24outlook interview18 January 2002focusfashion sciencewww.varsity.cam.ac.ukNightie nightsWhen I was about 16 I was always terrified that the object of my desire might call round one dayand see me in my pyjamas. This would have been the ultimate humiliation. Some people wouldhave said that they felt naked without their make-up or their handbag, or even without theirclothes – but I felt naked when I was wearing my pyjamas. I hated them. As far as I was concerned, my nightwearconsistently undermined any effort I made during the day. Any glamorous impression I might once havemade would have been toppled by one glance at my hideous nighttime self. The problem was that my pyjamasweren’t really pyjamas. They were a strange, utterly practical mish-mash of flannel trousers handed downfrom my cousins, an old night-shirt inherited from my dad (I somehow never had a matching top-and-bottomset), underneath which I might have on a grossly over-sized promotional t-shirt brought back by one ofmy parents from a business trip, and then one or two even tackier sweatshirts bought on holiday in Floridain the early eighties over the top. Add to this spot-cream, hair which refused to grow in one direction, a dentalretainer, and ridiculous bright red bed-socks. I blamed my family – for introducing all these weird garmentsinto my life, myself – for never being committed enough to glamour to chuck out anything that didn’tmatch, or had holes in it, or just looked plain ghastly, and the British climate – for making it absolutelynecessary to wrap myself up in layers like an Egyptian mummy.For how was it ever going to be possible to be sultry and lacy in a country where a negligee could only beworn with a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a poncho. Where, if your skin ever did see the light, it would becovered in goose-pimples. And this was the case for me more than most, having a mother whose attitudetowards central heating was, “I’ll only put the radiators on once everyone in this house is wearing fifteenjumpers and is still cold”.It got easier to be glamorous once I moved away to my own room, with its own radiator that I could puton whenever I wanted. Also, being at college made it much more likely that I’d accidentally bump into someonewhile I was wearing my nightdress. So I began a campaign of terror against my old pyjamas. I introduced,gradually, a whole complement of different nightclothes to my wardrobe. Now my theatre of dress could continueinto my night-world. I found a starched Joan-of-Arc white shift at a French flea-market, that makes mefeel like a fifteenth century choirboy. I bought a pair of black satin pyjamas on Walthamstow market, whichwent well with a cigarette and smudged panda eyes, and a pair of pale green silk ones which feel like flowingwater on my skin and turn me into an oriental princess. I’ve got a pink southern-belle nightdress with rufflesand bows, and a couple of Japanese cotton kimonos that I bind around my waist with a silk scarf. Theyswish-swish around my feet and make eating a bowl of Shreddies a beautiful experience.Somehow everything seems a little less bad when you’ve got pyjamas you can be proud of. It’s nice knowingthat the Cinderella spell worked by your party-dress isn’t going to wear off when you get into bed, andthat if someone knocks on your door in the morning they’ll detract at least a bit from your Medusa hair andfucked up eyeshadow. Tallulah Bankhead, on the other hand, used to open the door with nothing on at all,which probably did the job just as well. Of course, if, like Miss Bankhead, you tend to use boys to keep youwarm in bed at night, there’s no reason to miss out on the pyjama fashion-moment. Just put them on whenyou get up instead…Emily Haworth-BoothMinds. Wide Open ®THEY’RE CREATING ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST FOOD COMPANIES.THE IDEA: Advise Unilever and help them raise $24 billion to buy Bestfoods.THE PEOPLE: The analysts, associates, executive and managing directors of Goldman Sachs.THE OUTCOME: The largest ever all-cash, cross-border transaction.An opportunity to learn more about Summer internships at Goldman Sachs and a career in investment banking.Please note Summer internships in all divisions are only available to penultimate year students. 1st year students interested in the Fixed IncomeCurrency & Commodities Easter Internship Program are also welcome.Please join us:Wednesday, 30 January 2002Emmanuel College, Queen's Building Lecture Theatreat 6:45pmPlaces are limited and therefore not guaranteed, we ask that you confirm your interest bye-mailing alison.stirling@gs.com at least five days prior to the event.<strong>Issue</strong>d by Goldman Sachs International, regulated by the Securities and Futures Authority. ©Goldman, Sachs & Co., 2001. All rights reserved.
focus18 January 2002www.varsity.cam.ac.ukoutlook interviewfashion science25It’s snow-jokeRob Sharp and Dave Thorley rewiew the Selwyn SnowballInto AfricaEmily Venables travels without a ticketI turned up on my <strong>Varsity</strong> scooter andtook off my Ray-Ban aviators to rapturousapplause, skidding to a halt infront of the porter’s lodge. My date forthe night was late, but I wasn’t goingto let a suspected pregnancy ruin agood time. As I made my way to thefront of the queue a couple of peopletried to arrest my progress, but theywere soon dealt with by a few ablepalms to the face. The programme saidthat ‘the air was redolent with deliciousaromas of the finest food in thekingdom, and the finest wines wereimported by the cart-load from therealms of Oddbinium, Thresherlandand Cambridge Cash and Carry’, andI agreed.The most important skill thatCambridge University promotes is ‘thewilling suspension of disbelief’. Thetheme for Selwyn’s Snowball was ‘Fairytales’: the dining room was transformedinto ‘Cinderella’s Ballroom’,the Junior Common Room became an‘Enchanted Forest’ and the bar a ‘Caveof Wonders’. There was very little towonder at in the bar but judging bythe number of people who stayed forthe survivors’ photo people were moreconcerned by quantity of the alcoholand the volume of the music.I got in and grabbed myself aBabycham and lemonade then me andmy woman grooved our way across thedancefloor back to back down under atunnel of arms as the panels lit upbeneath our feet. The music was good,I especially liked Jim and er..theJimsters and er…the band with thedrums as well as some of the DJswhich entertained me between queuingtimes at various bars. But boy didI get pissed!! Wow! Decorations!!Wow!!And then we all queued up for thesurvivor’s photo. Having survived, Idutifully appeared to gape happily atsome Phantom of the Opera droolingfrom the ceiling. Like A4 sheets filedinto a photocopier we heaped ontoeach other and struck the obligatorycomedy poses. Hawk-like, spotting theopportunity to pour beer on thebiggest member of the drinking societywithin reach, I took to it like adrunk to water. Shortly after, I deftlyside-stepped his bleary shove at myribs.I really, really liked and/or loved thisball, and would thoroughly recommendit to anyone wanting to go to aChristmas ball in the future. “It’s likeGardeners World: I keep on expectingAlan Titmarsh to come round the corner”(an anonymous commentator).Five stars *****. Yes. They had a snowmachine, wow! I could practicepulling the birds in the snow, so Iwould be proficient by the time I gotto Val d’Isere! I spotted a victim, sidledup to her and told her that she lookedlike my arse! She retreated. I really likemy arse :-(Morocco for zero pence. Nada. De rien.Nowt. Yep, the annual charity hitch-hiketo Morocco is back with a vengeance.Knowing that you’ve hitched 1600 milesfrom Cambridge to Africa is an exhilaratingfeeling, and not one easily rivaled.The Morocco Hitch is the world’s longestsponsored hitch-hike, as well as beingLink Community Development’s largestfund raising event. Every year hundredsof students across the UK take up thechallenge, and raise money to help sustainthe valuable work of LCD in Ghana,Uganda and South Africa.I did the hitch last year and it took me4 days and 3 nights. 4 days, 3 nightsspent gazing out of the window of variouslorries, adrenalin pumping as we gotnearer and nearer to our final destination.I danced to a very bad rendition of ‘I WillSurvive’ on the ferry from Portsmouthwith a group of hitchers from Warwickwho I met at the ferry port. I ran manicallyaround a garage in Marbella in afairy costume trying to find us a lift,much to the amusement of the locals. Iwas then bought meals by an Englishtrucker with a vast selection of porn magazinesand elevator music, before gettinga lift with his friend, who was, unfortunately,a Geri fanatic. The longest wait Ihad for a lift was an hour, the shortest,less than a minute. (Good old VWcampers - they always pick up hitchers!) Ithink the chalkboard with its destinationsscrawled on was a definite help, although‘Please take me to Africa’ is a little optimisticwhen you’re on TrumpingtonStreet at 9am on a Monday morning.Once arriving in Morocco you’re free tobask in the African sun and take in thekaleidoscope of colours and hybrid ofcultures as you please. I lay in the middayheat on the roof of my white washedhotel overlooking the sea, with an amazingsense of achievement. You can trek inthe arid Atlas Mountains or do the obligatorycamel trek in the Sahara, sleeping inthe desert sand as the star-filled sky fadesinto morning. You can wander thoughMarrakech’s labyrinth of carpet shops,patisserie stalls, olive merchants andhenna-artists: a bargain hunters’ paradise.Or, ditch the trusty rucksack for a coupleof hours and relax in a steam bath as yourtravel-weary body is pummeled and massagedinto bliss, a glass of mint tea awaitingyou as you step back into reality.The hitch is exhausting and exhilaratingat the same time. The feeling of joywhen finally arriving in Tangiers is onethat can’t be matched. 11 lifts, 2 ferriesand a lot of laughs were all it took to getfrom Cambridge to Africa. If you want tojoin this years record-breaking hitch,don’t worry, there’s still time!Come to our meeting @ 7pm in TheHogshead pub (Regent St, nr ParkersPiece) Tuesday 22nd January to find outmore! Or e-mail us oncambridge@moroccohitch.org if you can’tmake it.Cambridge’s coffee cultureClare Herrick wakes up to the bitter, brown and murky reality of coffee in CambridgeChristmas is over. Having finallyescaped the turkey-curry haven that wasmy home, I have turned a corner andbumped smack-bang into the large,ugly, smirking beast that is Lent Term.My bank account is now once again onits way to assuming a student-loanshaped hole as I surrender myself wearilyto the indomitable might of rampantbeer-monkey thievishness (and, ofcourse, to their friends, the ribenachimpanzeeand jaffa-cake-gorilla). But,above all, we less ‘fresh’ ones are left withnostalgic memories of this time last yearwhen it was still just acceptable to pullfellow freshees with the excuse that itwas dark and we had no idea they wereginger (talking of which, here atEmmanuel we were also subjected to thealarming realisation that us blondes andbrunettes were now drowning in a sea ofredness of Bolshevik proportion, thecollege having done a highly effectivejob of compensating for a lack of stateschoolapplications through the practiceof extensive hair-colour reverse discrimination).*No, returning after the Christmas holidayis never fun. Throughout Michelmasterm the Christmas vacation is seen as noephemeral six week period in whichnothing productive will get done due tounforeseen carol-singing and Christmaspuddingcommitments – indeed, inwhich nothing productive could get donedue to the annual mince-pie-fuelledchair-wedging experience – no, indeedy.It is an enduring state with magical propertieswhich promote peak portfolio productioncapabilities and the ability tocomplete fifteen times the RDA of lecturecatch-up without any alleviation ofone’s academically-inspired superhumancapabilities. Having accidentally takeneight weeks off mid-term, you very muchlook forward to the limitless heights ofachievement attainable.And so it would have been, had it notbeen for that infallible supervillain combinationof carol-singing and Christmaspudding, assisted in their evil antics bythe oh-so convincing ‘drugs in tweed’ disguiseof ‘side-kick’ mulled wine as amedicinal, grandmotherly fireside brew.So, instead, the time was spent desperatelyavoiding The Sound of Music on TVand getting older members of the familydrunk to prevent them realising you havebeen hiding the smaller members aroundthe house in conveniently sized storageplaces, ready for the new year. This, ofcourse, alongside maintenance of abufferzone-like demeanour whilstembroiled in the great annual parentalpantomime controversy, (father: “it’s likeHamlet – it doesn’t matter how manytimes you see it.” Mother: “at least everyonedies in Hamlet.”)As a result of all this wrong-doing, secondterm becomes a nightmare for usarts’ students – doing as little degreerelatedactivity as possible is no longer theeasy option, and term-life begins to posea serious challenge to our moochingcapabilities. This year, the normal initialfrenzy of unproductivity marking mybeginning of Michelmas term was unfortunatelyconverted into a whirlwind ofGreekPlay-induced fun & frolics. I am,therefore, under particular pressure toconcentrate hard at over-compensationfor such waywardness. This term I am tosettle into my true English student nicheat last. To be honest, we are not given halfenough credit for the true wealth of physical,emotional and spiritual expertisewhich go into such high quality feats ofprocrastination.In Freshers’ week we are not such anexclusive bunch, everyone feeding off thesame Cindy’s-induced drunken unproductivityvibe. Mid-term is moredemanding, as you detect a faint curiositybrewing as to what exactly is the truenature of the large plot of land betweenthe Anchor pub and Grange Road.However, this is simply a weaning-onprocess and can generally be fended offwith a box of Earl Grey and packet ofSainsbury’s economy chocolate digestives.Nearing the end of term the survivalrace is accelerating, we have becomea true minority splinter group and idlingresourcesare being exhausted at a frighteningrate… the true test of leisureendurance has begun.So, it is now, as we look ahead to a newyear of exciting challenges and potentialproductivity, that we discover how muchwe truly respect ourselves and our role inthe community as a whole. I wish everyonea happy New Year and the best ofluck.*** Lashings of apologies for this highlyunfair remark – being ginger by nomeans makes you unpopular or stupid.Although the chances are higher.** A tip for novices… one eveningattempt to bridge gap between stairs anddoor in one fluid movement. This willresult in an unfortunate foot-in-binwedging incident, and incur a 20 minuteexplanation period each morning, as youattempt to rationalise to your bedder thepsychological state of the lesser-known‘bin-burglar’, who breaks into people’srooms, uses all available floor-space forclothes and crumb dispersal purposes,leaves all valuables untouched, and, justprior to leaving, wedges a dustbin onyour foot.
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