Food & Drink Face Off Interview - Varsity

Friday January 25 2008
Got a news story
varsity.co.uk/news 01223 337575 NEWS 3
Let me entertain you
» Burdus confidently strides into the
‘most difficult job in Cambridge’
Still amusing
Clementine Dowley
News Editor
Students are told to prepare themselves
for “massive changes” to the
make-up of Cambridge nightlife as
“every current CUSU night is put
up for reconsideration”. New CU-
SUents Manager Simon Burdus,
who took over the post from recently
departed Ed Foster, has told
Varsity that the “staid and predictable”
current line up will be “revolutionised”
in the coming weeks.
Former Girton JCR President
Burdus will be the first BA Cantab
to take on the position since “disastrous”
Nikhil Shah departed under
a £17k-shaped cloud of shame in late
2006. Burdus, who spoke to Varsity
straight after a lengthy meeting
with the Luminar Leisure management
team who control the Ballare
and Club Twenty-Two venues, will
announce a “radical programme
of changes” to the current line up
early next week. Although many
details remain embargoed, Varsity
has learnt that negotiations are underway
with Cambridge nightlife
guru and SUAD boss Jonny Ensall
concerning the instigation of a
“credible alternative night” where
“the Baywatch theme will never
be heard”. Live music will become
a major part of the CUSUents
programme and a series of collegebased
events that will help raise
funds for JCRs and CUSU are also
planned.
Burdus, who was working on
the door at Ballare by Christmas
of his first year at Cambridge and
has worked for every Ents Manager
since Neil Higgins, proudly
boasts of his “strong track record”
in putting on events in Cambridge,
citing the Girton Ball and independent
nights at The Soul Tree
as evidence. He claims that his
“strong links” with many elements
of Cambridge society, including his
membership of the Girton Green
Monsters, involvement with the
ADC and friendship with many
leading Hawks, will enable him to
meet the needs of Cambridge students
far better than former Essex
University men Brizio and Foster
ever could.
The details concerning Foster’s
dismissal
have been
kept very
hush-hush
by the other CUSU Sabbatical Officers,
but according to sources close
to Foster (who is currently drowning
his sorrows in Fuerteventura),
he was met minutes after his return
from the Varsity ski-trip and
informed that his services were no
longer required. Michael Albert
Brown, who remains CUSU Ents
Officer, told Varsity that Foster’s
“vicious” dismissal came as little
surprise, “given that attendance of
CUSU nights has doubtlessly been
considerably down throughout last
term, with Club Class, the commercial
urban night, abolished altogether”.
Brown attributed poor attendance
figures to the inadequacy
and lack of originality of CUSU’s
“patronizing formula of cheese and
commercial music” when compared
with the “vast array of competition
from the Union, Clare, Emma,
King’s and Queen’s entertainments,
[all of which] plough time, money,
and above all thought into all they
offer”. In an attempt to broaden
their currently limited appeal,
Brown has been running a campaign
to see CUSUents seek further “engagement
with other types of music
such as indie, funk and electro”. His
plans were, he claimed, met with
“nonchalant apathy” and a “dismissive
and ungrateful” response from
student authorities. When CUSU
President Mark Fletcher discovered
that Brown had contacted Varsity
over Christmas to express his
disappointment at the way in which
CUSUents were being run he “went
“Fletcher still
refuses to discuss
the dismissal of
Foster publicly”
KARL KENNEDY
£1700
stark raving mad, almost replicating
Ferguson’s fist through a filing
cabinet escapade and threatening
Brown with the sack”, alleged one
CUSU source. Fletcher still refuses
to discuss the dismissal of Foster or
the cautioning of Brown in any detail.
Burdus will draw a substantially
increased salary as he juggles the
roles of Business Manager and Ents
Manager. F l e t c h e r
t o l d
Varsity
that Burdus’ £10k rise would
be “very well deserved”, and money
“much better spent” than that wasted
on the excesses of Foster’s budget
which last term saw Karl Kennedy
paid in the region of £1700 to appear
at The Sunday Service, pushing total
CUSU expenditure on the night
up to £3000. Burdus called this a “ridiculous”
amount to spend on a night
which due to “terrible marketing”
saw the club fail to even reach capacity.
Burdus admits that he is taking
on “perhaps the hardest job in Cambridge”
and refuses to feel daunted
by a string of incompetent predecessors.
These include 2006 Ents Manager
Nikhil Shah, who was responsible
for CUSU’s failure to collect
£17k in profits from the joint
venture “Urbanite”, as well
as Peter Brizio, under whose
direction CUSU’s premier club
night Crowd Control was forced
to close as a result of disastrously
poor attendance levels. Whether
Burdus and his “big changes” will be
enough to reverse CUSU’s almost
irreparably damaged reputation remains
to be seen. One CUSU source
admitted to Varsity that “Burdus is
pretty much our last chance to save
CUSUents... the nights have a terrible
reputation amongst students and
its going to take more than just cash
to turn it around”.
`
Neil Higgins
Nikhil Shah
Pete Brizio
How do you solve
a problem like
the Union