be charged much 

higher tuition fees – in some cases 

(hemp), its medicinal properties 

to treat illnesses such as glaucoma, 

and as a recreational drug. Cannabis 

is a Class B drug – it is illegal to 

have for yourself, to give away or to 

sell. Possession is illegal whatever 

the reason for use, including pain 

relief. The penalty for possession of 

cannabis can be up to five years in 

jail. Supplying someone else can get 

eight times as much as students from 

the EU and the UK. Approximately 

280,760 international students were 

admitted to universities in the UK 

last year, which is more than double 

the number ten years ago. At Royal 

Holloway in the 2009/10 academic 

year, 20% of our students came from 

outside of the EU, but contributed 

£22,096,000 in tuition fees, which 

is more than the £21,882,000 contributed 

by UK and EU students 

combined. Royal Holloway is not 

unique in this respect; many British 

universities are increasingly relying 

on the tuition fees from overseas 

students to make up the deficit in 

higher education budgets. As university 

fees in the UK increase and 

the international university market 

becomes more competitive, British 

universities risk losing their global 

status for academic excellence. 

flickr/ sillydog 

you fourteen years and an unlimited 

fine, and, even if it is given away, it 

is also considered ‘supplying’ under 

the law. Allowing other people to 

use cannabis in your house or any 

other premises is illegal. If the police 

catch someone smoking cannabis 

on any property, they can prosecute 

the landlord, owner or person holding 

the party. 

I decided to start writing these 

articles with the intent of them fulfilling 

some kindv of public service 

commitment by letting you the 

readers know what arcane rituals 

are performed at SURHUL’s general 

meetings and perhaps encourage 

some of you to actually go, so the 

sane proportion of students have 

some degree of representation 

there. Well I’m sorry to announce 

that I have horribly failed in my 

duties as I left half way through on 

account of not hating myself. If the 

Orbitals liveblog (which you should 

all read) is anything to go by the 

meeting lasted a grand total of five 

hours. Five hours! That’s about a 

terms worth of work for a management 

student. 

With the lack of any obvious SU 

hate figure having emerged yet, unlike 

last years host of pantomime 

villains it wasn’t even possible to get 

angry during the meeting. It was 

just really really boring. 

I shed a tiny tear as the final round 

of 60-second sabb ensued (where 

the sabbatical officers tell us what 

they’ve been up to) which is now going 

to be replaced by three minute 

‘Sabbatical Updates’ for the sake of 

greater accountability. Postgraduate 

Students Officer David Pavitt made 

the good point that this motion was 

perhaps not the best of ideas as it 

should be in the interests of the students 

to keep the meetings as short 

as possible (he’s right!) and that if we 

want to read about what the sabbs 

have been up to we can get a full account 

on their blogs which of course 

each and every sabb keeps updated 

and recent (he’s wrong!). 

VPSA Jake Wells informed us 

about the upcoming RAG naked 

calendar, VPComCam Sarah Honeycombe 

enthused about the lobby 

outside college council and VPEd- 

Welfare Katie Blow told us ‘I look 

like a whale, I am so angry’ but she 

did at least get to be president for 

the day as the great leader was on 

annual leave. 

What President Dan Cooper has 

3 

News 

G.M. Watch 2 

GM Harder 

David Bowman 

Editor 

In a time of cuts and 

efficiency savings, 

perhaps we should be 

grateful that ‘60 Second 

Sabb’ is being extended... 

been up to however is outlined 

in great detail on his blog on the 

SURHUL website (which is to his 

credit very up to date) and contains 

details on the most recent college 

council meeting (the highest decision 

making body in all the land) 

which is well worth a read as the 

college’s own website appears to 

have neglected to put the minutes 

and agendas of any meeting online 

since January. 

A number of interesting and indeed 

uninteresting questions were 

raised from the floor including 

one student who noted that Wedderburn 

recycling is being put in 

with general waste which ethics and 

environment officer Ed Resek has 

promised to get to the bottom of 

and another student who wondered 

why Holloway’s excellent Insanity 

Radio isn’t being played in SU venues. 

Sarah Honeycombe promised 

that by the end of the week this goes 

to print that Insanity will be played 

in the SU. Hurrah! 

The second motion of the evening 

following the sabbatical update motion 

was put forward and went into 

discussions for a very long time. It 

was brutal. It was about what file 

formats should documents on the 

SU website be in. There’s literally no 

way I can make this sound interesting 

but I am pleased to inform you 

that it was set as a procedural motion 

meaning that it will also be discussed 

at the next meeting. See you 

there guys! 

Finally the creation of an information 

officer was discussed which 

would involve the handling of data 

security. This would involve one officer 

having access to a lot of sensitive 

data which a number of people 

in the room found objectionable but 

MSL who is the company that currently 

runs the abysmal SU website 

has proven to be extremely hackable 

and this was mentioned in the 

same breath as allegations of electoral 

rigging at the SU which the 

chair was quick to dismiss. As the 

details and implications of the role 

were fairly complicated the general 

meeting decided to refer the motion 

to the executive who will no doubt 

find the motion equally complicated. 

And it was at this point that I 

snuck off home. Following this 

there were a couple of hours of elections 

for various representatives and 

sub-committee positions that were 

largely uncontested.


Comment 

Comment tf 

& Debate 

Drugs: the victimless crime 

Toby Fuller 

Comment & Debate Editor 

Why is it that in the modern day 

and, as we are so often told, in one 

of the most liberal and tolerant 

societies in the world, are drugs not 

only classified as illegal but subjected 

to a degree of social stigma 

that can be compared to that of 

an extreme psychological perversion? 

Recently Jeremy Clarkson 

described how even lighting a cigarette 

at a dinner party can produce 

the same shock and revulsion as 

‘publicly masturbating’. 

Why do we find our ‘progressive’ 

and ‘modernising’ political leaders 

of both sides of the house, at the 

slightest whisper of the legalisation 

of drugs, clustering behind the back 

benches and party faithful in order 

to escape the lip-smacking war cry 

of the suburban housewife, wildly 

swinging the Daily Mail above her 

head? 

Surely by now we can give up the 

populist claims of public interest 

and admit that there is no argument 

intellectually robust enough 

to legitimise the complete prohibition 

of recreational drug use? 

No doubt people will claim that 

the undeniable health benefits of 

marijuana and even ecstasy simply 

do not outweigh the negative 

impact that drug use would have on 

the fabric of our society. Despite the 

benefits of ecstasy in the treatment 

of soldiers suffering from posttraumatic 

stress, as shown by the 

recent conducted by Rick Doblin 

of the American research group 

MAPS, one cannot legitimise the 

use of drugs by the general public. 

However, the issue is not simply 

one of medical progression. 

It is time we fully addressed 

the impact the drugs trade has on 

our society, how the black market 

which is dominated by criminal 

gangs, fuels violence, theft, extortion 

and a general reign of terror 

that grips the most impoverished 

areas of our towns and inner-cities. 

When approximately 55% of the 

prison population enter the system 

with a serious drug problem, can 

we really afford to ignore the obvious 

correlation between the illegal 

drugs trade and the crime that inevitably 

surrounds it? If one consid- 

ers the contemporary issue of gang 

crime as analogous to the prohibition 

of alcohol in 1920s America, 

perhaps the issue becomes clearer. 

But no, it would appear that the 

concept of drugs as an absolute 

moral ill has become so engrained 

in the collective consciousness of 

the nation that our image of ‘the 

user’ has become the emaciated, 

needle scarred, slurring shell of a 

being that is nothing more than a 

drain on our society. Yet here is the 

most fallacious syllogism that has 

been repeatedly fed by the educational 

propaganda for the past half 

a century. 

As I write this article, ingesting 

the nicotine and caffeinated drinks 

being used in my desperate attempt 

to numb the pain of last nights intoxication, 

I cannot help but think 

of how many doctors, lawyers, 

academics and politicians lead their 

lives as functional alcoholics. Why 

then, is it is so absurd to think that 

they are unable to do so when using 

say cannabis or even cocaine? 

The image of drug addiction that 

has been portrayed by both the 

media and the government is one of 

poverty. The doctor using the finest 

Columbian blend will no doubt be 

able to fully function in his duties 

as a medical professional and probably 

provide the perfect ideal of the 

bourgeois father and husband. It 

is the poor and the ignorant, those 

who are forced to inject the near 

lethal concoction of heroin and 

sand into their veins as they shelter 

on the street corner, perpetually 

committing petty crime in order to 

escape their debtors, that we see as 

the horror of drug use. 

This is an issue that we can hide 

behind in the safety of our intellectual 

microcosm of university 

flickr/ rhinoneal 

life. Behind these Victorian walls 

we can romanticise the mind 

altering state of Coleridge, Wilde, 

Rimbaud, and from time to time 

even ourselves, and put it down to 

foolish experimentation. But there 

are those for whom this issue is real 

and is one that has consequences. 

Let us hide no more, forget the 

social norms and mores for just one 

moment, and consider the problem 

rationally. Can we finally move towards 

not only a system of greater 

social utility, but a strengthening of 

our own moral integrity?

1967. The absolute right to access 

termination services, provided the 

pregnancy is under 24 weeks, is 

one of the laws which makes this 

country great. It reflects the liberal, 

western and democratic values 

which we have up until now, with 

Dorries’ attempt to chip away at the 

Abortion Act, taken completely for 

granted. 

Some might argue that as Dor- 


tf 

5 

Comment 

A woman’s right? 

Joanna Dunmore 

The news that Conservative MP 

Nadine Dorries was heavily defeated 

last month in her bid to pass an 

abortion amendment in the House 

of Commons was met, at least by 

me, with intense relief. The amendment 

proposed to strip abortion 

providers with the right to provide 

their own counselling and instead 

encourage ‘independent’ providers 

to perform the service, such 

as pro-life campaign groups and 

multi-faith organisations. Now the 

problem is, the last time I checked, 

I didn’t live in the Bible Belt. 

I was under the impression that a 

woman’s jurisdiction over her own 

body has been a guaranteed right 

in the UK since the Abortion Act of 

flickr/ ari 

ries’ attempts were unsuccessful, 

one shouldn’t be overly worried 

about the power of the pro-life 

voice in the UK. However 118 MP’s 

backed Dorries proposals. 118 

members of Parliament agreed that 

women contemplating a termination 

should have to face counseling 

from potentially pro-life or faith 

based groups who would undoubtedly 

strive to deter her. Dorries’ 

argument that ‘people being paid 

to carry out abortions shouldn’t be 

offering pre-abortion counseling’ is 

completely obscure. Nobody likes 

or advocates the idea of an abortion 

and unless I’m very much mistaken, 

doctors aren’t clamouring to perform 

these procedures, nor are they 

paid via commission. Dorries’ argument 

is a blatant attempt to create 

another hoop in the system, one 

which women must jump through 

to gain access to a right that should 

be indisputable. 

Yet this ‘right’ is arguably over 

regulated; women seeking terminations 

are often completely at the 

mercy of doctors’ own opinions on 

the matter. Whilst I am not disputing 

a doctor’s right to abstain from 

this particular area of medicine or 

the process of gaining a secondary 

medical opinion, it is horrific that 

even in 2011, women are sometimes 

dissuaded from this path by 

doctors’ ability to obstruct, delay 

or even veto a woman’s decision by 

refusing to refer them on to other 

professionals. Dorries, however, 

seems to think that women need 

another layer of bureaucracy to 

fight through. 

This reattempt at creating a barrier 

between women and termination 

services is undoubtedly reminiscent 

of the US and its volatile relationship 

with abortion rights. The 

American pro-life voice is undeniably 

louder. However, the difference 

between the US and the UK is that 

pro-life politicians such as Sarah 

Palin are open and honest about 

their aims. The most unsettling difficulty 

that I find with Dorries and 

her attempts is that she hides in the 

guise of being pro-choice. How can 

a woman claiming to believe in a 

woman’s control over her own body 

also aim to reduce the number of 

abortions in the UK by 30%. How 

can she claim to advocate equal 

opportunities for men and women 

whilst promoting the need for only 

young girls to be taught the virtues 

of abstinence as part of the curriculum? 

Not only is Dorries clouding the 

image of pro-choice believers everywhere, 

but in my opinion she has 

propelled the country on a downward 

spiral of anti-abortion legislation. 

We have worked too hard 

to establish these basic rights for 

women to allow politicians (who 

might I add abortively represent a 

male opinion) to chip away at them. 

In Nadine Dorries’ own words: ‘We 

lost the battle but we have won the 

war.’ Something tells me that Ms 

Dorries is wrong; the war is only 

just beginning.


flickr/ halderman 

Jimmy the Djin 

Sabeen King 

Once upon a time, in 1633 to be 

precise, there lived a ten year old 

boy called Edmund Robinson. 

He lived in Lancashire with his 

father and mother, who would 

send him out each day to do his 

chores. One day, Edmund decided 

to do a naughty thing. Rather than 

bringing home his father’s cattle 

as instructed, he decided to play 

truant. He wasted the entire day by 

playing in the woods. However, on 

the way home he started to grow 

nervous. He anticipated the whipping 

which he knew he would get 

from his father. Rather than telling 

the truth about what a naughty little 

boy he had been, he decided to 

do the opposite. You guessed it. He 

told a porky pie. 

Edmund went straight home and 

told his daddy a long story about 

how in the woods, he found two 

nasty greyhounds. He tried to fend 

them off, but they transformed into 

women from their town, one of 

whom was their neighbour, Frances 

Dickenson. The women took the 

little boy and forced him deeper 

into the woods where he was made 

to watch a Sabbath, attended by 

sixty more ‘witches’. And his story 

worked! His daddy was so shocked, 

he forgot all about the whipping. 

In fact, Mr Robinson was so 

taken by his son’s story, he went 

straight down to the local parish 

churches to see if little Edmund 

could identify any more faces from 

the gatherings. The result? Twenty 

innocent women were accused 

of witchcraft. Their bodies were 

inspected for ‘witch-marks’ and 

seventeen were consequently convicted 

and imprisoned. Their lives 

and those of their families were 

ruined forever more. 

This is a sad story. But it all 

happened a very long time ago. 

Nothing like this would happen 

nowadays, right? Let me tell you 

another story. 

Fiza Chohan is a twenty year old 

young woman. She comes from a 

good Muslim family in Manchester 

and has attended the local mosque 

with her parents, brothers and 

sisters since she was a child. She 

is ambitious and intelligent, but 

her family is set on determining 

her future for her by arranging her 

marriage and hand picking a nice 

young Pakistani gentleman for her 

to spend the rest of her life with. 

Fiza does not refuse. She wants to 

make her mother happy, so she 

gives her trust, agreeing to hand 

herself over to whoever her mother 

deems the most appropriate suitor. 

Everything seemed to be going 

along smoothly for Fiza’s parents 

until one day, they heard her talking 

to herself in her bedroom. Her 

mother entered. 

‘Who are you talking to, Fiza?’ 

‘Jimmy’. 

Fiza told her mother that she 

was possessed by an evil djin called 

Jimmy. He would repeatedly cause 

Fiza to act in unexplainable ways. 

He made her talk loudly each night 

when she was alone in her room 

and during the day, her eyes would 

glaze over and she would make 

snide remarks to her parents. 

Fiza being my cousin, I naturally 

grew rather concerned when I 

heard about this. Her mother had 

been carting her all over Manchester 

to see various psychiatrists, and 

even to Pakistan where Maulvis 

would read religious texts in an 

attempt to release her from Jimmy’s 

influence. Eventually I found the 

stomach to confront her. I rang her 

up and asked what on earth was 

going on. And to my surprise, she 

burst out laughing. 

She had been making the whole 

thing up all along. Jimmy was a 

scapegoat. An excuse for anything 

that ever went wrong. Jimmy would 

allow her to stay up late into the 

night and talk on her mobile. If she 

ever let anything rude slip out to 

her parents, it was Jimmy’s fault! 

Not hers. Jimmy bought her time, 

and he acted as a distraction. It 

was impossible for her mother to 

find her a husband; her family had 

much bigger fish to fry. 

Just like Edmund Robinson, Fiza 

used the knowledge of her religion 

and abused her parents’ belief in 

it to invent a story, thereby escaping 

their control. For a number of 

years now, Fiza has been telling her 

parents that she is being possessed 

by a djin called Jimmy, finding the 

whole thing hilarious. 

On the surface, such a prank 

may seem like fun and games. But 

what my cousin does not realise 

is the danger behind what she is 

doing. Edmund’s story started as 

an equally harmless little tale, but 

it escalated and grew out of control 

until the lives of innocent women 

were put into jeopardy. Religion is 

a powerful thing. It is not a thing to 

be taken lightly, and to use someone 

else’s beliefs for personal gain 

is one of the most dangerous things 

which one can do.


tf 

7 

Comment 

Insanity rocks student union 

Toby Bromige 

& Greg Goss-Durant 

The title of this article may mislead 

people into believing that Insanity 

Radio has recently produced a fantastic 

night of entertainment at the 

Students’ Union, but in fact nothing 

of the like occurred. Contrastingly, 

the ongoing pressure to get the 

SU-backed radio played in the hall 

itself is as likely as the Students’ Union 

responding well to this article. 

The real story behind this increasingly 

irrelevant title-head occurred 

a couple of weeks ago with 

an outburst from some students 

who were offended by the choice 

of music chosen by an establish 

Student Union DJ. The offending 

song was ‘Everyone has Aids’ from 

the film Team America, which happened 

to make some students feel 

ostracised within their own Student 

Union. Should this minority view 

command the attention it has been 

given? We say no! It has become 

increasingly apparent that student 

politics has fallen into to the hands 

of a boisterous, belligerent minority 

that believes the loudest voice 

should dictate policy. The song 

in question, while on an unusual 

subject, caused a complaint by one 

person. A complaint that probably 

took longer to articulate than this 

light-hearted and self-mocking 

song. This in turn has ‘snowballed’ 

into a political nightmare for the 

ever-silent majority, eroding away 

the democratic value of the freedom 

of expression, replacing it with 

a fascist agenda which threatens to 

silence anybody that could offend 

another member of the Union. Isn’t 

the ability to offend a pinnacle of 

British humour anyway? To put 

it into perspective could you take 

away the right of massive national 

newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, 

to publish controversial articles 

that could lead to offending subsections 

of society? In condemning 

this song a figure close to the SU 

President, described it as having a 

‘base’ sense of humour, forgetting 

entirely that humour is subjective 

and possibly causing offence to the 

vast majority who, according to 

the DJ, received it well. While this 

entire topic is very trivial, as we 

must all remember that our Union’s 

primary function is an entertainment’s 

venue, the fact is the Union 

is being hi-jacked by a select few, 

who strikingly resemble Napoleon’s 

committee of pigs in Animal 

Farm. We offer to create a ‘B****list’ 

(censored in accordance with new 

SU laws on the Freedom of the 

Press) of songs that could possibly 

offend the rainbow of diversity that 

our Student Union Constitution so 

militantly protects. Any str**ght 

thinking individual must suddenly 

realise that the Union’s playlist 

would be shortened to anything 

without lyrics, or loud noises. We 

hope that our logic has prevailed 

to the majority over this attempt of 

censorship that our Student Union 

feels entitled to implement at its 

will. In an attempt to reassert the 

point we must reminds ourselves 

that it is just a song, and more importantly 

we must hold to account 

the Student Union in its attempts 

to censor our democratic freedom 

from which they get their authority. 

In the words of Augustus Caesar: 

“Cooper, give me back my Union!”


tf 

Comment 

Steve Jobs: 

just another capitalist? 

Jessica Wax-Edwards 

flickr.com/jfchavarry 

The recent death of Apple computer’s 

co-founder Steve Jobs has 

spawned a swell of media bile 

deifying the vman as some kind of 

paragon of human achievement. 

Something needs to be said about 

to this. Although an excellent 

entrepreneur, innovator and public 

speaker, Jobs was a run-of-themill 

capitalist exploiter of Eastern 

poverty. I am sure this article will 

seem poorly timed to some but the 

message intended is just as important 

now as it ever has been. 

The 56 year-old multi-millionaire 

once said “being the richest man 

in the cemetery doesn’t matter to 

me … Going to bed at night saying 

we’ve done something wonderful … 

that’s what matters to me.” So what, 

we have to ask ourselves, does Steve 

Jobs mean by something wonderful? 

He can’t possibly be referring to 

the thousands of Chinese workers 

exploited in making the iPod and 

other Apple products. I would also 

doubt he means the suicides committed 

by the overworked Foxconn 

employees, the company that 

makes the much loved iPad. Nope. 

What he means is a remarkable 

and innovative list of technological 

advancements that multiplied the 

stock value of the company 65-fold 

in ten years. 

Despite the impressiveness of 

this feat it is overshadowed by the 

huge violations of human rights 

and labour laws that go with it. It 

was only after the ninth employee 

suicide in May of last year that 

iPad production company Foxconn 

erected 3 million square metres of 

yellow netting around the building. 

The working conditions in these 

factories are so severe that many 

workers either die or kill themselves 

as a result: minimum twelve 

hour working days (not counting 

hours of unpaid overtime to 

reach Western demands); thirteen 

consecutive workdays before a rest 

day; verbal and physical abuse for 

so much as not standing still. One 

of the workers said, “We are like 

livestock”. Holocaust survivors have 

used the same words to describe 

their experience and the situation 

can just as easily be likened to 

that of the concentration camps. 

These people are literally worked 

to death. How is this an acceptable 

consequence for products that are 

essentially superfluous? 

This year there have been more 

than 126,000 strikes in China 

against the exploitation and violation 

of labour laws but, for obvious 

reasons, American corporations, 

particularly the Chamber of Commerce, 

have been leading a massive 

lobbying campaign to pressure both 

the Chinese and American governments 

to prevent the formation of 

trading unions. Costs must remain 

low and profits high, whatever the 

consequence. 

And yet I write this on my 

Hewlett-Packard computer, most 

likely made in one of these Foxconn 

establishments or similar. 

These days every bit of plastic or 

piece of clothing we own comes 

from exploiting others. So why do 

I target Apple? Why Steve Jobs? 

Apple is the world’s leading brand 

in the electronics industry. If Jobs, 

both the pioneer and public image 

of Apple, had advocated publicly 

the improvement of labour conditions 

the filtering effect through 

the electronic industry as a whole 

would have had enormous potential. 

Steve Jobs was the trailblazer; 

the others just followed. Unfortunately, 

as capitalism dictates, 

profit is more important than fair 

labour conditions. A company 

won’t change for moral reasons, 

stockholders will only implement 

a reform when their profits are at 

risk. Of course the most powerful 

impetus for change is pressure 

from the consumers, but as long 

as we don’t care, why should they? 

So instead of lamenting the passive 

advocacy of this tycoon we venerate 

his memory, as if his death eclipses 

those he indirectly caused.

E X T R A 

Guy Ferrett reviews 

Noel Gallagher’s 

latest album inside!


E X T R A 

Arts 

Literary Ladies: They don’t 

make ‘em like this any more 

Julia Armfield 

Arts Editor 

So here’s the thing. My telly has 

rather been letting me down, just 

recently. 

This is not to say, by any means, 

that I have yet resorted to watching 

less of it (because hi, there’s a proportionate 

reaction and then there’s 

lunacy) but nonetheless, the sheer 

scale of what I can only describe as 

the Lady-Fail that has been going 

down on my TV screen this season 

is certainly beginning to prompt me 

towards more drastic measures. 

It’s a question that I think bears 

some serious head-scratching. 

Where have all the great TV girls 

gone? A year ago, I would have 

laughed down the quivering nose 

of this question and asked it to look 

no further, please, than Amy Pond 

in the brand new Steven Moffat 

Doctor Who. But this season? The 

girl was a holographic projection 

of herself; in reality stuck in a box 

waiting to go into labour all season, 

while her husband was dragged to 

the forefront and she faded into 

wailing obscurity. Amy Pond, not 

to put too fine a point on it, became 

little more nor less than Amy The 

Mother, and it’s an instigation of the 

kind of damaging stereotype that 

I’ve been seeing on every channel 

of my tellybox just recently. Merlin, 

of which I never exactly held as a 

paradigm of female empowerment 

anyway (and/or plot), has fared no 

better, dividing its female characters 

squarely into the cover-all 

camps of evil witch and domesticservant-with-breasts, 

both of whom 

are about as useless at getting anything 

done as each other and just as 

lacking in the dialogue department. 

Other channels are providing similar 

cause for concern, with various 

of ITV’s favourite imports, such as 

Gossip Girl and The Vampire Diaries, 

providing us with little more 

than flat-ironed heroines from the 

Bella Swan school of “Stand There 

And Look Aroused At Your Own 

Distress”, whilst Channel 4 has 

Hollyoaks: The Wedding going on 

right now, which I don’t even have 

the strength to address. Meanwhile, 

over on my dubiously-acquired 

American TV channels, even my 

ardent love for Zooey Deschanel 

cannot quite mask the Dirty 

Dancing-obsessed flatness of her 

character Jess in new sitcom, New 

Girl, and the less said about the latest 

season of Glee’s leather-skirted 

attempt to address feminism, the 

better. 

These days, it can hardly be 

denied that TV is our foremost 

medium. Able, simply by virtue of 

its format, to be both more topical 

and more involved than either 

literature or film, it is a means of 

beaming attitudes and opinions 

into our houses daily and weekly, 

whilst reminding us of the broader 

views in the outside world. With 

this in mind, if the women we are 

currently being presented with 

via TV are really the recognised 

norm - the best we can aspire to 

be - then what kind of an outlook 

is that? To put it another way, when 

one’s best friend turns to one over 

a gin-fuelled ‘Made In Chelsea’ 

party and states in tones of mild 

despair that “Caggie’s not so bad. 

She did tell Spencer to shut up that 

one time”, you know your female 

representation has truly slid beyond 

the point of no return. Perhaps it’s 

just me, and yes, I admit that even I 

don’t have time to watch all telly, so 

who knows what shining beacons 

of feminist hope I’m missing on 

Channel Five or Starz (although 

God help us if Camelot is all we 

have to pin our hopes to), but as far 

as I can tell from my own viewing 

proclivities, we’re in dire straits just 

now, my girls. Or at least, we are 

until Miranda comes back. 

And so it was, that I, having sat 

through the last episode of Doctor 

Who with a gently-forming 

rictus on my already decomposing 

Postgrad face, slammed the TV off 

with an air of aggressive mourning 

and sat down with a glass of dodgy 

Merlot and a pile of well-thumbed 

books, to try to remind myself of 

all the fictional female firebrands 

who still existed in another, much 

older medium, and who could most 

certainly show their telly-bound 

sisters a thing or two about getting 

things done. Or, to put it another 

way, I got drunk and wrote another 

lazy list article. 

Because there was a time when 

these girls were what we had to 

aspire to. 

Take notes, telly girls. Take notes. 

Julia’s list of exceptional 

literary heroines and all the 

things they can teach us 

Bertha Mason 

(Jane Eyre): 

So what if he didn’t take proper 

note of your milder eccentricities 

circa your first date? He 

made his choice. He married 

you. Fry the bastard. 

Cassandra 

(The Illiad 

et. Al): 

Nothing says self-belief like 

sticking to your story when the 

entirety of Greek Mythology is 

calling you a liar. 

Matilda 

(Matilda): 

There’s nothing more badass 

than being brainy. 

Hermione 

Granger 

(Harry Potter): 

See above, with knobs on. 

Isabella 

(Measure For 

Measure): 

See above, with aggressive 

Christian knobs on. 

Violet Baudelaire 

(A Series 

of Unfortunate 

Events): 

Keep your hair out of your eyes, 

girls, this is serious. 

Penelope 

(The Odyssey): 

Patience is a virtue. 

Eowen 

(The Lord 

of the Rings): 

One woman truly can do what 

five million men can’t. Namely, 

killing the chief Ring-wraith 

without crying, falling over or 

whining for a loo break. 

Amy Dorrit 

(Little Dorrit): 

No one ever said poverty and 

borderline dwarfism was a reason 

to not get what you want. And 

just by the by, if you do ever 

find yourself of a mind to marry 

someone with a disturbing resemblance 

to your father, you go 

ahead and do it. They’ll remodel 

him as Matthew MacFadyen in 

the TV movie anyway and no one 

will be able to tell. 

Jo March 

(Little Women): 

If you don’t want him, say no. 

Everyone who ever reads your 

story will scream at you for doing 

so, but it’s your life and you 

should be free to save yourself for 

whichever old German dude you 

so choose. But make copies of 

your manuscripts. For God’s sake 

make copies. 

arts@thefounder.co.uk


E X T R A 

11 

Arts & Music 

Book Review: 

China Miéville 

The Scar 

Students battle it 

out to represent 

Royal Holloway in 

Uni Music League 


Tarli Morgan 

Every so often there will come a 

book both good and bad. Good 

because it’s, well, good. Bad because 

after that no other book will do. 

Like a difficult breakup after which 

everything is compared to an 

ex-lover, this book has been my 

personal standard for a ‘good book’ 

ever since I was forced, sighing, to 

close the final page. 

This book is ‘The Scar’ by China 

Miéville. It is the second book of 

the Bas-Lag series, though still a 

standalone book. 

Of course, no book is perfect. At 

times Miéville labours under the 

weight of his own prose. Usually 

beautiful though often flabby, the 

convoluted syntax and thesaurusmunching 

vocabulary can become 

tiring. Most of us enjoy learning 

new words but running back and 

forth between war and a dictionary 

is not ideal. 

Despite these shortcomings, 

however, ‘Tthe Scar’ is a book that 

is engaging and unique. Miéville 

takes the wheezing fantasy genre 

and beats the dust out - the book is 

gritty but not contrived, emotional 

not melodramatic and epic without 

being cliché. Moreover Miéville’s 

naming scheme is, refreshingly, varied 

without feeling like a jumbled 

box of Scrabble pieces. 

Without spoiling the plot, ‘The 

Scar’ is a book about the sea. 

Beginning on a river with a cynical 

heroine, the book evolves into a 

phantasmagoria of locations: a city 

made of boats lashed together is 

the main stage though there are 

glimpses of others such as a subaquatic 

city populated by the ‘Cray’ 

– crayfish-mermaids. 

At times febrile in its intensity, 

at others chilling and solemn, ‘The 

Scar’ challenges fantasy tropes on 

every page. In the world of speculative 

fiction, China Miéville is 

certainly a name to look out for – a 

man with a distinctive voice and 

some powerful stories to tell. 

Three acts from Royal Holloway are 

amongst the 59 from 21 London 

Higher Education institutions battling 

for the first Uni Music League 

prize. Jess Kinney, Elena Mowgli 

and Third Conduct will initially 

compete against each for the chance 

to represent Royal Holloway in this 

music competition. Only one will 

go through to the second league 

stage with a chance of performing 

at the ULU venue in Bloomsbury 

London. The winner of each league 

will compete in a final concert to 

win the main prize of recording a 

3-track EP with Florence + the Machine 

and Kaiser Chief producer, 

Charlie Hugall. 

Singer Songwriter Elena Mowgli 

(real name Elena Barnard) is a first 

year Italian and Spanish student 

who sings to an acoustic guitar 

accompaniment. She says “Having 

had my heart kicked about I wrote 

lots of songs about heartbreak and 

what it’s like to live in my brain... 

Now I’m happy I write slightly happier 

songs” (It’s not clear to which 

category the song on the Uni music 

league website belongs). Elena’s 

been writing songs since the age 

of eleven and performing around 

Egham for the last year. This is her 

first music competition. 

Music undergrad Jess Kinney is 

another singer songwriter, with a 

piano accompanying her soprano 

voice (or is it alto? Jess would 

know). “I like to try my hand at all 

sorts of music,” says Jess. “From 

rock to baroque. I write my own 

songs as well as doing various covers.” 

York rock band, Third Conduct, 

consists of third year Psychology 

undergraduate Sarah Feehan (bass, 

keys, lead vocals) and her two 

sisters, Hannah (guitar, vocals) and 

Kate (drums. vocals). They’ve been 

a band since 2003, have done well 

in a number of other music competitions, 

gig regularly and supported 

the Wombats in 2007. 

The Uni Music League was 

The league winner will record a demo with Charlie Hugall who has 

produced for Florence and the Machine and the Kaiser Chiefs 

started by recent graduates Karol 

Severin and Daniel Zawadzki 

of Fatter Lane Productions, in 

partnership with ULU, to give 

musicians studying at university 

an opportunity to break through 

with their original music. “Our aim 

is to support healthy competition 

between universities in areas other 

than academics or sport. We also 

want to encourage universities to 

support their student talent to bring 

out their best in music.” 

The contest consists of three 

rounds. The, first, local round from 

now until December, will involve 

Jess, Elena and Third Conduct 

competing against each other with 

original songs (covering songs by 

other artists is banned). You can listen 

to one of their tracks online and 

will soon be able to vote for the act 

that should represent the university 

at the League stage either online or 

at a special gig to be organised by 

SURHUL. 

The League stage, from January 

to April, will feature only one Royal 

Holloway act in a league with other 

universities and compete against 

each other at the ULU venue. The 

winner of each league is decided 

through public online voting. 

The final takes place later in 2012 

and is again decided by a public 

vote at www.unimusiccontest.com


E X T R A 

Live review: 

Music 

Album review: 

Tom Waits 

Bad As Me 

Rosie Turner 

Labrinth 

SURHUL 

30 September 

Despite the wait to get in and the 

even longer wait for Labrinth to 

appear on stage, the crowd were not 

left disappointed as he delivered 

well-known hits such as ‘Let The 

Sun Shine’, ‘Pass Out’ and ‘Frisky’ 

with passion and gusto. Initially 

warmed up by the SU’s resident 

DJ and a ready supply of cheap 

drinks, the audience made it clear 

they were ready to be entertained, 

and greeted Labrinth enthusiastically 

as he made his way on stage 

to perform a mixture of well-loved 

songs and new material coupled 

with dubstep remixes of other artist’s 

work. 

Londoner Labrinth (a.k.a. 

Timothy McKenzie) became the 

first non-talent show artist to be 

signed to Simon Cowell’s label Syco 

in six years, and has since risen to 

fame through both his own solo 

work and collaborations with Tinie 

Tempah and Professor Green; he 

has also worked with other artists 

on lyrics and songwriting, including 

Pixie Lott and JLS. His debut 

single “Let The Sun Shine” reached 

number three in 2010. Although 

Labrinth was first and foremost a 

producer, Cowell marked him out 

as a singer from the beginning of 

his career and signed him to his 

label as a performing artist in his 

own right. 

If Labrinth’s performance can be 

measured in terms of the crowd’s 

response then it is beyond doubt 

that the crowd was hooked on his 

trance-pop beats and infectiously 

catchy lyrics. Labrinth’s shout of “I 

love you Royal Holloway!” was met 

with a barrage of noise and thunderous 

applause as the audience 

showed their appreciation for his 

performance, demonstrating that 

despite the limited amount of time 

he spent on stage, a thoroughly 

enjoyable night was had by all. 


Back in 1985, Sounds (like NME 

but far better) reviewed Waits’s 

Rain Dogs. The standout claim was 

that Keith Richards, who played on 

several tracks, was playing with the 

best band in the world. I, therefore, 

bought the album – and hated it. It 

was my introduction to Tom Waits. 

It was not until I happened to 

hear Paul Young’s cover of Waits’s 

‘Soldier’s Things’ a year later which 

Waits had originally recorded for 

Swordfishtrombones that I gave 

Rain Dogs another chance. The 

latter is now one of my favourite 

albums, whilst the former is the 

album I would have recommended 

as an introduction to Tom Waits – 

until now. 

Bad As Me, Waits’s first album 

of new songs since 2004s excellent 

but difficult Real Gone, is probably 

as commercial an album as Waits 

has released since the early 80s. 

Richards rejoins Waits, his regular 

guitarist Marc Ribot and bassist 

Larry Taylor on four tracks, one 

of which, ‘Satisfied’, is a response 

to Richards and Mick Jaggers own 

‘Satisfaction’ (“My ass, you can’t get 

no satisfaction”). 

The album as a whole spans many 

of the styles that Waits has adopted 

over his 40-year career, and does so 

in 13 roughly three-minute tracks. 

‘Kiss me’ is one of the most beautiful 

love songs ever recorded, and 

is recorded with minimal guitar, 

piano and bass accompaniment 

in the style of his 70s classic ‘Blue 

Valentine.’ ‘Hell Broke Luce’ is a 

percussiony, handclapping chant 

common of his later recordings, 

with pithy couplets (“Big fucking 

ditches in the middle of the road/ 

you pay a hundred dollars just for 

filling in the holes”). Best of all is 

the title track which combines the 

dramatic twangy guitar with Waits’s 

most dangerously wailing voice and 

his sharp, surreal but non-judgemental 

observations. 

Not his best record perhaps, but 

the finest album you’ll hear this 

year.


E X T R A 

13 

Music 

In other news... 


Live review: 

Patrick Wolf 

Alexander Babahmadi 

Sala Penelope, 

Madrid 

15 October 

Going to a concert is always a 

beautiful experience. One can even 

find the beauty in the grottiest and 

dingiest places in Camden. Patrick 

Wolf ’s concert in Madrid was very 

different but nonetheless beautiful. 

The venue, Sala Penelope, has a 

unique vibe. Usually, concert venues 

are dark places where the focus 

is on the stage but ‘Sala Penelope,’ 

reverses that. As I walked in the 

light and airy venue, pumping out 

classical French music, I knew we 

were in for a beautiful intimate 

show. Seeing your favourite British 

artist abroad will always be better 

than seeing them at home. Not only 

are the venues cleaner and nicer, 

they’re smaller and will always provide 

a more intimate show. 

Patrick emerged from the fog 

a la Stars in their Eyes, sporting 

a sparkly red velvet number and 

without an introduction launched 

into ‘House,’ the second track on 

his newest album, Lupercalia. The 

crowd stood silently appreciating 

his classically trained voice. Not 

only does he have incredible stage 

presence but is skilled in a variety 

of instruments. Wolf would play 

a more mellow song then balance 

them out with his fast-paced 

anthems - ‘Bloodbeat’ balances 

‘Who Will,’ a beautiful melancholic 

song from his album, ‘The Bachelor.’ 

When the intro to ‘Bloodbeat,’ 

erupted from the speakers, 

the crowd changed. From being a 

respectable crowd of late twentysomethings, 

they turned into a pack 

of hyenas, screaming and dancing 

and singing along to the song. 

Wolf disappeared for a bit whilst 

a hybrid of the intros to ‘Accident 

& Emergency’ and ‘Magic Position,’ 

started to emanate from the 

speakers. As the crowd got riled up, 

he appeared dressed in a cow-patterned 

all-in-one and played his last 

three anthems to the roaring crowd. 

After ending the set with, ‘The City,’ 

and modifying the lyrics to suit 

Madrid, he left the stage triumphant 

knowing he had conquered 

another city on his ridiculously 

long tour. 

Stone Roses are to reunite to 

perform two gigs in Manchester’s 

Heaton Park on 29 and 30 June 

before embarking on a world tour. 

Ian Brown and John Squire have 

patched up their differences and 

joined drummer Reni and bassist 

Mani to reform the band. They have 

been in the studio together and 

there are rumours of a new album. 

They would probably forge an even 

tighter bond, one of joint rage, if 

I suggested that this is the biggest 

Manchester music reunion after 

Take That, so I won’t. 

Radiohead announced that 

they were finally going to tour the 

King of Limbs album. Guitarist Ed 

O’Brien told BBC 6Music that the 

delay was due to the fact that the 

album was totally studio conceived 

and it took the band a while to figure 

out how to play it live. The good 

news is that the tour, from February 

to November next year, will mostly 

be in indoor venues. The potentially 

bad news is that the band will 

mostly focus on playing the songs 

from their last album and its predecessor, 

In Rainbows, at the expense 

of the rest of their repertoire. In 

the meantime, Radiohead will be 

back in the studio in December 

and January to start work on a new 

album. 

Soul singer Syl Johnson is suing 

Jay Z and Kanye West for the alleged 

illegal sampling of his song 

‘Different Strokes’ on their recent 

album Watch the Throne. Johnson 

has experience of this kind of 

thing having sued Michael Jackson 

and Cyprus Hill, among others, 

for similar offences with varying 

degrees of success. 

Morrissey is also suing, in his 

case the NME and its former editor, 

for libel. Morrissey claims that an 

interview published in November 

2007 was defamatory and portrayed 

him as a racist. He is not, however, 

understood to be suing the Guardian 

or poet Simon Armitage who 

interviewed him last year, for quoting 

him as saying, “Did you see the 

thing on the news about [Chinese] 

treatment of animals and animal 

welfare? Absolutely horrific. You 

can’t help but feel that the Chinese 

are a subspecies.” 

And, at the time of writing, 

Steps are at number 1 in the album 

charts! They will hopefully have 

been overtaken by Evanescence’s 

eponymous third album by the 

time you read this (oops, or Noel 

Gallagher).


E X T R A 

Album review: 

Noel Gallagher 

High Flying Birds 

Music 

Guy Ferrett 

Silence, talking, random noises, or 

coughing as intro to an album is 

not arty or clever and we as a fan 

base tolerate it but don’t enjoy it. 

Please stop doing this! Once this 

stupidity is out of the way the opening 

track ‘Everybody’s On The Run’ 

actually has something so say.... I’m 

Back! This demonstrates his “vocal 

ability” as best it can with a good 

backing beat and memorable lyrics. 

This is followed by ‘Dream On’ and 

‘If I Had A Gun...’ which are two of 

the weaker tracks on the album. ‘If 

I Had A Gun...’ is a nice ballad but 

easily forgettable and Noel’s lack of 

singing range really shows through 

on the higher notes. 

‘The Death Of You And Me’ is a 

clear highlight of the album and is 

the kind of song that suits Noel’s 

voice perfectly, mostly chorus 

with some nice brass accompaniment 

and a jangly tune. With the 

rest of the album he experiments 

with different tempos and genres 

to some surprisingly good results. 

‘AKA...What A Life’ has beats almost 

bordering on slow dance and 

‘Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks’ has 

an opening riff reminiscent of The 

Kinks. 

The album as a whole is very chorus 

based and lyrically catchy, just 

like Oasis; is very ‘Britpopy’, just 

like Oasis; and has very simple and 

paced guitars, just like Oasis. As the 

creative force behind Oasis you can 

understand why it’s just like Oasis; 

only now Noel gets to be the centre 

of attention and is off the leash, 

both musically and literally. This 

album is definitely not a ‘Definitely 

Maybe’, but it’s nice to listen to, if 

not slightly forgettable. I do get the 

feeling that this may be the best 

we’re going to get from Noel Gallagher 

and his High Flying Birds. 

Album review: 

James Morrison 

The Awakening 

Matt La Faci 

Album review: 

Feist 

Metals 

Coming straight out of left field 

and in a move that is likely to 

alienate his entire fan base, James 

Morrison has for his third album 

The Awakening, recorded a titanic 

dubstep behemoth that would make 

Skrillex or Nero blush. Discarding 

his trademark whisky gravelled 

vocals and acoustic guitar, Morrison 

has released an album designed 

to liquefy brains and tear down 

clubs… Oh no wait. Yeah, no, 

James Morrison has actually just 

released a James Morrison album, 

my mistake. 

Housewives second favourite 

floppy-haired singer songwriter 

(Next to Sir James Blunt), Morrison 

did not make things easy 

for himself when he released his 

debut single ‘You Give Me Something’ 

way back in 2006. Trying 

to surmount a song that good 

would be a challenge for anyone 

and whilst there are moments on 

The Awakening where he comes 

close - opener ‘In my Dreams’ and 

closer ‘One Life’ are both lovingly 

crafted pop songs - there isn’t a 

moment that transcends the middle 

ground that Morrison has treaded 

since releasing his duet with Nelly 

Furtado ‘Broken Strings’. The album 

also finds Morrison wearing his 

influences squarely on his sleeve, 

tracks such as ‘Slave to the music’ 

and ‘Beautiful Life’ find him doing 

his best Michael Jackson and Stevie 

Wonder impersonations and the 

song ‘Forever’ has him sounding 

curiously similar to Cee Lo Green. 

However hard he tries to channels 

these artists, he is let down by a 

set of songs that lack any tangible 

emotion, an odd occurrence given 

the passing of his father and birth 

of his child that took place before 

the recording of the album. This 

is exemplified in the track ‘Up’, 

where the effects laden voice of 

Jessie J sweeps in to remove the last 

drops of sincerity from an already 

emotionless song. To summate, 

only purchase this album if you are 

a diehard fan – for a more earnest 

account of contemporary soul look 

up a man called Michael Kiwanuka, 

you won’t be disappointed. 


Metals, is Leslie Feist’s first album 

since The Reminder four years ago. 

To start negatively, lead single 

‘How Come You Never Go There’ 

and ‘Bittersweet Melodies’ are 

pleasant enough, but it is only the 

rhythms that stay in the mind long 

after the unremarkable lyrics and 

dull tunes have fizzled out in both 

cases. Even worse is ‘The Circle 

That Married the Line,’ a countryish 

ballad with forgettable, well 

everything. 

Those duff notes aside, the album 

opener ‘The Bad In Each Other’ 

is typical of the strengths of the 

album, strong percussion rhythms, 

melody that is both dramatic but 

suits a lyric that is more obviously 

bittersweet than in the track with 

‘bittersweet’ in its title. ‘Graveyard’ 

is less bittersweet than death-life – 

that may not even be a word, but it 

was it would describe a lyric such 

as “The graveyard, the graveyard 

all full of light.” and others in that 

song. 

The album’s two standout tracks 

are ‘A Commotion’ and ‘Comfort 

Me.’ The insistent one-note piano 

opening of the former, along with 

the lyrics (“It stalked through the 

rooms/And then it tore the sheets 

off the bed”) and chanting of the 

title gives the impression of fear 

before all is revealed (“If it rips you 

all apart, the grudge has still got 

your heart”) as the after effects of 

an emotional trauma. The bluesy 

‘Comfort Me’ starts with a contradictorily 

powerful lyric “When 

you comfort me/And doesn’t bring 

me comfort actually/When you 

comfort me” and then continues in 

haiku-like verses throughout (well, 

she calls them haikus – only in a 

very loose sense of that format) 

accompanied by a childishly but 

misleadingly sweet melody. 

Metals doesn’t have any songs as 

catchy as the iPod-nano advertising 

-‘1234’ or the utterly classy ‘My 

Moon My Man,’ from The Reminder, 

but overall it’s a more even 

album than its predecessor.


E X T R A 

15 

Film 

Review: 

Midnight in Paris 

Zlatina Nikolova 

**** 

Woody Allen’s new film Midnight 

in Paris, which screened at the 2011 

Cannes Film Festival (his second 

film to be given this honour after 

Hollywood Ending), introduces 

Gil (Owen Wilson), a Hollywood 

screenwriter who has now decided 

to give ‘real’ literature a try. 

However, as he roams Paris with 

his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) 

and know-all Paul, hoping for 

inspiration to dawn on him, he feels 

the need to escape the pretence 

of the pseudo-intellectuals he is 

surrounded by and suddenly finds 

himself partying with his idols, 

amongst whom are F. Scott Fitzgerald 

and Hemingway. 

The dialogue is full of references, 

a result of Mr Allen’s sharp wit, 

which we have witnessed in many 

of his previous films but this time 

it seems that all of his references 

come to life over the course of the 

film, taking the shape of icons of 

the 1920s - Gil’s idea of Paris, where 

meeting those you aspire to is possible 

just like in The Purple Rose of 

Cairo (1985). All of these symbolic 

figures are presented to us by no 

less known faces - Tom Hiddleston 

as Scott Fitzgerald and Allison Pill 

as Zelda Fitzgerald, Kathy Bates as 

Gertrude Stein, Adrian Brody as 

Salvador Dali, Marion Cotillard as 

Adriana, the muse of a very famous 

painter, whose name we shall not 

reveal in order to preserve some of 

the mystery of the plot, all flicker 

through the screen to portray the 

script’s constant allusions. 

Owen Wilson delivers his jokes 

quickly enough, keeping up with 

the rhythm of the comedy but is 

a slightly toned-down version of 

what could have been the director 

himself. He lacks the neuroticism 

that Allen’s bespectacled persona 

added to characters, making them 

so charming to the audience. Michael 

Sheen’s Paul is similar to that 

of Alan Alda’s Lester (Crimes and 

Misdemeanors) in that he annoys 

Gil with his dubious knowledge 

about French culture, art, architecture 

and everything else while 

impressing everyone and especially 

Gil’s bride-to-be Inez. 

Ultimately, Allen’s new film 

doesn’t present anything we didn’t 

expect from its writer/director 

other than an elegant addition to 

his previous work. Midnight in 

Paris strikes as the director’s attempt 

to indulge everyone’s desire 

to be magically transported to their 

own Golden Era and meet their 

idols, eventually leading to the 

realisation that one should stay in 

the space-time continuum in which 

he belongs.


E X T R A 

Film 

Love 

struck... 

Studying for that exam in Bedford library, running for a lecture in 

the Windsor building, grabbing a coffee in Café Jules or sipping 

a cocktail in Medicine...love can strike at anytime at Royal 

Holloway. Email lovestruck@thefounder.co.uk and tell me a little 

bit about the gorgeous girl or super-hot guy who you just can’t 

stop thinking about since your chance encounter about campus. 

Let me play cupid and help you find your true love...or crush! 

Review: 

Abduction 

Yazmin Joy Vigus 

* 

Directed by John Singleton (Boyz n 

the Hood), the story is about teenager 

Nathan (Taylor Lautner), who 

realises that his parents aren’t his 

real parents when he recognises his 

own face on a missing persons website. 

Boom! Next thing we know 

a Russian terrorist has planted 

a bomb in his oven, murdered 

his fake parents and he is being 

chased by the FBI. He is suddenly 

metamorphosised into a teen Tom 

Cruise. I wish. 

The biggest problem with Abduction 

is that it assumes its target 

teen audience are a bunch of idiots. 

Instead of the plot being a woven 

tapestry of suspense, intrigue and 

intelligence every situation seems 

to happen out pure convenience 

for the story. Written by newcomer 

Shawn Christensen, the script is 

plagued with cliché after cliché. 

Let me put this into context. 

Nathan and Karen (his love-interest 

played by Lilly Collins) are trying 

to cross a river without being 

detected by the FBI helicopters that 

are rapidly closing in. There is a 

very brief moment of tension when 

we think all is lost as the couple 

look hopelessly at the vast expanse 

of open river that leaves no place 

for them to hide... game over right? 

Wrong. Lucky for them a big pile of 

floating logs conveniently bobs past 

just at the right moment and shields 

them from view. Phew! 

The film’s casting was a tad questionable. 

Although it seemed logical 

after the success of the Twilight 

Saga that Lautner should headline 

as the leading star in his own 

movie, the rest of the cast, although 

talented, are painfully misplaced 

within the film. The premise is 

based on identity, but how this 

dark, chiselled, smouldering Latino 

looking teenage guy, manages to 

live seventeen years without noticing 

that his fair, Caucasian parents 

look nothing like him is just inconceivable. 

If we can’t count on the 

hero to pick up on this, how can we 

realistically expect him to defeat a 

terrorist group and outwit the FBI? 

Then there is the disappointing 

lack of chemistry between the two 

young leads, Lautner and Collins. 

Lots of doe-eyed locker lingering 

and implied sexual tension. 

(Munch munch munch... this was 

the point I dived into my popcorn!) 

Every encounter felt contrived and 

predictable. And if there was any 

chemistry it was shunted by the 

clunky, cringe-tastic dialogue. 

Acting legend Sigourney Weaver 

surely can’t be this desperate. Although 

I do believe she is well cast 

as an ass-kicking matriarchal psychologist 

it is difficult to decipher 

why she found the character of Dr 

Bennett appealing. There is a hilarious 

moment when she turns up in 

the middle of the night at a hospital 

to save Nathan from the bad guys 

with half a dozen balloons. Bal- 

loons? Despite being against the 

clock I am very surprised she had 

time to find a gift shop after dark. 

Unless she had already bought the 

balloons for a sick relative but had 

not delivered them yet. Yes, the 

teen audience will certainly invent a 

justification, nawwwwt! 

Koslow, the movie’s resident Russian 

bad guy is played by Swedish 

star Michael Nyqvist (The Girl with 

the Dragon Tatoo). A Russian villain... 

not that old chestnut. There 

seems to be no valid reason why the 

Russians got involved in this movie 

except for the fact that the writer 

thought they seemed like a convincing 

scapegoat. 

Despite casting, plot and dialogue 

the film’s pacing keeps the 

audience engaged. I was appalled 

yet mildly entertained. Despite the 

issues I have mentioned above, the 

film had the swagger of a decent 

blockbuster; fast car chase scenes, 

big explosions, Lautner in leather, 

star studded cast. 

I think the biggest mistake the 

production makes is selling this 

film as an action thriller. If the 

big cheeses at Lionsgate had only 

re-defined Abduction as a slap stick 

comedy I am pretty sure it would 

have broke even in its opening 

weekend. The biggest joke lies in 

the fact that although the movie is 

called Abduction at no point does 

anyone get abducted. Hilarious. 

Yazmin Joy Vigus’ blog can be 

found at aliljoy.com 

Pretty blonde girl in the 

black and white Converse 

kicking some guy in the groin 

outside Imagine for “giving 

her an objectifying look”. You 

really made that high kick 

look gorgeous. And I say that 

in the least objectifying way 

possible. Date sometime? 

I’LL WEAR A CUP 

To the manic-eyed girl I went 

home with after Friday night 

SU. I’m going as you for Halloween. 

You were that scary. 

Please never contact me 

again. 

GUY WHO’S JUST HAPPY 

TO HAVE GOT OUT ALIVE 

You: Dark-eyed guy with the 

buzzcut cutting across the 

football fields by Gowar 

after last orders at Stumble. 

Me: Chilly girl with no coat 

who asked you for a cigarette. 

Drinks and cigarettes in a 

less freezing environment? 

RED-HEADED SMOKER 

Dark-haired, porcelainskinned 

History girl; please 

change courses immediately 

to French Single Honours so 

I never have to direct you 

away from my general presence 

ever again. The floral 

pattern on your bra was 

frankly exquisite. 

BESPECTACLED BROWN- 

HAIRED HORTICULTURALIST 

To the random strangers from 

the Runnymede ground floor 

flat who dragged me inside 

on my walk home for an 

impromptu Thursday night 

party because I looked, and I 

quote, “stressual”. Not that I 

didn’t appreciate the camaraderie, 

but I’m never taking 

that route home again. You 

guys drink like immortals 

CURLY-HAIRED GUY WITH A 

HEADACHE 

You were the beautiful Asian 

girl drinking coffee in Café 

Jules and reading Captain 

Corelli’s Mandolin. I had the 

same book in my bag, but it 

just seemed like too clichéd 

a conversation-starter at the 

time. Book date some time? 

TALL BLONDE GUY WITH 

GLASSES 

You were the girl I met at 

Liquid in Windsor who kept 

telling me you were so drunk 

you felt like a meatball sub. 

I went and bought you one 

and you told me you’d meant 

you felt like you were a 

meatball sub, but that you 

appreciated the effort. I feel 

there might be more to this 

relationship. 

DRINK AND A HALF-EATEN 

MEATBALL SUB? 

lovestruck@thefounder.co.uk


17 

Ancient music books accessible to all 

Fragile treasures of 16th Century music 

are now freely available online, thanks 

to a partnership between Royal Holloway, 

University of London, the British 

Library and JISC. 

The Early Music Online project has 

digitised more than 300 books of the 

world’s earliest printed music from 

holdings at the British Library. Some of 

the books date back as far as the 1500s 

and, due to their fragile nature, would 

not be freely available to researchers, 

but thanks to this digitization project, 

musicians from around the world can 

now source the original music free of 

charge using the Early Music Online 

website. 

Highlights of the collection include 

church music by the Flemish composer 

Josquin des Prez and the English 

musicians Thomas Tallis and William 

Byrd; drinking-songs from Nuremberg 

and love-songs from Lyon; lute music 

from Venice and organ music from 

Leipzig. 

Dr Stephen Rose, from the Department 

of Music at Royal Holloway, said: 

“This is an invaluable resource for any 

musician as it offers many insights into 

how these early works were originally 

sung and played. For the first time, 

musicians now have immediate access 

to more than 9,000 individual compositions.” 

Dr Sandra Tuppen, from the British 

Library, added: “It’s wonderful to be 

able to share such fantastic musical 

treasures at the click of a button and 

make the works available to anyone in 

the world.” 

Dr Rose explained that the British 

Library had worked with the College’s 

music department on previous 

database projects and they were keen 

to make use of the College’s expertise 

again. 

The project was funded by JISC, the 

UK’s technology consortium for higher 

and further education. 

Paola Marchionni, programme 

manager at JISC, said: “The project 

has put great effort in opening up the 

background information, or metadata, 

behind the individual pieces of music, 

thus ensuring that researchers can 

more easily discover these internationally 

significant compositions.” 

iPhones revolutionise scientific research 

Researchers have tapped into smartphone 

technology to carry out psychological 

experiments, allowing them 

access to millions of participants at the 

touch of a button. 

Instead of bringing people into 

laboratories to study the internal 

mental processes involved in how 

humans remember, think, speak, and 

solve problems, researchers from 

Royal Holloway, University of London 

joined an international team to launch 

an iPhone / iPad app that people can 

download for free in seven languages 

as part of the biggest international 

experiment of its kind. 

With the number of iPhone users 

worldwide expected to exceed one 

billion by 2013 the researchers wanted 

to find out if they were able to utilise 

this market to revolutionise research in 

cognitive science. 

The scientists used an original 

lab-based experiment and adapted it 

for use on an iPhone. The results are 

published in the journal PLoS One. 

Professor Kathy Rastle, from the 

Department of Psychology at Royal 

Holloway, explains: “We wanted to find 

out if we could harness the precision 

of these mini computers to conduct 

experiments on a global scale that 

involve unprecedented numbers of 

participants. Results collected so far 

are strikingly similar to those obtained 

in laboratory conditions, demonstrating 

the potential for capitalising on 

this technology in the future.” 

She added: “It could change the way 

research is conducted because it allows 

us to access vast numbers of individuals 

from a range of demographics 

relatively inexpensively. We managed 

to test almost 5,000 participants in a 

period of three months, which would 

have taken years in a lab and incurred 

very substantial costs.” 

The app, called the ‘Science XL: Test 

your word power’, tests the participants 

word power by asking them to 

decide whether each word presented 

is a real word or a non-word. The 

application measures accuracy and 

importantly the time taken to make 

such decisions, i.e reaction time. 

This task has historically provided 

considerable insight into the cognitive 

processes involved in skilled reading 

as well as reading impairments such as 

dyslexia, through measuring millisecond-level 

response time and accuracy 

in deciding if a letter string is a word 

or not. 

The app is free to download from 

iTunes AppStore (search for “Science 

XL”) and is non-profit making. 

Student Internships at Mercedes-Benz 

Royal Holloway, University of London 

is partnering with Mercedes-Benz Driving 

Academy to offer students internships 

to help them stand out in the job 

market once they graduate. 

Mark Gould, a Psychology postgraduate 

student became the first 

to benefit from the new internship 

programme and will begin his placement 

next month at their offices based 

in Weybridge. 

He said: “I’m delighted to have 

been offered this opportunity with 

Mercedes-Benz Driving Academy and 

am looking forward to testing my 

research skills within an applied driving 

environment. I feel that the PhD 

program in Psychology here at Royal 

Holloway has enabled me to gain the 

skills and confidence necessary to fulfil 

this position and in the long-term I 

am hoping that this internship will 

assist my transition from academia to 

employment in industry. “ 

The new scheme has been championed 

by the School of Management 

and the College’s Recruitment and 

Outreach Team and is part of a broader 

policy to strengthen links and develop 

lasting partnerships with the business 

community. Internships offer students 

at Royal Holloway a unique environment 

to learn about the world of work, 

acquire new skills and knowledge and 

provide an opportunity for businesses 

to invest in the employees of tomorrow. 

Nick Sanders, Mercedes-Benz Driving 

Academy Program Manager, said: 

“We are delighted to establish formal 

links with Royal Holloway. We very 

much look forward to working with 

Mark and I’m sure this will be the first 

of many projects.”


tf 

Comment 

Sarah Honeycombe: Yes we ComCam 

Sarah Honeycombe 

SURHUL Vice President 

(Communications 

& Campaigns) 

Sarah speaking at the five hour GM 

I thought that, as I have now completed 

my degree, I would no longer 

have the last minute deadline rush 

and that horrible, stomach-turning 

realisation that there are too many 

things that need doing and not 

enough time to do them in. 

How fabulously naive I was. 

I have spent the last few weeks in 

a ridiculous haze of rushing to plan 

campaigning weeks, running in and 

out of meetings, running in an election 

and, somewhat memorably, 

lobbying outside the Management 

Building in a toga. 

All interspersed with having 

quiet giggles at SU Corner in this 

very publication, which parodied 

officer blogs rather well in the last 

issue – even if I do say so myself. 

It’s been a rather hectic time 

– College’s proposals regarding 

our academic departments 

have changed fairly significantly, 

prompting the Students’ Union to 

organise our first lobby of College 

Council. Cue lots of people in bed 

sheets gathering outside of the 

Management Building we so proudly 

watched grow. It was rather cold 

but appears to have been worth it, 

as we stopped and spoke to most 

of College Council and pointed out 

just how little consultation there 

had been. 

One World Week, by the time 

you are reading this, will have 

kicked off. We’ve got film nights, 

a club night in Medicine, International 

Evening, the Study Abroad 

Fair and our Critical Debate (How 

to fight the far Right) as well as a 

whole lot more. It should be a really 

interesting set of events, so have a 

look around campus for our posters 

and leaflets and on our website 

(www.su.rhul.ac.uk) for the full 

schedule. 

Whilst I have not had the privilege 

of seeing this issue before it 

goes to print, I can only assume 

that somewhere in these pages 

there is a highly critical comment 

on our General Meeting. Yes…it 

actually did last five hours. Yes, this 

is altogether too long. However, 

in our defence, not only did the 

Union Chair wear a rather fetching 

shirt, we also elected more 

than 50 people to the committees 

and senates that will be running 

everything from events to sports to 

campaigns for the next 8 months. 

I can absolutely promise that the 

next one will be shorter – though 

you will have to rock up to the SU 

Main Hall at 6:30pm (with ID!) on 

November 8th to see if I’m proved 

right. If the thought of procedural 

motions doesn’t float your boat, I 

should point out the bar is open for 

the duration… 

It hardly seems fair to mention 

November 8th without mentioning 

the day that comes immediately 

after. As many of you will be aware, 

November 9th 2011 has officially 

been designated “Demo Day.” The 

Students’ Union is supporting the 

demo, as is ULU and the NUS and 

we’re planning on going down to 

protest against the White Paper 

and the Government’s response to a 

perceived crisis in education. We’ll 

be taking coaches to and from the 

demo and will be working to make 

sure that all of our students who 

come are safe. Once again, head to 

our website (or “like” us on facebook.com/SURHUL) 

for the latest 

information. 

Union elections have been and 

gone and were really successful – 

though I guess I would say that, 

as I did successfully run in one of 

them... We now have a full Exec as 

well as a First Year Representative 

and a full team of NUS Delegates so 

SURHUL’s ready to go. If you have 

Union Chair Joe Rayment. Photos: Joshua Staines 

things you think we aren’t doing, 

don’t just constrain your comments 

to articles in The Founder or chats 

on Facebook – tell us. I can’t change 

things if you don’t tell me what you 

want me to look at. 

SURHUL started the year with a 

bang, and we started as we mean to 

go on. 

This year’s only just beginning, 

so bring on 2011-2012. Best year at 

Holloway so far? I hope so.


19 

SURHUL sabbatical officers’ respond 

to last edition’s ‘GM Watch’ 

Katie Blow 


(Education & Welfare) 

Hi there. 

As your Vice President of Education 

& Welfare I felt I should clear 

up some of the confusion regarding 

the new sponsorship policy. Now, 

I am not ever going to tell students 

not visit another venue or nightclub 

in the local area or further afield 

- that would be stupid and would 

make me a massive hypocrite as I 

personally I love Liquid even if professionally 

I can’t. Why then (I hear 

you cry) can’t we just allow you to 

get sponsorship from any and every 

pub, club and drinking establishment 

in the Surrey county? You get 

cheap nights out and sponsorship & 

the aforementioned business gets a 

regular custom - surely that makes 

sense?! 

Unfortunately it is not ever 

that simple, aside from them being 

rivals to the Lovely SU, as a 

welfare sabbatical I have a duty 

of care to each and every one of 

you which basically means I am a 

single mother to over 8500 students 

(remember to use a condom everyone!). 

This also means that if your 

team/club/society/production etc. 

are sponsored by a nightclub called 

say ‘Highlighter’ and they have 

really cheap drink deals, no welfare 

provisions and little consideration 

to get you anything but really, really 

drunk and then heaven forbid if 

something terrible happens to you 

during your weekly social there.. I’ll 

have to answer questions to you/ 

the college/parents and local press 

about why we felt this establishment 

behaviour was appropriate 

& why we’ve allowed SURHUL 

representatives (which you would 

be if you went as a team social) to 

be sponsored by such a place. By 

saying yes to sponsorship deals 

we are saying yes to the nightclub 

chain attitude of not caring where 

you end up and this is something 

that as your mother, I cannot do. 

And yes, the SU is a bar and 

yes a nightclub too and yes we do 

sell alcohol and encourage people 

to have a good time. But we also 

provided welfare services alongside 

that, we have the SSHH bus to take 

“ 

Should we allow one of them to be sponsored 

by a nightclub whose primary concern is 

profiteering then we are by association saying 

that we endorse and fully support our students 

being targeted by these organisations who 

will not, and do not, care what effect their 

profiteering has on students – whether that is 

their health, well-being, or their degree. 

you home to your door for a pound 

(£20 for an annual pass), water 

warriors were out in force during 

Freshers and now Club Mission 

who are based inside and outside 

the SU on nights out, we also don’t 

have ridiculous drinks deals - the 

drinks are cheaper this year but 

it’s the soft drinks that have gone 

down, not the alcohol encouraging 

people to dilute their drinks 

and provide non-drinkers with a 

cheaper alternative! Also if you are 

a regular who often gets asked to 

leave for drinking too much, maybe 

you’re consistently vomming due to 

too much booze or falling asleep on 

the dancefloor. You are likely to get 

an email or meeting request from 

myself or Tina to double check that 

everything is okay and that you’re 

aware of the harm excessive drinking 

can bring. 

I am sorry if I sound like a party 

pooper, I know the new Venue 

Managers regularly think I am, 

but really I am just looking out for 

you. If heaven forbid one of you 

were to be raped or attacked as you 

stumbled around trying to find a 

way home or choked on your sick 

in a hedge - no money, no matter 

how much you were being given for 

your team, would make up for that. 

And that’s a risk as your Welfare 

Sabb and surrogate mother I am 

never willing to take. 

If you’re partying hard make sure 

you’re playing safe. 

Jake Wells 


(Student Activities) 

As the proposer of the policy I feel 

that your readers, and the students 

who weren’t present at the General 

Meeting, deserve to have explained 

to them the rationale behind the 

decisions taken in writing the 

policy. 

Firstly, the reason that Liquid was 

specifically targeted was due to its 

proximity to campus and the issues 

which there has been surrounding 

Liquid in the past but as the wording 

in the policy itself details, this 

is extended to all nightclubs as well 

as pubs which aren’t part of the Pub 

Watch scheme. This policy is not 

aimed at being ‘anti-Liquid’, nor are 

we trying to stop students from going 

to Liquid as we frequently visit 

it ourselves! 

David’s article raised the viewpoints 

that as students go to Liquid 

anyway; shouldn’t their clubs try 

to make some money out of it? As 

VPSA I wholly endorse and support 

our clubs and societies seeking 

sponsorship so they can fund 

themselves better in these times 

of austerity when we don’t have as 

much money to give them. However, 

it is important to remember 

that our clubs and societies are part 

of SURHUL and as such are representatives 

of SURHUL. Should we 

allow one of them to be sponsored 

by a nightclub whose primary concern 

is profiteering then we are by 

association saying that we endorse 

and fully support our students being 

targeted by these organisations 

who will not, and do not, care what 

effect their profiteering has on students 

– whether that is their health, 

well-being, or their degree. 

The second area which David 

seemed to contest in his article was 

the decision surrounding commercial 

leisure organisations. As 

he correctly ascertained the Sports 

Centre which we have here at Royal 

Holloway is not run by the Students’ 

Union; so why should we be 

concerned if our sports teams are 

sponsored by other providers of 

this service? 

There is very good reason for why 

we strive to maintain a good working 

relationship with the Sports 

Centre, and will always continue to 

do so. The Sports Centre provide us 

with pitches, facilities (both indoor 

and out), and ground staff without 

charging us for using any of them. 

If we have any of our sports teams 

sponsored by these commercial 

leisure providers then it is a safe 

assumption to make that part of 

any deal will involve the club using 

their facilities as their gym rather 

than the one on campus. This 

would mean that the Sports Centre 

would be facing a fairly severe loss 

” 

of revenue, and would probably 

lead to us being charged by the 

Sports Centre for all the fantastic 

services which we currently get for 

free. As a result our clubs would be 

facing a much higher running cost, 

one which wouldn’t begin to be 

covered by any sponsorship which 

they had managed to obtain. 

As a simply logistical point of 

view, the claim that this has “added 

some red tape to the process of 

getting clubs and societies sponsorship” 

stands to be refuted and disputed. 

Clubs and societies already 

had to draw up a contract with the 

external party who was sponsoring 

them. This hasn’t been added as a 

burden on those seeking sponsorship, 

rather it is there to protect 

and safeguard those who enter into 

sponsorships. With the presence of 

a signed contract it means that the 

respective club or society is guaranteed 

to receive that which they are 

owed by the other party who they 

have entered into this agreement 

with. 

Ultimately we designed this 

policy with the aim of allowing our 

affiliated bodies the widest scope 

possible to gain sponsorship, without 

compromising our Students’ 

Union aim and our charitable 

responsibilities. I think the fact 

that the motion was passed without 

even needing to be put to a vote 

shows we have managed, hopefully, 

to achieve this goal.


Features 

News flash: pretty 

white girl goes missing 

Lydia Mahon 

The parents of Madeline McCann 

are to speak out in court as victims 

of the recent phone hacking scandal 

alongside Chris Jeffries, the former 

landlord of Jo Yeates. This recent 

exposure of the News of the World’s 

phone- hacking antics confirms the 

need for an investigation into UK 

media conduct. The UK mediaand 

The News of the World in particular, 

seized hold of these cases and 

provided the public with detailed 

coverage. In the upcoming case, 

Lord Justice Leveson will scrutinise 

the methods used by these newspapers 

to obtain information about 

the investigations, but not the motives 

behind running such extensive 

coverage on these particular girls in 

the first place. 

The media functions to keep the 

world connected and although it 

is incredible that the privacy of 

vulnerable people is abused for a 

business initiative, we are reminded 

bythis that media is still a business. 

The disappearances of Madeline 

McCann and Jo Yeates created a 

lot of revenue for Rupert Murdoch 

– although the reader is morally 

obliged not to interpret media coverage 

of a young girl’s disappearance 

in terms of financial gain. 

When Madeline McCann went 

missing in 2007, Murdoch’s News 

of the World hogged the media 

spotlight with an exclusive, announcing 

a £1.5 million reward for 

Madeline’s safe return – the paper 

even donated a lavish £250,000 to 

the cause. 

It is a shame to think that all this 

effort fell to waste. Before the figure 

was finalised, a “mistaken” text 

message was sent to thousands of 

people confirming the reward total, 

and the phone number provided 

to call with information was that 

of News of the World, not Scotland 

Yard. The News of the World may 

have bought a good reputation, but 

like all material things, that reputation 

has now perished. 

The cases of Madeline McCann 

and Jo Yeates are sadistically sweet 

to the media because they qualify as 

newsworthy in every way imaginable. 

Girls at the centre of such cases 

share similar case studies and are 

typically vulnerable, middle class 

and beautiful - in a young, blonde, 

Caucasian sort of way. There is a 

term for this discrimination: Missing 

White Woman Syndrome. 

A paper published in 2007 by 

Sarah Stillman discusses this 

media trend: “These messages are 

powerful: they position certain 

sub-groups of women – often 

white, wealthy and conventionally 

attractive – as deserving of our 

collective resources, while making 

the marginalisation of other groups 

of women, such as low-income 

women of colour, seem natural.” 

Discrimination becomes a frightening 

issue when the attitude of the 

media toward a missing girl directly 

impacts upon her fate. 

Days before Jo Yeates’ disappearance 

on 17 December 2010, 14 year 

old Serena Beakhurst was also reported 

missing. Media interest in Jo 

Yeates was fierce, and subsequently 

there was a frighteningly pathetic 

level of police involvement in Serena’s 

case. Her family and friends 

were forced to take matters into 

their own hands, using social networking 

sites such as Facebook and 

Twitter to find Serena themselves. 

We can only speculate on the police 

and media motives for favouring 

Jo Yeates but to an onlooker the 

only distinction between the girls is 

that whilst Jo was a white, blonde, 

university graduatewhereas Serena 

is a mixed race girl from South East 

London. 

Four years on and awareness of 

Madeline McCann still gushes into 

the realms of the retail world where 

an online shop boasts t-shirts, 

vests, bracelets, stickers and luggage 

tags under the new brand name 

“Find Madeleine”. Kate McCann’s 

new book is also available in any 

supermarket. The Sun remains on 

the case as the voice of Madeline 

and her parents, pleading to the 

nation: “Never Give Up”. The notoriety 

of Madeline’s disappearance 

has sparked Prime Minister David 

Cameron into action as he insists 

the case be re-opened, a flicker of 

hope for the parents of Madeleine. 

With enough effort and time from 

the police, the public and the government, 

their daughter may one 

day come home. 

Hundreds of children are reported 

missing every day, the power of 

media discrimination is terrifying.


Features 

Let us eat cake 

Felicity King 

Features Editor 

So there I was, sitting on the sofa 

in my student house, quite content. 

Our sofas are wonderful, if also incredibly 

dangerous. Once you sit on 

them you’re pretty much set up for 

the rest of your life. Only desperately 

needing a wee, or somebody 

telling you Johnny Depp - dressed 

as Captain Jack - is at the door, can 

get you out of them. They’re just too 

comfy. So there I was, comfortable, 

attempting to educate/permanently 

depress myself by watching the 

news whilst eating a salad. I know, 

throw me out of university, I let the 

unhealthy, pizza-fuelled student 

image down completely. 

It was as I lay there munching 

on my cucumber that I realised the 

television was talking to me. No really, 

it was. Pretty much every other 

advert involved a skinny, attractive 

girl telling me, me, that it was okay, 

that she had the perfect solution to 

those weight worries I obviously 

had. If I did as she said, if I ate 

Special K for two of my three meals 

a day, I too could ponce around in a 

red swimsuit and look fantastic. Oh 

really? That’s great. Except I don’t 

like Special K and I didn’t really 

think I was that fat to begin with. 

As for Weight Watchers, they’re 

punching even higher. According 

to their advert they can make my 

dreams come true. Excellent, they 

can obviously pull some strings in 

the musical business and get me 

that part as The Teapot in ‘Beauty 

and the Beast’. Ever since I was 

small I have dreamt of being that 

Teapot. However, to the relief of 

West End directors if nobody else, 

I’m afraid to say that I will not be 

taking that role anytime soon. It 

turned out, as the advert played on, 

that the dream Weight Watchers 

was referring to was the one that 

‘clearly’ all women have, the dream 

where I’m not fat anymore. 

Except the problem is, most of 

us aren’t fat in the first place. The 

majority of us do not need to go 

on a diet. I’m sure there are some 

people out there concerned about 

their health, and if Weight Watchers 

and Special K work for them 

then that’s great. But these adverts 

are not aimed exclusively at those 

kinds of people. I acknowledge that 

men are also under a lot of pressure 

to look a certain way but there is a 

flickr/pinksherbet 

particular obsession in our society 

with women losing weight. Weight 

Watchers and Special K do not 

know who is watching the television 

at any one time, they cannot 

bank on their audiences always 

being unhealthy or overweight and 

therefore these are not the only 

traits they appeal to. What these 

companies sadly can bank on, is 

that the television will be watched 

by women, and so they play on the 

vulnerabilities, insecurities and 

doubts that many women have; 

they remind us of the need to be 

thinner when they should be reassuring 

us we’re beautiful as we are. 

As far as I’m aware, men can eat 

Special K too. My brother always 

did. I’m pretty sure the reason he 

started buying it wasn’t because 

he wanted to look body-beautiful 

in a red swimming costume, but 

because, shock horror, he actually 

liked the taste. Losing weight has 

become an activity absurdly associated 

with perfectly proportioned 

but insecure women; losing weight 

organisations therefore target them 

in particular. But Weight Watchers 

is not exclusively about losing 

weight, or at least it shouldn’t be. 

Losing weight in itself is not necessarily 

a positive thing; for most 

people it’s at least unnecessary, at 

most, dangerous. Instead of focusing 

on the ‘losing weight’ aspect of 

these diets, we should focus on just 

being healthier; Weight Watchers 

should be called Health Watchers 

really. Plenty of us do not need to 

drop a dress size but we do need to 

cut down on the vodka, yet what 

does society make us more concerned 

about? 

Losing weight has become an 

art, a habit, a pastime and just like 

football, which is absurdly linked 

to masculinity, there is a distinctive 

link between being on a diet and 

being a girl; as if weight insecurities 

were innate inside that second 

X chromosome, along with pillow 

fights, wearing heels, and not being 

able to put up shelves. Let me make 

this clear, there is nothing innately 

feminine about losing weight, nothing 

predominantly female about 

going on a diet and yet I’ve never 

seen a man on the Weight Watchers 

advert telling his success story. 

All of this might seem hypocritical 

coming from the girl eating the 

salad and I’m not going to lie, I 

too spend about 80% of the time 

thinking I’m fat and in my depressed 

moments I do genuinely 

believe that if I was only that tiny 

bit thinner the whole of the world’s 

problems would be over. But as I 

sat there with my celery and found 

myself still being sold the idea 

that I needed to watch what I ate, I 

realised how cheeky these adverts 

actually are. Hello, skinnyslimmingworldgirl 

on the television, 

I’m eating a salad, can’t you see? 

And so I ranted on until I wanted 

to throw my lettuce leaves at her - 

which would of course be counterproductive 

as she clearly sees 

enough of them. 

What she really needed, what we 

all really need, is a slice of cake. Just 

have some cake. Girls, boys, whoever, 

just have a slice of cake. We’re 

all told we should look a certain 

way and be a certain thing, I say 

eat cake. Unless you don’t like it, in 

which case eat something else, Special 

K if you want to. But for goodness 

sake eat it because you like it, 

not because you’ve been deluded 

and brainwashed into thinking a 

size 12 isn’t acceptable. After all, 

you could lose all that weight, get 

the swimsuit, and find out red isn’t 

even your colour.


22 

Features 

Carters Steam 

Fair: a blast from 

the past 

An 

Englishman 

Abroad 

A tale of (not told with) 

efficiency, precision and 

punctuality 

Owen Collins 

The hottest October weekend 

on record – what better time to 

spend the afternoon on the kind of 

pitch-perfect village green that Ray 

Davies and The Kinks hymned so 

beautifully back in 1968? And this 

afternoon there is more reason than 

normal; the old-fashioned wonders 

of Carters Steam Fair are in town, 

and the green is quite literally 

bustling. 

There is a thin cloud of the 

eponymous steam rising from a 

funnel in the middle of the Carousel, 

the golden horses are galloping 

nonchalantly in a never-ending 

cyclical Grand National, the imposing 

figure of the Helter-Skelter, 

brightly painted, rises against 

the sapphire sky, and against the 

whimsical organ music, there is a 

sporadic ringing. Further investigation 

reveals this to be the Test 

Your Weight Tower, where malletwielding 

locals take it in turns to 

try and hit the button hard enough 

to send a victory peal across the 

fields. The cheeky attendant, stick 

in hand, reaches up to strike the 

bell personally at times, thus ensuring 

that young children, not used 

to such heavy lifting, will still leave 

with a curiously pleasing mixture 

of contentment and delusion. Over 

at the Shooting Range, a housemate 

is displaying extraordinary skill 

with an air rifle, the pellets pinging 

off the targets at surprising speed. 

Mental notes are swiftly logged: do 

not steal her cheese again. Further 

down the booth another housemate 

is not so lucky, frantically shooting 

tiny holes in all of the prizes on 

offer. The deceptively happy cuddly 

lions, already bristling at their 

captivity, suddenly have to contend 

with an accidental Big Game Hunter. 

Then, with pellet-ridden prizes 

clasped in hand, more excitement 

generated than one might expect 

from the reward of a small hippo 

(later revealed to have had one eye 

shot out by a wayward sniper), it is 

over to the Dodgems. 

The Dodgem cars we find curiously 

bearing the names of differing 

Fifties’ rock & roll stars, 

Chuck Berry regaining popularity 

as the people surge onto the arena 

to claim their car. As ever, Cliff 

Richard, parked up, remains largely 

ignored, the proverbial fat child 

on Sports Day. The siren sounds 

and the carts roll into action with 

a bump, as the intentions of each 

driver is revealed. Some are adept 

at weaving their way through the 

rabble, others have boarded with 

the sole ambition of dispensing 

the maximum possible amount 

of whiplash. A swerving circle is 

brought to a swift close by way of 

a head-on collision with a young 

child, no more than seven, and his 

father. The child looks positively ill, 

the father is howling with laughter 

at the hit. It is clear, on observation 

of all the father-son partnerships, 

which driver is getting the most 

pleasure out of this motoring adventure. 

With shaky legs we vacate 

to try in vain to dislodge a coconut 

or two, we fail. Always next year. 

An ice cream, a recline on the grass, 

a futile search for clouds in the 

sky. There is palpably something of 

old-fashioned England about this 

afternoon, a marvellous remnant of 

a bygone age. It would no longer be 

a surprise to see Queen Victoria on 

the chair-o-plane, Sherlock Holmes 

investigating the candy floss, or 

George Formby causing chaos on 

the bumper cars. God save Carter’s 

Steam Fair. Long may you continue. 

Felix Clutson 

I’m currently tapping away at 

my laptop in Germany where I 

have arrived bright eyed and very 

English. I’m a third(ish) year Royal 

Holloway student and for the next 

nine months will be working as an 

English Teaching Assistant in the 

Saxon city of Leipzig, which is in 

the old East Germany. 

Following a lovely send off from 

Heathrow and a moment of wonder 

when my bag was actually one of 

the first off the conveyor belt at 

the other end, I checked into my 

hostel in Cologne for the night 

and went off in search of grub. In 

compensation for my unadventurous 

choice of Burger King from the 

train station, I happened upon the 

most romantic of locations and sat 

on the steps of Cologne’s enormous 

cathedral watching the sun set over 

the skyline. It was beautiful. 

The next day the Saxony-bound 

assistants, as well as those set for 

Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, 

were whisked off to a remote little 

village called Altenberg to undertake 

a three-day training course. 

This consisted almost entirely of 

planning a lesson… and then delivering 

it. I, for my part, got my ‘class’ 

to play a stereotype guessing game 

and drew an awful, awful gingerbread 

man supposedly representing 

the stereotypical Briton. Naturally, 

we ended up singing ‘heads, shoulders, 

knees and toes’ a lot and asking 

each other if we had pets. I can’t 

say I left feeling overly prepared to 

take on the youth of Germany but 

it was great to meet other assistants 

while I was there. 

I’ve been placed in two schools; 

the first, a vocational school for 

pupils who wish to become pharmaceutical, 

veterinary and medical 

assistants (my degree is in German 

and Drama…) and the second, 

a specialist secondary school for 

blind and visually impaired children. 

I’m visually impaired myself 

which may well account for that 

placement. 

Naturally, in my application, I 

applied for primary schools. 

Still, following a sleepy early 

morning coach ride and a few 

inevitable train dramas – one train 

was cancelled and another delayed 

by an hour – the oh-so-efficient 

railway got me to Leipzig on Thursday 

evening in one piece and ready 

for an early morning start at the 

vocational school the next day. 

As luck would have it, my first 

lesson was in with the veterinary 

assistants, who were learning body 

parts and naming things that I’d 

never heard of in English, let alone 

German. Suffice to say, there were 

some I had heard of that raised a 

few titters from the pupils. It could 

be an interesting year. Luckily they 

didn’t ask me to help them with 

their pronunciation of ‘testicles’. 

Currently I’m homeless. This is 

partly due to unfinished renovations. 

It’s also due to the fact that, 

with somewhat spectacular timing, 

the lady I was going to live with has 

become pregnant within the last 

week. I am, for the moment, staying 

with one of the English teachers 

but I have had one day pretty much 

to myself. I started by getting up 

to watch the calamity that was the 

rugby (England-France), going into 

town to have a look around, having 

a sausage, and getting hideously 

lost - standard Englishman abroad 

banter. Leipzig seems like a lovely 

place though, and there’s some 

cracking Renaissance architecture 

floating about if that’s you’re thing. 

Having ‘work on Monday morning’ 

seems an odd proposition after 

two years at Royal Holloway, but 

we’ll see how it goes. 

Felix’s blog can be found at http:// 

felixclutson.wordpress.com/


23 

LiesRound Satire with Liezo Mzimba 

SU to Install 

Gender Un- 

Neutral Toilets 

After a prolonged consultation, the 

Students’ Union has finally settled 

on the design for its new ‘Gender 

Un-Neutral Toilets’. The plans, 

available on the SU website, show 

that the new facilities include boobshaped 

soap dispensers, a selection 

of free Lynx products and toilets 

that congratulate the user during 

use. 

In a statement, the Vice President 

for Inclusion and Outreach has 

said: “It is hoped that with these 

new toilets, the heterosexual male 

can once again feel comfortable using 

the loo.” The Executive Officer 

for Salvation and Emancipation reiterated 

these views: “SURHUL intends 

to treat any opinions contrary 

to that of our beloved Commissar 

of the People (the Vice President of 

Liberation and Solidarity) as acts 

of extraordinary rudeness towards 

disadvantages members of Royal 

Holloway. It is bad enough having 

to watch the heterosexual male 

wonder around Egham fruitlessly 

trying to find somewhere to watch 

Sky Sports.” The SU promises users 

of the toilets an immersive experience, 

with mirrors shaped to “give 

the impression of boob”, televisions 

showing F1 highlights and toilets 

that go “wahheeey” during the 

deposition of solid waste. 

Royal Holloway on Twitter 

@SURHUL 

Guys! Remember it’s Holloway Hygiene 

Day! So get that soapy water 

flowing!!!!!!! #studentlife 

@RHULPrincipal 

Silly me! Keep mixing up the car’s 

ashtray with the lever that drops 

carpet pins out the back during my 

high profile drug runs! 

@SURHUL_VPLS 

There is a #fascist at reception. He 

is distracting me from some important 

campaigning. 


@SURHUL Just wanted to forewarn 

you that the next of my statements 

on #saverhulclassics shall be issued 

as a riddle in binary. 

@SURHUL 

#OMG! We’ve got #beanbags in 

the office!!! All we need now is 

#sleepingbags because we’re so 

busy at the moment #we’llhaveto 

sleephere!!! 

@SURHUL_VPLS 

How am I ever going to solve poverty 

in #Sheffield with all this noise 

around me! 

@SURHUL_VPIO 

Massive solidarity with our beloved 

Commissar of the People, 

the VPLS, who is currently fighting 

a #fascist at reception. 


Needs some ideas for lunch. 

#Osprey or #goldeneagleeggs? 

On Cuts 

Juan McUser 

A thought-provoking poem from the 

Students’ Union’s highly successful 

‘Love Holloway, Hate Having to Pay 

for Things’ evening. 

I applied for a loan, 

with a moan. 

I wondered where all my money 

had gone. 

Then I remembered. 

Microsoft Office and Adobe 

Reader, 

have stolen my petty cash. 

Those fascists! Now how do you 

uninstall things, 

on a MacBook Pro? 

Closure of RHUL 

Press Office 

In a final statement, the RHUL 

Press Office has announced its intention 

to close and post all future 

statements via the Save Classics at 

Royal Holloway Facebook group. 

“The RHUL Press Office recognises 

the unique ability of social media to 

connect with students in this digital 

age. It is in this spirit, and following 

the example set by College Management 

and the Principal, that 

we intend to shut down the RHUL 

news page and issue all future statements 

via Save Classics at Royal 

Holloway. Please direct all future 

enquires regarding the restructur- 

There was a different kind of hot air 

coming from Royal Holloway’s Insanity 

Radio last Friday, when a fire 

broke out in the production office. 

It is thought that the team behind 

‘Jessy and Big Loz playing the Latest 

Snoz’ attracted an all-time peak 

audience of ten listeners, causing 

the studio equipment to burst into 

flames. “We had told Jessy and Big 

Loz in an email that they weren’t 

ing of Classics, or indeed anything 

else to do with the College to this 

Facebook page”. 

In an official tweet, the Principal 

congratulated the press office 

with this move: “@rhulpress gd 

work re: closure #moremoneyforflatscreentvsinthemanagementbuilding”. 

It is widely suspected that 

plans for the departmental restructuring 

will be issued 120 characters 

at a time via Twitter. The Press Office 

was not available to comment 

on this. 

Fire at Insanity 

Radio 

allowed more than five listeners. 

If they checked their RHUL accounts 

more often, this sort of thing 

wouldn’t happen. That having been 

said, we are grateful to Jessy and Big 

Loz for giving the studio the smell 

of burnt carpet, which has resolved 

Insanity’s lifelong problem of smelling 

like the bedroom of a rather 

odorous teenager.” 

SU Corner 

Salutations 

from our Vice 

President of 

Liberation and 

Solidarity 

Your Students’ Union Vice 

President of Liberation and 

Solidarity 

Salutations comrades! It is 

with great joy that I write to 

welcome our newly elected 

officials to the Central Committee 

who were chosen 

during the General Meeting of 

the Secretariat. This week the 

Secretariat bravely met for five 

long hours to discuss essential 

changes to the constitution that 

will affect the lives of each and 

every one of you. 

Firstly, 60 second sabbatical 

where we elected officials tell 

you what we have done to free 

the proletariat from the shackles 

of capitalist oppression has 

now been restructured into the 

much grander 180 second sabbatical 

allowing us to educate 

our members for three times 

longer! 

Secondly, the Secretariat 

discussed the type of file 

formats that should be used 

for its proclamations to the 

people. We are strongly of 

the belief that we should stop 

playing into the hands of the 

greedy corporations who seek 

to control the workers through 

their use of .docx and .pdf files 

which funnel the sweat from 

the brow of every worker into 

the pockets of big business. 

From this day forth all documents 

can be accessed at the 

request of each union member 

who will have the required 

information read aloud to them 

allowing us to escape from 

both the ties of materialism 

and the tyranny of the corporations. 

Thirdly, the Secretariat discussed 

the creation of a new 

Commissar for the People’s 

Information. This would allow 

one union member to have 

access to information about 

all other union members. Of 

course the union is renowned 

for it’s extreme competence in 

handling information and has 

never lost data on its members 

in the past….. 

The Secretariat wisely decided 

to send the motion to be 

approved by us in the Central 

Committee who are of course 

much more qualified to make 

decisions regarding the welfare 

of the people than the people 

themselves. Surely a victory for 

common sense! 

Finally I would like to remind 

you that the union has 

a broad anti-fascist agenda 

and in recognition of this has 

decided to make this Catch-A- 

Fascist Week. Whichever lucky 

unionite is able to uncover 

and apprehend a fascist on 

campus (of course neglecting 

those in college management, 

we wouldn’t want to make 

it too easy!) will be awarded 

the great prize of one ticket to 

Love Holloway, Hate Market 

Oppression night at the union. 

Hint: try looking in the department 

of management. 

Good hunting comrades!

thefounder 

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