Issue 2 Identity

Here is issue 2 of Snippet magazine for you to enjoy. Thanks as always to the
team of people who contribute and make it possible.
Euan McKenzie
Alexandra Cole
Oliver Bowman
Riki Buckles
Alexandra Cole
Sonny Da Silva-Peters
Polly Dawson
James Frost
Elena Ferretti
Mati Ferretti
Olivia Goldsmith
Thomas Irvine
Emily Mitchell
India Parkinson
Beth Scahill
Will Stevens
Raffi Thomas
Rachael Vickery
Raffy Zoio
Ms Baynes-Robinson
Miss Foster
Miss Mardle
Ms Hargadon

Editor’s Note
I think it was Shakespeare who once said: “woe am I!” and whoa am I having a epically horrendous day. I
find myself sitting here on the verge of tears. I have had literally the worst day ever. Hell is a luxury hotel
room compared to my stench of a life. I do not know why I bother to breathe (well, obviously I do), when
the air stabs my lungs like a balloon filled with lead. I never knew it was this possible to be this apoplectic
in this day and age. Like, OMG even when my pet guinea pig Persephone died I was not this tragic, and let
me tell you, thems were tough times.
The level of sadness that I feel is not even human. I am a sloth. Yes, only a sloth could feel this sad. The
never ending tunnel of despair that I am being catapulted through, due to my torturous situation and
grievous yet compelling tales of despair, just keeps going on and on and on and on and on and on like Andrex
(other products are also available).
Without being too dramatic about it, I am metaphorically lying in the metaphorical debris that is my metaphorical
life. Metaphorically speaking of course.
I don’t really want to talk about it, it still hurts. Well, okay. Today, I argued with my best ever friend since
year 7. And now she hates me and she said that she never wanted to talk to me ever again and she didn’t
even like the card I gave her for her birthday and she hates the way I dress and she never even liked me
anyway and she just doesn’t understand me.
Ugh!
My life is so hard.
The universe is just too small to accommodate all of my problems, and neither is my brain. I have literally
just remembered a piece of homework that I have to do for my next lesson. Great, I have just stuffed my
already overflowing problem universe with another problem and now my problem universe is about to
burst at the seams and all of my problems will whiz and fly everywhere and everybody will be infected by
my problems and it will be all my fault and then that will also be my problem.
Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. Ignore everything I just wrote. Everything is fine now. The
teacher was not angry about the homework.
I talked to my friend after school and she was so apologetic. She told me about how
horrible she felt about everything and how she doesn’t hate me and how everything is
fine. In response to my universe qualms, she simply laughed.
And she did like the card I gave her for her birthday.

The Man
Who
Survived
Ebola
The deadly Ebola virus that has claimed
the lives of more than 2,000 people in
Western Africa is a lot closer to home
than you might think.
William Pooley, a volunteer
nurse, was helping to prevent
the spread of Ebola at the
Kenema Government Hospital
when he caught the disease. He
was then flown back to Britain
so he could be transferred to the
Royal Free Hospital in London
for further treatment. There,
Pooley was treated in an isolation
room (with a frankly terrifying
appearance) equipped with
air filters.
William Pooley has now fully
recovered and is immune to the
pathogen. Remarkably, he is
planning on continuing his
volunteering work back in Sierra
Leone. When interviewed
by The Guardian,
he said of his return, “While I'm
happy to be recovered and alive,
there's a lot of stuff on my mind
with what's going on back there.
It would be relatively safe for me
to go back and work there, and
it's really the least I could do
having received all this amazing
care and have people look after
me and potentially save my life.
It's the least I could do to go
back and return the favour to
some other people, even just for
a little while.”
But volunteering isn’t all Pooley
is doing to help, as he has recently
flown to the US to donate
blood for a transfusion to save
the life of a fellow Sierra Leone
volunteer who is infected with
Ebola. When Pooley was treated
for the disease, he was given antibiotics
and intravenous fluids
which boosted his immune system,
so now his blood has the
natural antibodies needed to
fight the disease, which, coupled
with the fact that he and the
other Ebola sufferer have the
same blood type means that he is
an ideal donor. Pooley is said to
be close friends with the infected
doctor through their work at the
hospital. The foreign office
quickly granted a new passport
for Pooley’s flight to Atlanta, as
his first one was incinerated
along with his other belongings
upon his diagnosis.
Pooley, 29, is a former Farlingaye
student, and following his
discharge from hospital, returned
to his parents’ home in
Eyke, near Woodbridge, to rest.
What do I need to know
about the Ebola Epidemic?
The epidemic has been causing

William Pooley received healthcare that many people in Sierra Leone will not
be receiving.
Ebola victims’ numbers are increasing at an exponential rate in east Africa.
worldwide concern since the
death of a six year old boy and
his mother, sister and grandmother.
Subsequently, there
have been a reported 5,762 cases
of the disease and 2,746 deaths
from the most severe outbreak of
the disease since its discovery in
1976.
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) can
be caught through contact with
Ebola is caused by a virus, but there is
no vaccine available yet.
blood, saliva or other bodily fluids,
and is not air born. There
are cases of whole families
catching the disease from contact
with one another. It is also
thought that the washing and
embalming of the bodies of the
deceased has played a part in
the spread of the disease.
Symptoms, such as a fever, vomiting,
a sore throat, muscle pain
and/or diarrhoea would begin to
show from two days to three
weeks after contracting the disease.
Internal and external
bleeding may also occur.
Unfortunately, there is no definite
cure for Ebola, but in William
Pooley’s case, dedicated
medical care, constant rehydration
and an enhanced immune
system managed to rid him of
the disease. The isolation unit
he stayed in helped to strictly
contain his illness, because if
another person caught the disease
from him, the UK would be
on the verge of an epidemic. The
fact is, hospitals in Western Africa
do not have the technology,
equipment or money to control
the Ebola virus. This is perhaps
why the scale of the disease is so
severe. Some hospitals are understaffed
which creates more
demand for volunteers, who are
simultaneously putting their
own lives at risk. A report by the
World Health Organisation
(WHO) revealed that hospitals
in Sierra Leone are only meeting
25% of the demand for hospital
beds.
The Ebola epidemic began in
Guinea and quickly spread to
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria
and Senegal. A separate outbreak
of Ebola in the Democratic
Republic of Congo is not as serious
and is not thought to be related.
So what is being done? A three
day lockdown was placed on the
million residents living in Sierra
Leone to try to halt the spread of
the disease, as well as giving
health workers a chance to distribute
information and hygiene
kits to the population. The latest
news on the situation so far is
that 92 bodies have been found
and at least 56 new infections
have been discovered since the
curfew began.

Debate
Nature vs. Nurture
One of the biggest questions concerning life, existence and creation (aside from why did the chicken cross the road, obvs) is where do
we come from? Not literally speaking, of course, (I think we should all know where babies come from by now), but morally. Where do
our traits, our preferences, our mind-sets originate? Where do we come from? Everyone is different, everyone is unique, but how and
when do we decide who we are? Do we learn over time what we think is right or wrong, or is it programmed into us at birth? And can
someone be born evil?
Our minds obviously come from our genetics, instincts and biological links. The world
around us is created by human minds, not the other way round. Think of all of the human
ideas that have revolutionised (and in some ways partly destroyed) the earth. This basic
inquisitive attitude has to come from somewhere; it cannot be learnt from our surroundings
because our surroundings have been made by us. Cave men were programmed to hunt
biologically, it was wired into their brains, and this has been developed over time, but it all
comes from the basic functions that they, and we, were born with.
It is silly to say that our personalities come from ourselves, and are not influenced by our
surroundings. Look how far we have moved on from the cave man, and how our personalities
have increased in complexity. This growth has to come from somewhere, and man’s
gradual understanding of the world has led to peoples’ characters becoming more complex,
therefore our personalities must come from, partly at least, the process of learning
about the world and our surroundings, and we are not born into an identity as you suggest.
But all of the things that mankind knows (and that you say give us our personality) had to
be discovered before they were taught. Our identities are innate. Children all learn relatively
the same things at young ages, when their identities are beginning to show. Moral
values are drummed into primary school children. We are taught to share, not to steal, to
love each other and not to argue. However, in any class in any school, you will find some
children quite happy to oblige and others who go against these clearly set rules. Whether a
child would co-operate would depend on the personality, and at such a young age how
could their identity be defined by experience? Yes, not all of the children in the class would
have the same upbringing, but to say that children who have different upbringings have
different experiences and therefore different personalities would also be to say that children
with similar upbringings and similar experiences would have similar personalities,
which is not true. Siblings (not twins, I shall explain why later) who do not share the entirety
of their genetics (around 50%), but do share their environment aren’t always, if ever,
similar in identity. Studies show that siblings are similar only 20% of the time (this figure
comes from the investigation by researcher Robert Plomin). According to the nurture argument,
siblings sharing the same environment should be very similar, so why is this not so?

There are a lot of traits that siblings share, or that are learnt from environment (I will explain
more about this further on). As for saying that children in a classroom would be too young to
have had past experiences that would affect their personalities, this is ridiculous! At young
ages, children pick up more things, are much more impressionable and more likely to be
influenced by others, such as their parents or friends, as well as perhaps picking up more
negative traits from stimuli such as television and the internet, which are becoming ever
more present in domestic childhoods. We really become who we are during childhood, a
time that is so heavily influenced by parents and education. Everything you know now, you
only know because at some point you learnt it (aside from very basic abilities, such as smiling
and blinking). We create our identities at the same time we are learning how to walk,
talk and socialise.
If you need conclusive evidence for the nature argument, then look no further than the results
of some very interesting studies on twins. Twins are perfect for this kind of study, because
they are genetically the same, so any differences would be environmental. The
‘Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart’ was a study of the similarities and differences of
twins who were separated at birth. The research particularly focused on one set of identical
male twins (coincidentally both called Jim by their adoptive families) who shared remarkably
similar traits. The amazing results showed that when both twins finally met aged 39, they
learnt that they were both bad at spelling but good at mathematics; each took carpentry,
each had been married twice, once to women named Linda and then to Betty, and one twin
had a son called James Allan, whist the other had a son called James Alan (notice the missing
L). The twins both named their pet dog Toy, both chain smoked, and both had law enforcement
training, at some point both being the part time deputy Sheriff in Ohio. They even
went on holiday on the same beach in Florida! What more proof do you need, that the genetic
link between these two men had caused these similarities?
That is a very rare, coincidental case! The “Jim Twins” had differences as well. Their hairstyles
were very different, one twin was married to a third wife (called Sandy) and one twin
preferred conveying himself through speech whilst the other was more suited to writing.
In terms of research defending the nurture side of the argument, an investigation at the
Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology hospital in London has shown that the sense of
humour is learned from environment and influence, and thus does not originate from genetics.
The research looked at 127 pairs of both identical and non-identical twins. They were
shown 5 cartoons and then asked them to rate their wittiness (from one to 10; 1 being a
“waste of paper”, 10 being “the funniest cartoons they’d ever seen”). The results showed
that there was a similarity between a twins response to the cartoon, but because both identical
and non-identical twins showed this, the researchers decided that this was probably
more inked to growing up in the same environment, as non-identical twins share around
50% of their genes, making a significant genetic impact on the results less likely. They also
suggested that a person’s ability to understand a joke may depend on their intelligence,
however this was not measured before the test was carried out. If this is just one aspect of
the personality, then what else might be the result of a particular environment?
So, perhaps a person’s personality is more of a family heirloom, passed down through generations,
or is it learnt, taught or gradually picked up over time or maybe a person’s identity
comes from a mixture of the two, with the environment a person grows up in nurturing the
nature. There is no real answer to this debate, and, as is the same with so many philosophical
questions such as this, we may need to accept that we may never know.
Nature
Nurture

A day in the Life of an identity-confused hamster
AHHHH! This cage is too big! Although it is so big, it feels
like a prison.
I’m nearly……. nearly there…… almost…… and I’m….. OUT!! I’m
free! What do I do now? Oh wait, I believe I have not properly introduced
myself, my name is Frederick Sebastian Emmanuel. I also
believe you must be very confused right now, so I will backtrack.
It was a windy Thursday…wait, was it a Sunday? Oh never mind, I
was sitting in my cage, which by the way I think is too big, but I
was thinking to myself, “Why am I, like, the smallest thing in the
universe?”
It just suddenly came to me. This thought. This, sort of, brain…
What do I call it? Erm… thing, that I believed wouldn’t go away.
But as usual, it did. So I carried on with my daily life, and BAM!
There it was again, that… thing got bigger and bigger and BIGGER!
Back to the beginning, wait was I even at the beginning? Yeah…
I… think… so.
Yeah I was. Ok, so, I got out of my cage, and I thought
to myself “What do I do now? Wait, what… have I
gotten myself into? Everything, everything is so… so
….so… big!!! The, the window, so high, the door, so
tall, the sleeping machine (?) so wide???
I never imagined everything to be THIS big!! It
looks so small from my perch, up high on the
book holder!! Well, there’s no going back now,
I just have to go forward, look ahead - wait, what
was that noise? Someone is coming!! Gotta hide… where??
Behind the bed? No, too obvious….. the... no that’s too…. Under
the mattress!!! That’ll work!! Right, under, nearly, yes!!! I’m under!!!
Wait, I think… yes! No!! Someone sat on the sleeping machine!
Oh ah ow!! Ouch that hurts, can’t… breathe... suffocating…..
I see the…. light…. Grandma Bobby?? Is that you? Goodbye
world!!

This time, it’s all about identity so in
Beats we’re going to be talking about
identity transformations in music. One
of the biggest transformations in music
was Miley Cyrus. Once a squeaky clean
Disney pop star, she transformed to a
twerking ‘adult’. This isn’t unusual
though, with Disney starlet after Disney
starlet going off the rails when they
‘grow up’. Miley Cyrus’ hit single
‘Wrecking Ball’ is a good song but ruined
by the video. Miley, you can make good
music without needing shocking videos.
4/10.
Another band transformation was the
slow change of boy band’s music. Ever
since 5SOS stormed the music scene,
new rock bands have been listened to by
a much wider variety of fans. One such
band is New Politics, a Danish rock group
that have released two albums ‘New Politics’
and ‘A Bad Girl in Harlem’. They are
currently supporting Paramore on their
tour and have toured with rock legends
Fall Out Boy! Their song ‘Dignity’ tackles
issues in society, with an epic beat behind
it. Rock back to its former glory, for
that it is 9 out of 10!
Over in films, I’m talking about the new
releases in cinemas this month. One new
film coming out this month is ‘The Book
of Life’, the latest family film from 20th
Century Fox Studios. The Book of Life follows
Manolo Sánchez, who falls in love
with the beautiful Maria. Two spirits
watch and bet on who will win Maria’s
love out of two young men : Manolo or
Joaquin. One spirit, enraged when Manolo
wins Maria’s affections, sends a vicious
snake to kill Manolo! The rest of the film
follows Manolo as he journeys through
three lands, in order to try and get back
to the human world and Maria. Original
and a clever idea for a family-friendly
movie yet with an Halloween twist:
7/10!
Book to film adaptations have been happening
for years, this month the acclaimed
bestseller Gone Girl is the latest
to go from pages to cinemas. Gone Girl is
a bit too adult though, so instead here’s
another adaptation that has been both a
blockbuster and a bestseller. Divergent is
set in a dystopian future where there are
five factions who uphold a certain value:
truth, bravery, selflessness, intelligence
and kindness. Beatrice Prior is about to
choose her faction, when at the tests (to
see which faction you belong to) hers
comes up as inconclusive. What this really
means is that she is Divergent. The rest
of the film watches her struggle with her
identity, her choice and what happens in
her chosen faction. A fast-paced film that
makes you think : 9/10!

We are mid-way through the
newest series of Doctor Who
and there is lots going on in
the TARDIS. Read on to find
out more!
The new outfit!
Lifelong Doctor Who fan Peter said:
'He's woven the future from the
cloth of the past. Simple, stark, and
back to basics. No frills, no scarf, no
messing; just 100% rebel Time Lord.’
Did you know…
Capaldi says: “The Tardis is not inside
an actual police box, you’re just in this
big cupboard. There are quite a few people
in there, so you get quite cosy and
there’s no fan or anything. But you have
to be the Doctor. All the other stuff you
put on the back burner, because it’ll just mess you up.”
The monster from Doctor Who Series
8 Ep. 4 had many at the edge of
their seats, with fear for themselves,
and the Doctor, Clara and the young
boy!
Fact:
Ian O'Brien's 1,573 pieces
of Doctor Who merchandise
have earned him a
place in 2015's Guinness
World Records.
Is there more to come from the Doctor’s past? Is Steven
Moffat Going to explore and show us some of the truths,
dangers, and battles of the Doctor?
Watch the rest of the series to find out about the future and past!!

The Identity
of ITFC
Kieran Dyer, Darren Bent, Connor Wickham, Richard Wright, Darren
Ambrose, and the list goes on. For decades ITFC have produced numerous youth products that
have gone on to play at the very highest level. In 2005 Ipswich won the FA Youth Cup prompting
excitement amongst the Town supporters, many believed this would be the generation that could
take Town back into the Premier League and beyond. But under the management of Roy Keane
and Paul Jewell, the spine of the side consisted of big name signings and loanees keen to progress
their careers elsewhere. Now only one player from the 2005 FA Youth Cup final is at Ipswich; David
McGoldrick played for Southampton with Theo Walcott, Adam Lallana and Gareth Bale.
In 2009, aged just 16 Connor Wickham made his debut for Ipswich Town. He was the youngest
player ever to play for the Town first team. Just weeks after his debut, manager Jim Magilton was
sacked and replaced with the infamous Roy Keane. In Roy Keane’s first year in the job he appeared
to continue with the clubs philosophy and handed a debut to eighteen year old Luke Hyam
and gave youth graduate Tommy Smith a long run in the first team. East Anglian boy Tom Eastman
was also given his debut. Both clearly had massive potential and the Town faithful saw a
bright future for the youngsters. However, over the first few months of the 2010/11 season the
side struggled and many young players were dropped for older “been there, done it” players. This
was not the winning formula for Keane and he was sacked in January 2011.
Paul Jewell was shortly appointed as the new boss of Town; he had a track of record of bringing
through youth players and playing attractive football: two integral parts of the club’s identity.
Things did slightly pick up over the second half of the season but many of the club’s youth graduates
failed to make a big break into the first team. In April Town suffered a humiliating defeat to
arch rivals Norwich, and the club felt its identity ripped apart. That summer, the only shining light
from Town’s youth system Connor Wickham, was sold to Sunderland for £8M. In Jewell’s second
season he brought many of his old players, not the chance for youth many expected. The club faltered
to an average 15 th place. In October of 2012, as youth was given brief chances in
the first team Paul Jewell was sacked as manager of Ipswich Town. Mick McCarthy
was brought into to save the club from relegation. This time, the club was in real dan-

ger; nobody cared how he did it, as long as he did keep them up. Early in his reign, Tommy Smith
was the only youth graduate who featured in the team. Later in the season, as the club pushed
away from the relegation zone, Luke Hyam also broke back into the team. The club did, at last,
steer clear of the drop. Paul Jewell was shortly appointed as the new boss of Town; he had a track
of record of bringing through youth players and playing attractive football: two integral parts of
the club’s identity. Things did slightly pick up over the second half of the season but many of the
club’s youth graduates failed to make a big break into the first team. In April Town suffered a humiliating
defeat to arch rivals Norwich, and the club felt its identity ripped apart. That summer, the
only shining light from Town’s youth system Connor Wickham, was sold to Sunderland for
£8M. In Jewell’s second season he brought many of his old players, not the chance for youth
many expected. The club faltered to an average 15 th place. In October of 2012, as youth was given
brief chances in the first team Paul Jewell was sacked as manager of Ipswich Town. Mick
McCarthy was brought into to save the club from relegation. This time, the club was in real danger;
nobody cared how he did it, as long as he did keep them up. Early in his reign, Tommy Smith
was the only youth graduate who featured in the team. Later in the season, as the club pushed
away from the relegation zone, Luke Hyam also broke back into the team. The club did, at last,
steer clear of the drop.
That summer, ITFC announced they would apply for category one youth status: it would mean
that far more first team ready youth players would come through the ranks at the club. The club
announced their aims to make 50% of the first team squad academy graduates by 2017 and that
supporters would be made to feel part of
the club. It was Bryan Klug; a man
whose time at the club as a player and
coach spanned five decades, summed it
up best though when he said: “It just
feels more like the club I have loved all
these years once again.” ITFC had their
identity back.
Despite the application, Town narrowly
missed out on Category One youth status.
Is that the point though? Surely the
fact that Ipswich Town are carrying out
their philosophy of a successful youth
system should be music to any Town
fan’s ear. That is the identity of ITFC.
By Thomas Irvine

To Boldly Go Where Noone
Has Been Before
Voyager 1 and 2 are unmanned
spacecrafts with one mission - to
explore the outer planets of our
solar system for the first time ever.
One of their main aims was to
find alien life.
decreasing the amount of fuel needed.
This 1977 project by NASA, turned
science fiction into science fact.
NASA scientists had to work out
how the two spacecrafts would
travel 3 billion miles without carrying
a huge amount of fuel. Gary
Flandro worked out that all the outer
planets would align in 1977,
making the journey a lot shorter.
Michael Minovitch then discovered
they could use the gravitational pull
of each planet to propel the craft to
the next planet, like a slingshot, also
NASA encountered a problem; they didn’t have enough money to complete the project, and they
were under a time limit. Their solution was Carl Sagan. Carl Sagan was a NASA scientist who loved to tell
stories and really believed in the project, so they employed him as ‘the voice’, getting the public to donate.
He came up with the idea to put a gold disk on each craft, with recordings of famous music and information
about us, so that if aliens found the craft they would know where they came from. Eventually,
NASA raised enough money and the project could continue.
For the spacecraft to complete their mission they would have to last at least 12 years. This was a
huge challenge, as nothing mankind made for space had lasted more than a few months.
It took two years to get to Jupiter from Earth, and once Voyager 1 and 2 arrived, the gravitational
pull was a lot stronger than they had expected. The Voyager team wanted to see the great red spot. At the
time they thought it could be an exotic island, but when the photos arrived they realised that the great red
spot was a huge storm that had been going on for hundreds of years. They also wanted to see one of Jupiter’s
63 known moons, Io. Something was peeking out from behind it that seemed to be another moon,
but when they looked closer they realised that Io was geologically active and that the ‘other moon’
was a volcanic eruption 270km high!
There was a long wait of five years before NASA could see Uranus and when Voyager 1 got
there, there wasn’t much light for the cameras. What they did see was that Uranus’ heat source

Launch
5/9/77
Launch
20/8/77
Voyager 1
Neptune
25/8/69
Jupiter
5/3/79
Jupiter
Uranus
24/1/86
9/7/79
Saturn
12/11/80
Voyager 1
Saturn
had shut down and that its moon, Miranda, looked like it had been pulled apart and stuck back together
again.
Another three years and Voyager arrived at Neptune. They only had one second to see it, so NASA
had to forecast the weather to see where it was best to point the cameras (the clearest patch of sky). Forecasting
the weather is hard enough on Earth, but on Neptune, 3 billion miles away, with a very complex
atmosphere, it seemed impossible. Despite all these challenges they got the forecast right. Voyager got a
clear view of Neptune’s great dark spot which was, like Jupiter’s red spot, a huge storm, hundreds of years
old. Neptune’s moon Triton had geysers, which meant there was geological activity; this was surprising to
the team, because there isn’t much heat this far away from the sun.
Voyager 2 had completed its three-billion-mile journey; Voyager 1 was now above our solar system
and was told to do one last thing – to take a picture of the solar system from above, showing the sun and
all the planets. The cameras were then switched off to save energy so the craft could keep going for a bit
longer. Now 37 years on they are still sending back information. Voyager 1 has recently reached the outer
edge of our solar system; nothing man made has ever made it this far.

Why you should start using the interr bang
The interrobang is perhaps the greatest invention of the
20 th century. Forget about the television, the internet or
the mobile phone, for the interrobang is triumphant over
them all.
And why have you, dear reader, never heard of this bizarre
unknown invention? Because it is gloriously unnecessary.
It is the answer to a problem that nobody had,
and yet, it is so ingenious at the same time.
The interrobang is essentially a combination of an exclamation
and a question mark. It was invented in 1962 by
Martin K. Speckter, who worked in advertising and wanted
to replace the unsightly “?!” that followed rhetorical
slogans. Thus, the interrobang was born.
The term interrobang comes from the words interrogative
point (another word for a question mark) and bang (a
printers and programmers term for exclamation mark). It
could also be used to describe the ?! combination.
Some example of the Interrobang in use are:
What on earth is that gorilla doing in the classroom‽
Are you ever disappointed with the performance of
your dishwasher‽

Could
Why
the
you
interrobang
should start
be
using
any more
the interr
fabulous‽
bang
It is such a small, trivial thing to invent and yet, it is
actually quite clever. I’m sure you’ve all been in the
situation, while writing essays or creative writing pieces,
when a disgruntled character has yelled out a cantankerous
query, or a powerful question has needed the
little extra push of an exclamation mark, but it couldn’t
be used because it would make the layout look lazy
and untidy. To use an interrobang in a sentence is to
not only utilise a much overlooked and underestimated
tool, but also to show off an extensive knowledge of
various, obscure punctuation.
I know that now the interrobang is relatively unheard
of and underused, but in the late run 1960s it was
actually very popular among typographers and graphic
designers, and there was even a interrobang key on
certain typewriters. However, over time, the poor interrobang
faded into anonymity, and as this sad story
reaches present day, the interrobang is used very little.
And this is why we need to save them, now, before
it’s too late. Do you want the interrobang to fade
into extinction? Do you want them to metaphorically die
out‽ Start using them, and think about how lucky you
are to have a punctuation mark so powerful. It really
finishes your sentences with a bang.

I’m sure you’ve all heard of the WWF or the RSPCA, two very famous animal charities
who fund and protect Pandas, Tigers and Leopards everywhere. But who looks after the
Jumping Slugs, the Kakapos and even the Blob fish. There must be a charity for those
creatures right?
Correct! Luckily in October 2012 Biologist, writer and TV presenter Simon Watt started
up the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. A society making people aware of those animals
who go unnoticed and unloved.
Recently an online vote was held to choose which of 11 ugly animals should be the society's
global mascot. 11 election style presentations were given and after thousands of people
had voted the winner was……….. The Blob fish! The society’s website is filled with
funny and educational videos and to check it out go to: uglyanimalsoc.com.
The Blob fish
The blob fish is well, you’ve guessed it, a fish, specifically, a deep sea fish. This little guy is
generally found in deep waters off the coasts of Australia and Tasmania. They are typically
shorter than 30cm and are basically living jelly as their bodies are mainly a gelatinous
mass, slightly less dense than water meaning they can float. Unfortunately scientists fear
that they may become endangered because they die in deep sea fishing nets.

T
he six degrees of separation is an idea claiming that everybody in the
world is linked by at most six friends. It doesn’t matter if two people live
in a different country, never have met or never will, because through six
or less acquaintances, they are connected. Apparently.
Does it seem a little complicated? Well, meet Paul and his best friend Paulo.
Paul has another friend called Pauline, who has never met Paulo (don’t ask me why,
perhaps Paul knows that Pauline likes Oasis and Paulo likes Blur, and thus obviously
need to be kept apart). You’d think that Paulo and Pauline, having never met, would
not be linked in any way. Because of their ties with Paul, this actually means they are
separated by one degree. But ah, the plot continues, because Paulo has a friend
called Paula, who has never met Pauline nor Paul! Ignoring the fact that everybody
involved in this web of deceit, lies and Britpop are terrible friends, Paula is linked to
Paul by one degree of separation (through Paulo) and to Pauline (through Paulo, then
Paul) by two degrees.
This fantastic theory was thought up by Frigyes Karinthy, a Hungarian author,
poet and journalist, in 1929 in a short story called Chains.
The six degrees concept was explored in the 1967 Small World experiments, lead
by Stanley Milgram. The investigation looked at how many degrees on average people
are linked. Letters about the experiments were posted to random members of the
American public along with the name of another random person. If the recipient
knew the person, they were instructed to post the letter to them. If not, then they
were told to send it to another person who perhaps had more of a chance of knowing
the person. The experiment was complicated by the fact that out of the 296 letters
sent, 232 didn’t reach their destination, and this is put down to people not passing
on their letters. The 64 letters that did reach their destinations showed that the average
number of times the letter was passed on was in fact 5 or 6, proving Karinthy
correct. However, the test was deemed unfair by Judith Kleinfeld, who argued that
the ‘random’ people were actually chosen by the fact they considered themselves well
connected. Also because it is more likely for a longer chain to be broken by an unwilling
participant.
People disputing the six degrees theory, calling it an ‘urban myth’ also say how
isolated tribes who only interact within themselves quash the idea.
Social networking and mutual online friends have broadened this theory into
popular culture. It was calculated that everyone on Twitter is linked by 3.43 users on
average.
Although it may not be true worldwide, it’s still a pretty interesting idea, and
something that does carry a little weight, in terms of less people.

were quite tricky!
1. The Full Monty
2. Generation gap
3. The plot thickens
4. All around the world
5. Mind over matter
6. Heat wave
7. Jack in the box
8. Little Britain
9. More often than not
10. Standing in line
11. Lean on me
12. Double identity
These are the answers to the
dingbats found on the previous
issue on page 8.
Well done if you got any of
these right, some of them

Look out for the answers in the next issue!

Look out for
the next Word
of the Week!