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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH UN GENERAL ON RWANDA 12
LSE TOP-UP FEES TO RISE
"THE BREAK EVEN POINT"
OF DEBT IF HOME FEES RAISED TO INTERNATIONAL STUDENT LEVELS
Sam Jones
Executive Editor
The LSE could raise top up fees to a minimum of £5,000-6,000 should the government lift the current £3,000 cap.
Comments made by Howard Davies at last Thursday’s Union General Meeting (UGM) took many students by surprise as the LSE director announced that he favoured raising top-up fees to buoy school funding.
Davies criticised the “crosssubsidisation” of home students by international students, telling students it was “difficult to defend” such a policy, sparking further fears that the LSE is seeking to harmonize home tuition charges with international student fees, potentially elevating the cost of attending the LSE for three years to £30,000 in fees alone.
Asked whether he would be among university vice-chancellors lobbying the government to increase top-up fees, Davies told the UGM “We haven’t started lobbying on it yet because it doesn’t seem to be particularly
worth while...My prejudice would be in favour of lifting it a but because at the moment UK undergraduates still cost more to teach than we get.
“The break even point for us, assuming that we gave a third of funding back in the form of scholarships which is what we’re currently doing, would be somewhere between £5000 - 6000 on the headline rate” he continued.
Other elements of the school administration are already moving towards increased funding from fees, The Beaver can reveal.
Minutes from council, the school’s senior strategic body, echoed sentiments expressed by Davies on Thursday, noting that “UK undergraduate teaching operated at a loss, which must be taken into account when considering expansion” The school is already set to embark upon a large scale expansion plan raising the student population from 7,500 to 9,000 students.
Further, documents passed to The Beaver, show that the LSE’s court of governors discussed the matter of top-up fees last December, but thought that “variable fees would not make much difference to widening
participation efforts as long as they were properly understood.”
Universities across the UK and the Labour government have drawn fire for the top-up fee campaign. The government conceded last year that it was not doing enough to promote better understanding of the top-up fee scheme, which has drawn effusive praise and heavy criticism in equal measure since its inception.
A school spokesperson told The Beaver, “The environment in which British universities operate is increasingly competitive, both at home and overseas. We compete for the best students, for resources from the Funding and Research Councils, and for highly mobile teaching and research staff. We believe LSE is well-placed to succeed in this environment. Our faculty is strong, and our profile and reputation are high.”
Others, however, have questioned the LSE’s continued commitment to its placing in the
global ranking tables above its commitment to students’ needs.
LSE SU Education and Welfare Officer, Sian Errington, said “Many directors and vice-chancellors are already lobbying for a large increase in top up fees to influence the outcome of the government’s review. The prospect of £30,000 debt from fees alone will put many of the brightest students from poorer backgrounds off.”
Funding is currently rewarded to the LSE by the government through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). Under the current arrangement, the LSE receives 11 percent of its total income, or £15 million per year from HEFCE. Despite plans to increase funding, however, the school has just entered its third consecutive year of generating a surplus, netting a spare £10 million over the last academic year.
The	school	'
Editorial comment page 7
¦ LSE HOME STUDENT FEES TO BE RAISED TO A MINIMUM OF £6,000 DAVIES TELLS UGM ¦ UNIVERSITY VICE-CHANCELLORS ACROSS THE UK GEARING UP TO RAISE TOP-UP CAP
SU Elections dominated by male candidates
Page 2 PARTB
tions were female.
Last week, an election workshop was held for women considering putting their names forward, in the hope of widening participation. The workshop explained all the elements of a campaign in the SU to those present and was deemed ‘very useful’ by one of the students present.
There has also been a much more	active ‘behind-the-
scenes’ push than in previous years to encourage more women to take on an election race with Treasurer of the LSE Students’ Union, Natalie Black
Simon Cody on everything from Hamlet to the book trade.
Elaine
Londesborough
News Editor
Attempts are being made to encourage more women to run in the upcoming Lent term elections following the revelation that only 22 percent of the candidates in last years elec-
instrumental in the drive.
Black told The Beaver: “The Student Union will only be taken seriously if it is seen to truly represent its students. These figures demonstrate that women are underrepresented but this is not unusual - just look in Parliament and the Board Rooms.
“I am strongly against all women shortlists and instead I want to see more active encouragement of ALL those currently underrepresented to put themselves forward” she added.
In the non-sabbatical
Executive that consists of eight officers, there are currently only two women, the Women’s Officer, Vincenti, who is required to be a woman by the constitution, and the Postgraduate Students Officer, Anna Morgan. In the elections for non-sabbatical posts, four of the 16 candidates were female, equating to only 25 percent.
Seemingly, the area where there is less of a shortfall is the sabbatical elections, as 42 percent of the candidates last year were female and two of the four current sabbaticals, Sian
Errington, Education and Welfare, and Black, are women. However, in both the Communications Officer and General Secretary races there were no female candidates. This looks set to change this year with various prominent women lining up for the roles.
A key area of concern is the committees of the SU. In both the Constitution and Steering (C&S) and the Finance and Services committee elections, there were only three female candidates, just 12 percent of the total.
C&S committee, promi-
nent and contentious recently due to their decision to ban paper throwing, consists of seven members, and yet has no women on it.
With the no confidence vote in the C&S committee passing at a Union General Meeting (UGM) two weeks ago, there will be a by-election at this week’s UGM.
Of the 20 candidates ^^3 standing however,
Editorial comment page 7
Ultimate
frizzzzbee
The frizzees whizzed down the Brunei and learn the importance of“banana” guards
Page 19
Democracy: The way forward?
The Beaver
examines whether the forceful spread of democracy is worthwile.
02 leaver! 14 February 2006
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Silver Wae*
The SchoolJeIls one of its ONLY HALLS MR FAMILIES
Paper throwing
CALLS FOR-TOIPLETE BAN SPREAD
Development society auction raises £7,000
Top up fees debacle; Women in elections; Howard Davies at UGM; Balancing the ethnic divide; David Osborne at the LSE
Arthur Krebbers
Last weeks people auction, held by the LSE Students’ Union (SU) Development Society as part of Development Week, raised over £7,000 for the charity Water Aid.
The second annual Development Week included several high profile speaker events, discussions and a networking reception. The main focus of this year were the issues facing the impoverished people of Africa. “Our aim was to zoom in on the problems facing those most in need” explains Reema Kotecha, president of the Development Society. “The	momentum
brought about by the G8, the Make	Poverty	History
Campaign and the Commission for Africa has really put this item on the
Verena Letzerich, founder and former president of the society, views the high turnout for the week’s happenings as evidential for the interests a. lot of LSE students share on global economic and social matters. Letzerich told The Beaver: “there is a huge demand for what we have to offer. When we started up last year we managed to get 180 members. This is quite extraordinary for a new, unproven society. This year we have built up a reputation and
have now got 500 people involved”
Letzerich, who organised the first ever Development Week last year, says she is extremely “proud of the team behind this year’s flagship events.” According to her, the highlight of the week will remain the special charity auction in the Quad.
Last year, the ‘PURE’ Auction raised over £2,600 for Water Aid, which provides safe water and sanitation to the world’s poorest citizens. This year, the amount collected for the NGO has roughly trebled. Highlights include the sale of several LSE ‘stallions’ for more than £300 each, as well as Sir Howard Davies’ for £580. The group of three successful female bidders admitted they were in awe after the LSE director presented his intimate ‘fusion’ dancing skills on stage. Other showcased talents included singing, salsa dancing and stripping.
“Last year, the concept was hard to imagine. It felt a bit awkward.” Letzerich - who herself was auctioned in the 2005 event - tells The Beaver. “This year, it became somewhat of a prestigious thing. You saw the rise of ‘ego bidding’ and people just having a laugh.”
This year, as Water Aid is one of the Raising and Giving week charities, the total for the auction will be added to the
RAG total. Chris Heathcote, Communications Officer, who is organising the week, said, “this is an unbelievable achievement by Reema and everyone at the Development Society and it’s fantastic that they are involved in RAG this year. It is clear that we made the right decision choosing Wateraid as a RAG charity and I’m looking forward to raising more money for them in week 7.”
Besides making students aware of the extreme poverty and inequality that still exists around the world, the organisers also aspire to encourage students to consider a career in the development sector. Tuesday’s exclusive networking reception gave attendants a glimpse of the possibilities that think-tanks, governmental organisations and NGO’s offer in this domain.
Carina Wendel, treasurer of the Society, was extremely pleased with the “surprisingly high turnout.” The ticketed event, which was oversubscribed by approximately 100* people, is - according to the society - evidence for the fact that students at the LSE actually have a broad career interest.
Letzerich has no doubt in her mind that the week, as well as the now renowned auction, will continue to flourish at the university. “This will stay with the LSE” she believes.
IS;
Howard Davies at the Development Society people auction
Photograph: Alex Teytleboym:
Universities told to the racial divide
balance t°p-up fees
set to rise
Saabira Chaudhuri
Britain’s Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) is to tell some of the nation’s top universities to recruit more black students after “alarming” figures were discovered by government and academic sources, demonstrating “segregation” and a “racial bias” in admissions.
As reported by The Sunday Times, while the CRE has not decided on an enforcement of admissions quotas to enforce diversity, it affirms that Britain’s top universities will be actively encouraged to take affirmative action to recruit more black students. A CRE official stated: “If you have a black student and a white student with equal qualifications at the front of the admissions queue, we would want the university to take positive action to choose the black student first.”
Research conducted by the Department for Education and Skills has shown that nine member institutions of the prestigious Russell group of elite universities, of which LSE is a prominent member, had fewer than 30 black Caribbean students.
While for the last eight years the LSE has run several
Widening	Participation
Schemes, which include e-mentoring, visits to the LSE and school based workshops, these are not aimed at facial or ethnic minorities in particular. The school does however have a ‘Race Equality Working Group,’ which has several ongoing programs including “increasing the representation of British black ethnic minorities (BEM) on Court.”
While allegedly working towards increasing black minority representation, statistics reveal that LSE currently has only 126 UK black students registered, of which 51 are new this year. The School in fact has one of the lowest proportions of black home students in the UK, with just three percent of black its home student population being of black ethnic origin.
In spite of these statistics, the LSE is surprisingly optimistic about its existing racial composition. The School does not seem particularly perturbed by the. CRE’s recent announcement concerning affirmative action and is in fact currently quite certain that it is unlikely to change its admissions policy in the near future.
Undergraduate Admissions Manager, Hrilina
Lock told The Beaver, “the School takes a very simple view on admissions, which is that we admit students on the basis of academic attainment regardless of any socio-economic data.”
She added, “we feel confident that our ‘aspiration raising’ initiatives and approach to widening	participation
encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply to the School. Therefore we do not envisage changing our admissions policy at this time.”
Catherine Baldwin, Head of Recruitment & Admissions at LSE supported this view: “it would be fair to say that the School does not intend to depart from the fundamental principle which has underwritten its admissions policy for years, namely that admission to the School should be based on academic merit and potential.”
However Baldwin also told The Beaver: “UCAS is considering allowing applicants to add more information (about background, involvement in Widening Participation activities, etc.) on the UCAS form in the future. LSE, like many universities, was consulted about these changes and responded very positively to the UCAS plans.”
Continued from page i
remained keen to affirm its ongoing attachment to numerous widening participation schemes. Of money raised through potential increases in top-up fees, over one third will be invested in bursary and support schemes. Others are speculating over the future of the LSE’s controversial Discretionary Places Scheme (DPS), under which a quota of 40 places has been reserved for disadvantaged state school pupils for the past six years. One council insider mooted the likely expansion of the scheme.
Commenting to The Beaver before going to print, Davies denied any plans for raising fees. “There is no question of fees being set at anything other than £3,000, adjusted for inflation, for the foreseeable future. There will be a review in 2009, by the government, which will consider the case for the future. It is far too early to say what the outcome will be and, as I said at the UGM, I have not been lobbying for a change. We will i need to look at the impact of , fees on applications and on i diversity before assessing the arguments and deciding the School’s views. That would happen in 2008-09, probably.”
+
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+
MEWS
iBeaver 114 January 2006 03
Howard Davies leaves questions unanswered
Tanya Rajapakse News Editor
Director of the LSE, Sir Howard	Davies,
addressed the Union General Meeting (UGM) last week with a speech in which he discussed topics ranging from top-up fees to the National Student Survey (NSS).
At the start of the speech, which was peppered with his usual humour and frequent laughs from the audience, Davies promised not to use “long words or any numbers” after mentioning an article in The Times which claimed that tutors were in despair at illiterate freshers.
He went on to discuss top-up fees, saying that from LSE’s point of view UK applications had fallen by one percent but surprisingly foreign applications had risen by 14 percent. Davies also announced the introduction of ten scholarships of £25,000 for masters’ students as a result of a generous donation by a former LSE student.
Regarding the subject of Imperial College’s withdrawal from the University of London (UL) and LSE’s response to the move Davies said, “We don’t want to leave currently but we want to issue our own degrees. So we are submitting a motion to the University of London.” Imperial College has announced that it is completely disassociating itself from the UL and thus it will no
longer participate in the UL sports leagues.
During the question and answer session Davies was asked about the shortage of bike parking spaces on campus and what he was doing about the matter by LSE Students’ Union (SU) Environment and Ethics Officer, Joel Kenrick. Before responding Davies asked Kenrick if he was “sniffing seats” which was seen by some as inappropriate whilst Kenrick dismissed it as “friendly banter.” Kenrick later told The Beaver he “was pleased that the school will be installing another 50 secure bike parking spaces” but that “even this might not be enough to meet the heavy demand.”
In response to another question about the low quality of class teachers’ English language skills Davies said that there was a scheme to offer language teaching to teachers but that whether it was taken up was each individual’s decision. LSE SU International students’ Officer Farhan Islam, who asked Davies the question, said in a statement to The Beaver that he thought Davies had “tried to avoid the question. The school should have more rigorous standards for communication skills of part-time teachers,” said Islam.
Other questions put to the Director included one on the quality of Three Tuns food, to which he replied by saying that the food he had at an Indian cricket stadium was similar to that offered by LSE Catering Services.
He dealt with another question on low ratings achieved by the university with regards to pastoral care stressing that it had to be looked at on a departmental basis and hence lower scoring departments would need to be
School response to NSS questioned
Chris Lam
News Editor
The results of last year’s National Student Survey (NSS) revealed a poor performance by the School in several key areas that have yet to be improved upon.
At Thursday’s Union General Meeting, Director of the LSE, Howard Davies, failed to show that there had been any major changes put into place to tackle the fact that the School ranked bottom in the country for ‘personal development’ in NSS.
In last year’s survey, the School finished 74^ overall out of all institutions surveyed. It revealed that History students are the ‘most satisfied’ at the LSE whilst Government students are the least. The School was also poorly rated by is students for ‘assessment and feedback’ and ‘academic assessment’.
At the UGM, the Director said; “the situation is different across all departments... some scored quite high and some quite low for academic support. Some are doing better for academic support and pastoral care, so what we are currently doing is work being led by Tim Murphy to look at how we differ from department to department and what can be done to bring the lower departments up to the likes of the best”.
Regarding Personal Development, Davies said, “frankly we don’t quite know what personal development really means in this context...”
He continued, “academic support is much more straightforward and it tends to be whether you have graduate students who can answer questions about courses... we’re thinking we can improve the provision in those departments which have scored poor-ly”.
Deputy director Tim Murphy told The Beaver, “the NSS results and ‘the student experience’ was discussed in great detail at the Undergraduate Consultative Forum and the Student Affairs Committee in the Michaelmas Term. A focus group was convened, comprising the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, the Teaching and Learning Centre, some departmental tutors and the SU, which selected areas for further research. The Academic and Professional Development (APD) is currently researching these areas further and expects to report to	the Student Affairs
Committee in March.”
He continued, “We are also looking at the results in relation to a range of other Higher Education Institutions - the Russell group, other London based universities (to see if we can discern a ‘London effect’), etc.”
LSE Students’ Union (SU) Communications officer Chris Heathcote said, “I think everyone at LSE was surprised and disappointed at last year’s NSS results and people within the School seemed eager to • work on the areas of weakness that were identified.
“However, I hope Howard’s comments at the UGM don’t
mean that this has been put on the back burner. Hopefully we will have some new results from this years survey very soon that will show if there has any improvement.”
However, many top institutions, including the LSE have questioned the survey, and Oxford, Cambridge and Warwick encouraged their students to boycott it, with Oxford stating on their website that“... the NSS is a huge waste of government money, at a time when resources in higher Education are under pressure.”
Mark Hoffman, Dean of undergraduate studies at the LSE highlighted problems with analysing the results and said: “LSE welcomes and encourages student feedback and is now digging through the details of survey in detail. This is complicated by several factors - the detailed findings themselves are not all that easy to access and manipulate and is fairly labour-intensive.
He added: “At LSE we seek to provide highly capable students with academic support while at the same time encouraging independence and self -motivation. If the School is to receive accurate information from the next survey, it is important that a wide range of students respond so we urge all relevant students to give their views.”
This year’s survey has been completed by 29% of third year students so far and closes in April. By the time the survey had closed last year, 55% of students had completed it.
Union Jack
brought up to standard.
In his speech Davies also encouraged students to respond to the NSS and on the issue of possible student representation for the Director’s Selection Committee he simply said he “couldn’t care less,” but
Photgraph: Laleh Kazemi-Veisari
that he would positively welcome the addition of a student representative.
When asked by The Beaver about his experience at the UGM, Davies replied “The UGM is, of course, the highlight of my term.”
Women urged to run
22%
of candidates in the 2005 LSE SU lent term elections were women;
Only 2
ofthe 8 person no-sabb executive are women;
12%
of candatafes for the C&S and F&S committees least year were female
Continued from page i
only four are women, leading some to question whether there will be much of an improvement this time round.
LSE SU Womens’ Officer, Alexandra Vincenti, told The Beaver that she feels women don’t run because “they have the impression that it is a male dominated area. If you look at the previous lists of say C&S nominees, they are all men, which makes it very difficult for women if they feel they will be the only one.”
Vincenti feels the election process can be improved through “greater publicity of the elections earlier on and a tighter control over the actual election process, to ensure it is fair and inclusive to all candidates.
“This would help more women feel they could get involved,” she added.
Nominations for .this year’s lent term elections open this week after Thursday’s Union General Meeting, and it remains to be seen if there will be more women standing.
Blind For a Day
Alex Teytelboym, PartB Editor, will be blindfolded FOR AN ENTIRE DAY. He WANTS TO RAISE £700 FOR THE CHARITY WATER AlD. ALEX WILL ATTEMPT TO LEAD A NORMAL DAY AT THE LSE ON WEDNESDAY 15™ February. He will describe his experiences in a PartB feature next week.
After the previous week’s amusing paper throwing issue, Jack had to be dragged to the OT, so intense was his pessimism. With barely any interesting issues on hand, and a general lull predicted after last weeks storm Jack only arrived to decide to muse over how much to bid for Howie at the Development Society auction.
Director Howie came prepared for some more student politicking, and a warped sense of humour, where he insisted on picking on enviro-mentalist Josie Can-Rig with regards to his perfectly acceptable habit of smelling the OT seats - to each his own, says Jack. He also insisted on boring Jack outright, until he very proudly announced that he couldn’t care less about students, manfully identified his gaffe, and tried to backtrack assuming that since no one was listening to him anyway... Other Howie D classics included admission of his strong dislike for people trying to make out with the animals his donor (what organ was it Howie) had kindly supplied Houghton Street with. His most forthright admission - announcing his willingness to pay even more than he offered last year for a girl.
PussyBoy Douglas made a credible attempt at pretending to display his (non-existent) integrity with a pseudo-apology for last week’s Paper In-C&S Out campaign, then gave it all away by naming the members of his committee that staged a walkout at the last C&S meeting. CaveMan Dole, yet again in the midst of the action, hurt Jack’s ears when he decided he was at a crowded karaoke pub, hollering excitedly into the microphone when he was greeted with rapturous showers from the Balcony Boys. The AU would be well advised not to encourage him to join their Wednesday Urns Karaoke sessions.
Media groupie Rasta-Marie said her tearful farewells to Hacks Paradise, or so Jack assumed, given how unintelligible her expletives were. Jack suspects she was actually chanting “Rasta-Marie for General Secretarie”. Heather Heathcock showed us why he is paid his obscene salary by quoting almost verbatim from that document of the Gods - the Consitution, knocking down poor Muzzy Marwah’s arguments in his stride, and then bizarrely admitted he would be honoured to trash King’s along with the AU President. Meanwhile Beaver Editor Samantha Gad barely needed an invite to bare some ass, showing off how The Beaver spends the Union’s money -tacky clothing. A pity indeed that Jack wasn’t offered any, to add to his makeover - yes indeed, check the Facebook. Sammy also seemed thrilled to be given the opportunity to rip into SoLong Mattoo, who’s profile is rising after the WeeklyLetsSeeWhoCanSlagHi mOffMore sessions at the OT. Jack’s sympathies lie with you, Mattoo. As long as you never come back to his domain!
041 leaver 114 February 2006
NEWS
George Osborne: ‘no deal’ with Cameron
Wil Barber
Last Thursday the LSE Students’ Union (SU) Conservative Society welcomed the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne MP, to discuss ‘An Economic policy for the Modern World.’
After keeping his audience waiting ten minutes, Osborne began a short speech on the need for the Conservative Party to adopt a new economic policy in a “shifting political landscape”, suggesting that the ‘Zeitgeist’ was now with the Conservative Party.
Osborne focused on how the election of David Cameron means that for the first time in over ten years the Conservative Party was “making the political weather”.
Osborne finished his speech by discussing the four key principles the Conservative party will have to adopt in order to win the next general election, the most
important being that the Tories should adopt a ‘positive’ attitude to the United Kingdom.
Most important though for many of the LSE SU Conservative Association members present was the question of whether at the next election the Tories will be proposing the introduction of tax cuts. The Shadow Chancellor answered that the Conservative party needs to convince people that it will be able to effectively manage the economy.
Osborne was also asked how similar the relationship between him and Cameron was to that of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. He was eager to point out that there was definitely ‘no deal’ between him and Cameron, and that unlike Brown had not been cheated out of the job as party leader.
The meeting finished promptly at three and Osborne joined several of the party members for a quick drink in the Pitcher & Piano.
Library to be expanded
Cardiff student paper pulped
Wil Barber
Eight thousand copies of an award-winning student paper were pulped last week and its editor suspended after publishing a Danish caricature of the prophet Muhammad which has incited riots across Europe and the Middle East.
The Cardiff Student Union paper, Gair Rhydd, whose name means “free word” in English, published one of the controversial images even whilst violent protests were taking place through mainland Europe and a decision to remove the newspaper from circulation was made the same
“University has excellent relationships with both local and national Muslim communities and is proud in 2005 to have launched the unique Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK which aims to promote a greater understanding of Islam and the life of Muslim communities in the UK.”
An investigation into the incident is now under way and the editor and three student journalists had been suspended and banned from entering the university campus.
Former deputy-editor of Gair Rhydd, James Anthony, told The South Wales Echo that the suspended editor is “devastated”. He went on to say that “The turnaround on
day.
The pictures, first published in Denmark, depict the prophet as a terrorist and despite complaints from Islamic countries have been republished in Norway, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. According to the BBC, Gair Rhydd - The Guardian student newspaper of the year 2005 - is the first newspaper in the United Kingdom to print the pictures.
The Cardiff Student union immediately responded to the incident stating “The Students’ Union very much regrets any upset caused or disrespect shown by the publication of the controversial cartoon and has taken immediate action by promptly withdrawing all copies of this week’s edition of Gair Rhydd.”
A spokesman for Cardiff University also said the
those papers is so quick that snap decisions are made and when snap decisions are made, so are mistakes.”
The Canadian student newspaper The Cadre also suffered a similar fate when it too published copies of the controversial cartoons. The editor-in-chief of the University of Prince Edward Island paper defended his decision to publish saying it was a matter of freedom of the press. He also noted that many publications in the past have been able to publish caricatures of Jesus and other religious figures.
When asked about the actions of both student papers at last Thursday’s Union General Meeting (UGM) Executive Editor of The Beaver, Sam Jones, described the move to print the offensive cartoons as a “foolish deci-
Osborne talks of “shifting political landscape’
Photograph: Magnus Aabeeh
Laura Deck
Senior Editor
The course collection, study space, and archives storage at the LSE library are to be expanded. The initiatives have been approved by The Financial and General Purposes Committee (FGPC) and the Estates Strategy Committee (ESC), although plans to resolve leaks in the basement undercroft were not approved.
Librarian and Director of IT Services Jean Sykes summarised the plans: “These initiatives between them address the twin poles of the Library’s mission; services to students (60 percent expansion of course collections plus addition of 140 reader spaces) and support for research (expansion of archives area and extension of long-standing print collections into Cowdray House basement).”
The Library Space
Proposal addressed several issues. Computer and study space availability was redesigned in 1998 when the LSE had a no-growth policy and had 6,500 students. Since 1999 there has been a 17 percent increase in student numbers, with over 8,000 students and possibly up to 9,000 students in the near future.
After renovation in 2001, Library use increased “significantly” and the course collection has grown at a faster rate in response to “consistent dissatisfaction of students with the provision of copies of set texts.”
“The rate of print acquisition, despite a rapidly growing electronic collection, has shown no signs of slowing down,” Sykes reported to The Beaver. “We began to anticipate space pressures across all fronts a couple of years ago.”
Increased deposits in the archives have created an additional storage problem, and leaks from the plaza into the undercroft below are endan-
gering valuable collections stored there, which include up to 200,000 volumes. According to the proposal “the area is still not fully waterproof and these important collections are at risk.”
The approved solutions to the issues include a plan to expand the course collection by 60 percent and re-arrange space on the first and ground floors. This redesign should also provide more study space for students, which should be especially useful during exam time when occupancy rises to 100 percent.
The	second initiative
approved was the expansion of the archives storage area into the adjacent space which will allow for the archives collection to expand for another 20 to 25 years at its current rate.
The third and final approved proposal was to outfit the Cowdray House basement to store the archives temporarily while the archives space renovation is completed. A fourth initiative to install a
canopy over the plaza to solve the leak problem was not approved, and “an alternative solution is being investigated.” Concerning the leaks in the undercroft, Sykes said “the leaks have happened intermittently since the construction of the plaza in summer 2002.... Library staff have checked the undercroft daily and dealt quickly with any leaks, and in summer 2004 there was a complete professional clean of the print volumes stored in the undercroft as a preservation measure.”
Sykes told the Beaver that she believed a likely solution had been decided on and would be brought to the ESC in March, after discussing the issues with “specialists in water-proofing systems.”
The approved funding for the first three solution proposals is £2,953,600. The FGPC forecasted funding for library improvements to cost £4.5 million based on options agreed on in October 2005.
Library study space set to be enhanced
Photograph: Lakh Kazemi-Veisari
NEWS
iBeaver|i4 February 2006 05
Fresh calls for paper throwing ban
Elaine
Londesborough
News Editor
A letter writing campaign by alumni has begun in an attempt to get the School to back the former Constitution and Steering (C&S) committee’s decision to ban paper throwing at the Union General Meeting (UGM).
The decision to ban paper throwing was taken by the C&S committee two weeks ago and was consequently overturned at the UGM of the same week. The committee were then controversially no-confi-denced.
Several former prominent figures in the Union have written to the Director, Howard Davies to ask that he does what he can to end paper throwing. “This is not a practice I feel an internationally respected world-leading university such as LSE should condone,” wrote Anna Protano-Biggs, who was a member of the 2004-2005 C&S committee.
Priya Bose, who graduated last year having been awarded an honorary life membership of the Union, wrote to The Beaver last week to inform the student body of her experience of paper throwing at the LSE.
Bose suffers from photo-
sensitive epilepsy and recalls her first UGM in 2001 as a distressing experience. After asking a question to the Entertainments sabbatical about the use of strobe lighting at freshers’ events, she was showered with paper from the balcony. This had the potential to set off an epileptic fit.
“If I were not such a determined character, I would have left the Union,” Bose recalled.
Since the UGM, a report has been compiled on behalf of the sabbatical team investigating the legality and constitutionality of the practice of paper throwing. Both the Health and Safety advisor and the School’s Advisor to students with Disabilities were questioned.
According to the report, the advisor to students with disabilities was initially unconcerned about paper throwing as it did not seem intentionally aimed at disabled students because they had a disability.
However, the report states that when the issue of students with balance disorders were being disadvantaged “she agreed that this was a valid point, while pointing out that students without disabilities might also feel unsafe.”
The Health and Safety Officer of the School felt that “if someone were injured, the SU and potentially individual officers would be liable.” She
was also concerned that the practice might be incompatible wit the School’s freedom of Speech policies.
The Union are responding to the report with a full risk assessment. Chris Heathcote, SU Communications Officer, told The Beaver: “We will be strictly enforcing the existing rules of the UGM to improve the atmosphere and will be taking expert advice on the status of paper throwing.”
However, at last weeks meeting, Dave Cole, a student who has spoken openly about his Menier’s syndrome, lost his temper with people who were throwing paper at him, leading some to question whether the status quo is good enough.
Former C&S member, James Caspell, told The Beaver: “the policy formulated by the SU Executive has clearly failed to work. The sight of a disabled student having to lose his temper on stage before paper throwing ceases should be an embarrassment to us all.”
Following the no-confi-dence vote, Caspell boycotted last Monday’s C&S meeting and three further members, Nazir Hussain, Ali Dewji and Azan Aziz Marwah decided to leave after around 20 minutes. Without C&S’s approval, business can not be submitted to the UGM for discussion.
Last week there was enough business left over from
previous weeks for this to have little effect, but it is feared that if the same happens again some policy will not be discussed.
Heathcote was especially perturbed by the behaviour of C&S, as he was hoping to prioritise a motion about data sharing with the University of London Union for last week’s UGM through C&S’s Monday meeting. He told The Beaver: “I think it is utterly disgraceful for elected members of C&S to boycott their own meetings in a bitter attempt to stall union business. They are stopping students bringing policy to the UGM. They have let their electorate down.”
Caspell rebutted these claims on the grounds that his conduct is in line with the principles on which he was elected. “I boycotted my last two C&S meetings for two reasons: firstly, to respect the democratic withdrawal of our mandate but also I refuse to preside over an actively disab-list UGM. I was elected to C&S after promising to uphold the Equal Opportunities Policy and as I was unable to do that, I felt I should make a stand,” he said.
At the time of going to print, it was uncertain whether C&S would convene as normal on Monday. Caspell had, however, already made it clear that he would not be attending.
LSE sells family accomodation ’
Amy Williams
The School’s Finance and Purposes Committee has agreed to sell the 18 houses at Silver Walk halls of residence, the last but one LSE accomodation for students with families, at the end of the summer.
The committee’s report to Council was generally critical about the residences saying that “they are distant from Houghton Street campus, suffer disproportionally high levels of voids, do not meet the needs of families and are beginning to fall into disrepair.” Applications to the residences fluctuate in numbers, with ‘voids’ (empty rooms) often being a problem.
The LSE bought the houses in 1991 as newly constructed two and three storey homes designed to allow students with families to study at the LSE. They are one of the few LSE-owned residences which cater to students with families. However, in the report it is suggested that families looking for accommodation are
finding it increasingly easier to find property in the open market rather than in university-owned halls.
The School believes that the opening of 900 new beds in 2006 at Lilian Knowles House, Northumberland House and a refurbished Passfield Hall will more than counter the issues of the closing of Silver Walk. The University of London has also revamped International Hall.
The houses at Silver Walk have seen little investment over the years due to an earlier agreement that Silver Walk would be disposed of after the reopening of Passfield. Consequently, there would be £30-40,000 worth of spending needed to bring the homes up to standard with other LSE halls.
Students currently contracted to Silver Walk will be able to stay until early July 2006, with the usual summer vacation accommodation still being offered. However, from the 2006/7 academic session the houses will no longer be available.
Employers: “Graduates lack skills”
Andy Hallett
According to a new report, far too many university graduates in the UK are lacking in even the most basic social and academic skills making it hard for employers to fill vacancies. The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) found that more than half of all CEOs surveyed are predicting even fewer suitable graduates in the next 12 months.
In general employers bemoaned the lack of “team working, cultural awareness, leadership and communication skills,” according to Carl Gilleard, Chief Executive of AGR. Common complaints included the inability of too many new employees to under-
take even basic tasks requiring numeracy and literacy, whilst presentation skills and a generally negative attitude to industry were also flagged as problems.
Gilleard said graduates could improve themselves and their chances by seeing university “as an investment...[that] can help me get more from life” rather than just a place to study for an academic qualification.
Given the observations made in the report, Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell claimed it showed “why we have placed much emphasis on the growth of foundation degrees” whilst urging businesses to help improve graduates’ skills rather' than just complain about it.
The survey pointed out that graduates’ starting salaries will increase by the smallest amount (two percent) for five years in 2006, taking the average up to £23,000. Investment banking, a popular destination for LSE students has the best starting salary for graduates at £35,000.
School officials have claimed that LSE graduates did not suffer from the same flaws, citing the LSE’s “fabulous environment” for getting involved with student societies and understanding other cultures. They added that LSE alumni were said to be “highly regarded by key recruiters” but admitted the School could not be complacent.
This contrasts with last year’s National Student Survey results in which LSE
students rated the School very low	for	‘Personal
Development’ which covers areas such as self confidence, communication skills and confidence in tackling unfamiliar problems.
Speaking to the Beaver in October LSE Academic Registrar Simeon Underwood told the Beaver regarding ‘personal development’, “...this result puzzles us... Compared to the students I have met at the other universities at which I have worked, LSE students have never seemed to me to be lacking in confidence and communications skills... perhaps because we haven’t seen this as a problem, we have not given it the attention it may deserve in our internal systems, such as the School survey.”
Several former members of C&S look on at the UGM
Photograph: Laieh Kazemi-Veisari
The Penguin will soon be returned to this spot on Clare Market
In Brief:
Halls
Great Dover Street hall will be renamed the Beatrice Webb House, in honour of the co-founder of the School. The hall, situated near Borough tube station in Southwark, caters mainly for postgraduate students.
Beatrice Webb was an influential figure in the British Socialist movement. She founded the LSE in 1895 with her husband, Sydney Webb and fellow Fabians, Graham Wallas and George Bernhard Shaw, with the aim of studying poverty issues and social inequalities in order to improve society. Together with her husband she also founded the left-wing weekly magazine, the New Statesman in 1913.
LSE Students’ Union (SU) Residences Officer, Simon Chignell, said of the decision to rename the hall, “It’s a more charismatic name than naming it after some anonymous street in South London. Hopefully they will come up with some more interesting names for the new residences.”
A motion passed at the Union General Meeting (UGM) in week thirteen called for the renaming of Towers 1, 2 and 3 in honour of the founding members of the suffragette movement, Emily Wilding-Davison, Annie Kenny and Emmeline	Pankhurst.
Suggestions have also been made for the naming of the newly-acquired building 24 Kingsway.
Amy Williams
Higher Education
The current student support system was condemned as being “socially regressive” by Sir Howard Newby, the outgoing head of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).
According to The Times newspaper, he argued that the upper and middle classes unfairly benefit from the zero-interest loans and should instead be made to pay a real
Photograph: Magnus Aabech
rate of interest. This would result in up to £6 billion a year of public subsidy being saved. Such a saving could then be channelled back into the university system to boost the number of undergraduates, particularly those from poorer backgrounds.
Currently, all students are eligible for a loan of £1735, with this increasing to a variable rate of £3000 in September. However, Newby believes that without reform even this will prove “unsustainable”, leading to a rise in the fee cap to £5000 by 2010.
The Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell rejected Sir Howard’s claim that the current system is discouraging poorer students, claiming that future funding arrangements will see more entering university. However, recent statistics reported last week show an estimated four percent drop in university applicants this year, double the government’s estimate of a “modest two percent blip”.
Although the LSE was one of the only universities not to experience this drop, this was due to rising numbers of foreign - not domestic - students.
Charlotte Rhodes
06 leaver 14 February 2006
COMMENT
ANALYSIS
Banning
paper
throwing
Kamsnka
Aubeelack
The past two weeks have been dominated by the whole issue of paper-throwing, and it seems unlikely to die out in the near future. Since disability seems to be at the heart of this controversy, it is my duty to comment on it.
What I disapprove the most is the way this issue has been dealt with by C&S. Anyone, and I mean anyone who regularly goes to the UGM, could have predicted the overturning of this decision. So why couldn’t C&S bring this issue to the UGM for a proper discussion instead of banning it without notice in one of its meetings?
i!
Disabled students have been used as ‘scapegoats’ to support the case for a ban on paper throwing.
Why couldn’t C&S, as upholders of the constitution, go to the Executive and bring it to their attention? Surely this issue would have had more chances of success if they had taken it to the UGM one week later, without marginalising the Executive, and calmly bringing to reason the faithful UGM attendees. The reason behind the overturning of this motion lies in the irritation and anger felt by the UGM, as the Union’s sovereign body, at the fact that the C&S overnight banned one of the key ‘attractions’ (for lack
of a better word) of the UGM without any notice. Not surprising then that the UGM showed C&S who’s the boss and at the same time, showed them the door.
It is very disappointing that disabled students in particular, through the DDA, have been used as ‘scapegoats’ to support the case for a ban on paper throwing. Anyone who went to the UGM on this particular Thursday would have heard only three letters in C&S’s arguments: D-D-A. Yes, the DDA would require reasonable adjustments to be made to allow disabled students to go on stage without feeling put off by paper throwing. Yes again, however, that paper throwing puts off even more students without any disabilities from actively participating in the UGM. If we must ban paper-throwing, don’t hide behind a law that protects only a particular segment of the population. Ban it because it represents a health and safety hazard. Ban it because it hinders freedom of speech and represents an obstacle to ANY student who would feel threatened or intimidated irrespective of gender, ethnicity, political affiliation, sexual preference and disability.
One member of the audience rightly asked, “And what about heckling?” Indeed, in my opinion, heckling, jeering and other forms of verbal intimidation are much much worse than paper-throwing. The answer to this whole issue lies in the hands of the audience. The Chair should undoubtedly be more forceful in applying the rules within “his” UGM. However, the students should also exercise their judgement. We are the only Students Union to continue with this tradition of a weekly UGM. Let us not allow ourselves to sink to the level of other Students Unions in the country. Let us welcome open and unhindered debate without finding vindictive pleasure where there is none and without surrendering our reason to our human instincts of rowdiness. I call upon the UGM attendees to exercise more restraint and adopt a self-imposed ban on paper-throwing.
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Feeling thirsty?
Surviving the LSE drought: Kanan Dhru on the water fountain shortage
How do you manage your daily intake of water, when you spend your entire day at the LSE? Do you think there are sufficient drinking water sources on the LSE campus?
The issue here is serious. The current infrastructure of LSE fails to provide even the most basic access to water to its students. There has been a growing dissatisfaction from the student body that the need for basic drinking water facility is not taken care of.
At present, there is only one water fountain in the Brunch Bowl, which is on the fourth floor of the Old Building. Apart from that, there are four water fountains in the Clements house but most of them are non-func-tional. Many of us would agree that these fountains are not located in the most convenient places, making it rather difficult for the students and almost impossible for the disabled to use.
The more students I spoke to, the more I realised that the need is pertinent. I observed that most students carry a bottle of water from home. Others buy it on regular basis. Some even fill up their bottles from the toilet taps!
This state of affairs cannot continue. Water is one of the
essential and most fundamental necessities of every human being and such an open neglect to providing even the basic water on the LSE campus is unjustifiable.
British law requires every building to have at least one drinking water source. Such sources should be connected to some special hygienic tank. Technically, LSE does comply with this requirement. However, the problem with this is that most students are hardly aware of such water sources, since they are not kept at the most obvious places and thus, their usage is extremely minimal.
Another problem is that the responsibility of providing drinking water lies with the individual departments and not with a central authority. Thus, it is up to the departments whether or not they want to install such facilities, the use of which unfortunately gets restricted to their own staff members.
It is shocking that even the LSE Library only has paid water facility. If each one of us buys a bottle per day from that vending machine in the library, the total comes to 1 Million pound per year!! (80 pence per day - 4 pounds a week - 120 pounds a year, multiplied by 8000 students!) It is worrying that the students seemed to have
gotten used to the status quo.
Pure water is healthier alternative for the students than other drinks and it is the duty of the school to see to it that it is provided. It is against the health and safety rules not to have basic access to water. The current policy of the Union requires it to campaign for the inclusion of more water fountains in the school development and also to provide a water fountain in a convenient place.
However, things have started to change. There is an increased momentum on the issue now from the Students Union and even the school authorities have shown willingness to work on the issue. A UGM motion in order to make a concrete policy on this issue is also underway.
I just have one appeal to all the students. Please raise your voice about the issue and join the initiative. The appeal to school is that there should be a central authority governing the water facilities on the campus, rather than having individual departments to decide on the matter. The request is to at least make the services more accessible. If LSE can afford refurbishing its infrastructure and acquiring more property, why not satisfy the need of something as basic as drinking water?
Hacks, voyeurs and the politically curious; welcome to Hacktavist - your one stop shop for superior spurious rumour, gossip and hearsay. This is the filthy grease that keeps the Houghton Street Circus oiled.
Sometime LSE Robbie Burns. Ciem Broumley-Young is still deciding whether to run for Residences. Having booked a holiday for the nomination period in order to outdo his own ego, Broumley-Young may yet kowtow to residence race fever: curbing comrade Louise Robinson’s intentions to enter said affray. Who will make the call? Either way, Robinson’s electoral currency is on the
wane, having lost a recent bid for Rosebery president. Then again, she did run against like minded green winger and boyfriend Aled Fisher. Needless to say, the joke candidate won. On which note, rumour also has it that BY may run for GenSec. Stalking horse or dog-meat? Discuss.
No longer merely a political dirty stop out. Communications Officer Chris Heathcote was said to have enjoyed a riveting Tuesday evening; spent in the delightful company of a mysterious Beaver photographer. Photographs of the pair in matching tennis outfits the following morning make interest-
Off the record, on the %T, and very.., hush-hush*
ing viewing. Check facebook if you can.
Details of Iron Chancellor Black’s intention to run alongside Heathcote for ULU sabb are still unconfirmed. The dynamic duo plan to take steely pragmatism and dynamic conservatism to a new level of bureacratic irrelevence; waging paper battle against ULU technocrats Nick Berg and Symon Hill. Black also shares a passion for mid-week assignations according to UGM hearsay. Ask the Rugby Team..
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Sam Jones
MANAGING EDITOR
Sidhanth Kamath
BUSINESS MANAGER
Michael Faueonnier-Bank
NEWS EDITORS Chris Lam;
Elaine Londesborough Tanya Rajapakse
FEATURES EDITORS Jess Brammar; Joshua Hergesheimer
PART B EDITORS Jami Makan Alex Teytelboym
SPORTS EDITORS Sancha Bainton; Sam Lehmann
GRAPHICS EDITOR Magnus Aabech
COMMISSIONING EDITORS Ismat Abidi;
Peter Currie
FILM EDITORS Casey Cohen
MUSIC EDITORS Sam Ashton;
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Chairperson: Alexa Sharpies
Raihan Alfaradhi; Atif Ali; Andhalib Karim; Jon Bartley; Ruby Bhavra; Matt Boys; Clem Broumley-Young; Sumit Buttoo; James Caspell; Simon Chignell; Sal Chowdhury; Jo Clarke; Dave Cole; Chris Colvin; Patrick Cullen; Lisa Cunningham; Owen Coughlan; Chris Daniels; James Davies; Tamsin Davis; Laura Deck; Ali Dewji; Kanan Dhru; Jan Dormann; Matt Dougherty; Jan Duesing; Sian Errington; John Erwin; Alex George; Shariq Gilani; Lucie Goulet; Steve Gummer; Andrew Hallett; Chris Heathcote; Joshua Hergesheimer; Alex Hochuli; Nazir Hussain; Stacy-Marie Ishmael; Angus Jones; Fabian Joseph; Laleh Kazemi-Veisari; Joel Kenrick; Stefanie Khaw; Ahmad Khokher; Arthur Krebbers; Charles Laurence; Adrian Li; Ziyaad Lunat; Rishi Madlani; Zhanna Makash; Kim Mandeng; Fatima Manji; John McDermott; Peter McLaughlin; Anna Ngo; Doug Oliver; Laura Parfitt; Rob Parker; Nina Pattinson; Eliot Poliak; Keith Postler; Tanya Rajapakse; Olivia Russo; Dorn Rustam; Laura Sahramma; Jai Shah; Matt Sinclair; Marta Skundric; James Stevens; Jimmy Tam; Grace Tan; Nastaran Tavakoli-Far; Sarah Taylor; James Upsher; Natalie Vassilouthis; Alex Vincenti; Claudia Whitcomb; Yee To Wong
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COMMENT&ANALYSIS
leaver114 February 2006 07
Letters to the Editor
The Beaver offers all readers the right to reply to anything that appears in the paper. Letters should be sent to thebeaver.editor@lse.ac.uk and should be no longer than 250 words. All letters must be recieved by 3pm on the Sunday prior to publication. The Beaver reserves the right to edit letters prior to publication.
Statistically suspect
Dear Sir,
I am growing increasingly concerned by the logical and factual errors contained in the paper. The last three weeks front page stories seemed to be based upon such errors.
1) Gender Imbalance - you stated that income disparities could be partially due to masculine subjects being higher paying but one of the most female departments in your own statistics was law (high paying) and the most male was philosophy (low paying). While the total number of economics students may distort a final calculation of ‘student numbers * departmental mean income’ the information you provide on departmental choices does not suggest any bias in incomes towards men.
2) Institutional Racism? - this is based upon the assumption that the target number of black home students should be 16%. I have no idea what this number is actually for as the portion of the British population belonging to a minority ethnic group is only 7.9%. If the 16% figure is for ail ethnic minorities it indicates they are twice as well represented as white students; the LSE would do very well on this measure as we have a huge number of students from Asian and other minority backgrounds. If it is genuinely the figure you claim it is then black students (who make up around 2% of the UK population) are overrepresented by 800% in the wider UK university student body.
You were only admitting black home students therefore the proper unit of comparison is with the total number of British home students (around 2808). Your number of 129 divided by the total number of home students gives 4.6%. This means that the population of UK Blacks is overrepresented by over 100% compared to other UK students. Of course this produces a pretty crappy headline; “LSE: plenty of minority representation”.
3) Pushed to the Edge? - this is based upon a survey that asked people to rank the different things that stress them. This means that you have information about the relative sources of stress but none about the absolute amount of stress students are suffering from. Your results could yield your conclusion “everyone is really stressed about careers and academic pressures” or it could lead to another conclusion “everyone is remarkably unworried about their physical appearance” (the only one of the possibilities not to make the top 5 that I remember).
Information about absolute levels of stress in a community like the LSE’s is remarkably hard to come by but pretending you can arrive at your conclusions (there is lots of stress) from your evidence (on where stress comes from) is a little disingenuous
I would like to end this on a constructive note as I am aware that
I’ve been a little negative recently. Doing lots more research like this is a great idea for the Beaver as it can lead to interesting new stories but if you’re going to do more research why not appoint a Data Correspondent? If you get someone with econometrics training they should be more than able to spot these errors before they happen. A Beaver Intelligence Unit (BIU) would be wonderful,
Yours sincerely
Matt Sinclair
Resident evil
Dear Sir,
I was sorry to see that Simon Chignell has concluded that if he was an 18 year old today he would not come to the LSE. The School would have been worse off without him.
I agree that Affordable Residences Work Group is a boring name, but it is a clear name, and in it residences staff, wardens and students are doing vital work together to explore all possibilities to provide affordable accommodation to help to attract the best students to come to LSE. If the problem of providing good rooms in Central London at a weekly rate that is less than the daily rate for an equivalent mid range hotel was easy, we would have solved it a long time ago, but it isn't.
Writing as somebody from a Birmingham working class nonuniversity background who turned down a place at LSE thirty two years ago to read Economics at Cambridge, partly because it was cheaper, partly because the charms of shared room in Passfield were insufficient to persuade me of the case against a lounge/bedroom suite in Clare College, partly because of over inflated ego and vanity, I am very aware of the importance of affordable residences to student recruitment and widening participation, and personally committed to it.
For 2006/07 academic year we will add over 900 new residences spaces to our existing 2500. Most will be at the upper end of the price bracket, it is true, but by including a number of twin rooms we will ensure that some will be affordable. Also, by providing these rooms for those who can afford them, we make more rooms available in excellent residences elsewhere for those who cannot. I can understand Kat Fletcher thinking the cost of LSE halls is "appalling", but it is not the cost of the most expensive rooms, or even the average cost, that matters, but how many rooms we have in the lower rent ranges. There, we stand comparison with any central London institution.
Also, largely as a result of successful campaigning by Simon and his predecessor SU Residences Officer, Rishi Madlani, to keep Passfield in our control rather than contracting with a housing association, we will be bringing into use 220 beds at Passfield at rents substantially lower than was envisaged just over a year ago and with 31 week, rather than 40
The Rogue’s Gallery
No. 9 : Beaver
week contracts. The School has invested £7m in this project.
Is that enough? Simple answer: no. There will be more. I can be categorical that the 12% increase in rents that Simon refers to for Rosebery will not happen: more likely it will be 2% to 3%, if that. The boringly named ARWG will do its work, we will make some headway on affordable accomodation now, and it will no doubt come forward with some recommendations that will need detailed consideration and which take longer to implement.
But while it will take some time to identify and to implement all of the sensible opportunities to improve residences affordability, be in no doubt that with the contribution of people like Simon and residences staff working together, it will happen, and that it will start happening sooner rather than later.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Farrell
Director of Finance and facilities
Dear Sir,
I would like to make a quick comment on how you decide to allocate Op-ed's and letters. Director of Finance of the LSE, Andy Farrell has let me know that he submitted a letter outlining the state of play with Residences at the moment to the Beaver last week, and I am very surprised, and a little disappointed that you chose not to publish it. Given that you managed a page devoted to two similarly themed Op-eds on the emotive, but nonetheless marginal, issue of paper-throwing of the UGM and C&S, as well as a couple of letters, I would have thought you would have managed to find space for the opinions of the second most Senior employee of the school on the issue of affordable accommodation, an issue relevant to students this year, as well as direct-
ly affecting every student studying at the LSE next year. Make no mistake, the Union have a newspaper of which we can be immensely proud, and indeed the lay-out and general quality is immeasurably better than in my time as Managing Editor, and this is a tribute to all the Editors who have worked unbelieveably hard; however, I do feel that this time, you failed to recognise the perspective of the average LSE student by not publishing Mr Farrell's letter.
Yours, more in admiration than derision
Simon Chignell SU Residences Officer
Papier-mache
Dear Sir,
I would like to point out that James Caspells article in last weeks beaver quoted me as saying that paper throwing constituted assault. This was pulled completely out of context. I told Azan while he was hysterically threatening me with a rolled up magazine that if he thumped me with it, that it would be assault. At no point did I say that a ball of paper thrown from quite a distance usually with a lot of inaccuracy is assault.
I was also disturbed by the sexist language used by James during the debate, his comment that 'The only reason he's for paper throwing is that he it is the only time he is getting beaver thrown at him for free' was in very poor taste for a public meeting and I am aware that the comment was not appreciated. I think that before James accuses people of not defending minorities at LSE and being fascist, he should check his own language for misogynistic undertones.
Yours,
Simon Bottomley,
LSE SU LGBT Officer
IBeaver
Established 1949 - Number 637
Topped up
LSE to raise top-up fees
First they introduced top up fees, but top-up fees did not affect me us so we did not do anything. Then they raised the cap on fees, but the cap did not affect us so we did not do anything. Then they marketised the education sector; but the market seemed like a good idea to us at the LSE, so we did nothing.
Alas, we are the generation they won’t come for. Top-up fees will mercifully not affect us: next year’s lot are the first to bite that bullet. £3,000 is a significant extra and will be a severe put-off for potential applicants worried about debt. But you all know that and you’ve all heard the lingo. Those in your third year have the T-shirts. The past two years have been characterised by putting up with the unfortunate reality of facing fees.
We were told that top-up fees would stop at three grand. No further. No marketisation. No privatisation.
In the end it was all New Labour’s newspeak - education, edu-catn, edctn. etc. Gradually the promises have been erased and sent down the memory holes of Kelly’s department. Marketisation is now very much on the cards.
Thus university head’s across the UK are eagerly anticipating the day when the government will lift the £3,000 cap. Oxbridge has already indicated intent to charge in line with Ivy league institutions across the pond. Howard Davies, asked at the UGM made no pains to fudge the issue: his “prejudice” was to bring fees in line with those paid by international students; requiring a rise to £5,000-£6,000 to “balance the books”. While such rises would ensure the LSE’s place among the world’s leading insitutions it would cripple students; burdening them with unnecessary debt and stress.
Of course, the LSE does a tremendous amount to support wider participation through a host of schemes and local initiatives. Davies even mentioned that a third of the money raised through higher top-up fees would go into bursary schemes. Commendable indeed, but we feel it’s poor ointment for a bleeding wound. The LSE will be hard-pressed to undo the perception 01 a university charging £11,000 a home student witn just easybursary’s and top-up tee-totalers. The answer is not charity.
Raising top-up fees to such a level is a gross error. It will turn students away- The poorest students will lose out, and as every other university in the country charges as much as it can to stay ahead, the most basic principles of free education will fall by the wayside.
There is no inevitability to this, however. Though in the short term the LSE may lose out financially, by ensuring fees are kept down, it will gain in the long run as more and more talented but economically deprived students are put off by extortionate rates elsewhere.
There is no guarantee in the success of this vision - but with decent marketing, a firm and solid identity and a fair and just commitment to education as a social right, not merely some Dickensian aspirational gait, there is no reason why the LSE cannot remain, as it was founded, a bold and progressive institution.
Equity in numbers
Too few women standing in SU elections
Just a few weeks ago. The Beaver reported that although there is a rather worrying divide between the sexes in certain subject areas, overall the School does quite well to recruit female students, with 48 percent of students being women. Why is it then that only 22 percent of the candidates in last years Lent term elections were female?
It is very easy to dismiss this fact with claims about the different ‘nature’ of the genders, that men are just more ambitious and suited to Union positions. But this is a fallacy. The whole culture of union politics is male dominated, and this is what puts women off.
The committees seem to suffer the most. On the four person F&S there is just one women, but more worryingly is the lack of a single female representative on the C&S committee. This is hardly encouraging for future candidates and leads to a less effectively representative union for all of us.
The four women standing in the elections for the new C&S this Thursday still make up less than a quarter of the candidates, but one would hope that at least one can make it onto this seven person committee and prove that constitutional matters are not just the domain of men, especially when it comes to ruling on the Equal Opportunities Policy.
This paper applauds the work of Natalie Black and Alexandra Vincenti in encouraging more women to stand, and hopes that their efforts will bear fruit in the returning of a more equitable and just union for next year.
^Beaver 14 February 2006
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WE EXAmN e|’HE UPS AND DOwNSfeF THE
Eyes to the left
| he spectacle of watching various Israeli officials try to outbid each other in their denunciations of Palestinian militant group and; political party Hamas (who won the recent parliamentary elections in the occupied territories) is as hypocritical as is it self-defeating. A country which revels ini its supposedly democratic status is moaning like a child having received an election result it, understandably, is not happy with. How Israel reacts to Hamas in government: should tell us much about its real values, although we really should not need reminding given Israel’s bloody behaviour over the last 60 years.
Israel is the ultimate terrorist state. Its very existence is dependent on land stolen from its original inhabitants. It has dozens! of nuclear weapons, is in violation ofj countless UN resolutions and various! tenets of international law and has invaded! every one of its neighbours on several occasions. Around half of its prime ministers! have been former terrorists, several off whom would be branded war criminals if the same rules applied to Israel as it does toll their enemies. My own grandfather was one , of the British troops stationed in mandate' Palestine pre-1948, and would recall acts of mass murder, such as the King David Hotel! bombing that killed some of the same men: who had been saving Jewish lives just years! previously in Europe. Surely it is suffice to-say that a nation that then elects these\ murderers to high office has no moral high ground to stand on, especially given that: everyday more men, women and children; are added to the list of those killed in pursuit of more lebensraum for the Israeli; state.
Thus, I find it almost amusing that the; Israeli government is so surprised that the Palestinian people have elected a group which also uses bullets as well as ballots to achieve its ends. Palestinians are not historically naive; they know that Israel was founded by terrorists who killed enough people to convince the international com munity, and most importantly the US, to allow them to steal the Arabs’ land and country. Presumably Palestinians hope: Hamas, which has a good record in social programmes at the local level, will be more; ! effective than the corrupt and largely discredited Fatah, especially with Arafat no: longer alive. After more than half a century: of misery, one can hardly blame them forj trying a new group in power, however, abhorrent much of Hamas’ rhetoric and actions can be to Westerners.
Indeed, Hamas is nothing if not the cre-ation of circumstances. History teaches us that extremists only get political power if the situation is desperate. Conditions in Palestine, which include children shot through the head as they play in the street, or women losing new-born babies as they are forced to give birth at checkpoints1; instead of hospitals, seem to justify this! 1 theory. The barbarities of Israelis seems tol know no bounds, whether it be in allowing! settlers to stone Palestinian women picking: olives on the tiny bits of land Israel has not; stolen yet, or in siphoning off aquifers on; the West Bank so middle-class Israelis can] have swimming pools whilst Arabs go: thirsty. All of the above examples are docu-|
¦M.
mented cases of state terrorism, the kind | that, in most of the Western media, does not j get condemned to anywhere the extent that j terrorism by non-state entities like Hamas j does.
In fact, if anything Israel has become ] more repressive in recent years. Measures like the Gaza “withdrawal” are nothing but j a smokescreen for the consolidation of set- I tlements on the West Bank, whilst Arabs in ; Israel are increasingly resembling black ; people in apartheid South Africa, such is j their obvious second-class status. The vast ] majority of Israel is implicated in the 1 crimes of the state, since military service is j compulsory, and even people who claim to be centrists are only marginally less greedy ; for land than the most Right-wing member j of Likud. At every negotiation since 1948, Israel has been portrayed as the generous ; power willing to make painful, even though j Palestinians have been the ones forced to ; accept so-called “facts on the ground” (code j for Israel retaining the largest illegal settle- I ment blocks) and not having the right to j return to homes to which some have the j deeds passed down from their forefathers. At every opportunity Israel has consolidated its hold on land and power, even using j the murder of 3000 people in 2001 to draw I the US into a forced acceptance of them ] killing whomever they please. Just remem- j ber all that when Israelis shed a tear for the j incapacitated monster Ariel Sharon, before I wondering why there are so few tears for | that most oppressed of peoples the ; Palestinians.
The right approach
Charles
Laurence
PHBl hey may call them-! selves compassionate and caring, but we know different. They can change the label any time they like but it is the same old poison in the bottle” - John ‘two jags’ Prescott. This speech delivered to the Labour Party conference by our rotund Deputy Prime Minister was the first sign that Labour are finally losing control of their most prized asset, the political narrative. In short, ‘The Prezza doth protest too much.’
Ever since Tony Blair made his mildly fascistic speech explaining that his vision was for Labour to become the ‘political wing of the British people’, Labour (with considerable media complicity) have successfully framed themselves as the only choice for a decent sensible voter.
The story goes that Conservative politicians are essentially evil (see the above quotation) and that their eighteen years in power was a time of unparalleled despair and suffering for the British people. Conveniently forgetting that on the first four occasions they were asked, the electorate begged to differ. This line has been triumphantly touted by the cheerleaders of the left, of whom my esteemed colleague, Mr Hallet, is the latest in a long j line.
Why do so many rely on spurious facts
and approaches to fend off the Conservatives?
My suspicion is that these writers have a deep-seated psychological need to justify voting for a government with a perverse set of values and that is manifestly screwing the country up. I contend that the last Tory government marked a renaissance in the fortunes of Britain and the British people and I would go even further in suggesting that anyone who claims to be in or around the centre of British politics would have to choose Thatcher and Major over Blair and Brown, once they see through the hysterical left-wing conspiracy to rewrite history.
It barely needs to be restated that Britain was at an extremely low ebb in 1979, the sick man of Europe. In the recent past, the country had been relying on IMF handouts, and apart from this, Britain was suffering from an industrial malaise that was hurting the entire developed world.
Up until the 1970’s an unskilled worker could get a job in a factory or mine which would pay for a good standard of living for him and his family.
By the time Thatcher came to power, this was no longer true and never would be again. Coal was coming from Poland at a 90 percent discount and factories were being opened in the developing world with similar discounts. The old system of subsidising unproductive industries was killing the strong to save those beyond help. Just stopping the rot seemed unlikely, the boom years of the 1980’s were a miracle. That inequality rose is an economic fact that has persisted for every year of new Labour, not something in the control of the Thatcher government. We only have to look at the persistently high unemployment on the continent to know that breaking the factional Trade Union interest was the responsible course for the country.
In the field of health, Thatcher increased spending in a state-funded NHS and never suggesting privatising. Labour has wasted billions on PFI, despite its manifest failings. Crime fell under the Conservatives using the simple method of putting criminals in prison (the only method proven to work), Blair on the other hand has perverted the entire basis of the justice system, my favourite quote of this year being “You may know it, but how do you prove it?”, summing up his frustrations with the justice system and its obsession with a technicality called ‘proof.’ The Conservative government put up with years of extreme violence by the IRA -many suffered personal losses in the Brighton Bombing, yet they did not introduce identity cards or seek to intern people for 90 days without trial. Mr Hallet needs to ask himself which party is the extreme one.
Labour has kept its grip on power by a campaign of extreme negativity that has inhibited the Conservatives’ ability to be positive, and this has been at a great cost to faith and enthusiasm in British politics. The Tories in 1992 received more votes than Labour did in 2005, 2001 and, yes, even 1997. Whatever Cameron’s weaknesses, he is turning the tide of negativity, and will not be put off by increasingly tired attacks of the Labour gang. The hyperactive volume of legislation is an attempt to hide the fact that there is no point to new Labour. It is up to those in the centre to decide how much damage they are willing to see new Labour inflict on this country before they drop their puerile and unhis-torical opposition to a Conservative government.
he row surrounding the cartoons showed no signs of abating this week. The website of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC), an “international Jewish human rights organisation dedicated...fostering tolerance and understanding,” shows a anti-Semitic cartoon from an Iranian online newspaper. Sadly, rather than make a genuine contribution to the debate about religious tolerance, the SWC opted for a more punchy caption of their own: “Who in the Moslem world would protest this cartoon?”
The simple answer, that a vast number of Muslims would reject anti-Semitism with the same fervour that they reject any kind of inexcusable prejudice, is by the by. The fact is that, once again, an Jewish-Israeli organisation, which berates Palestinian groups such as Hamas for their incitement of racial tensions, has eschewed the chance to take the moral high-ground for that perennial Middle-Eastern favourite, “they started it.” Whoever started it, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre should be the last organisation to point fingers over religious intolerance. This week, the Los Angeles-based charity began work on the $150 million project to build a ‘Museum of Tolerance’ in Jerusalem. The museum, which is intended to promote “unity and respect among Jews and between people of all faiths,” is being built on the site of what was once the largest Muslim burial ground in Palestine.
Palestinians are fighting hard to stop the removal of the bones, some of which date back to the seventh century. But despite a temporary ban on excavations issued by the Israeli Justice System, archaeologists and developers have continued work.
This story, lost in the middle pages of some of last week’s broadsheets, is illustrative of some of the most depressing aspects of Israel’s relations with the Palestinians and the remnants of their heritage that exist in Israeli territory.
The cemetery became part of Israeli territory after the 1948 war, and was officially classed as ‘absentee property,’ a sadly apt title for the remains that lie there, deserted by their descendents who fled from the conflict and were denied the right to return after the war.
Displaying all the sensitivity for the preservation of cultural relics that you might expect her job to entail, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Antiquities Authority said last week that, "Israel is more crowded with ancient artefacts than any other country in the world. If we didn't build on former cemeteries, we would never build."
This issue will be used by those who wish to inflame tensions in the region, and it is tragic that the criminally disrespectful actions of the Israeli state apparatus serve to recruit those bent on the loss of Israeli lives. One hopes that many Israelis would be deeply shocked by the insensitivity of those involved in this case. But it is this kind of disregard for basic human rights, such as the honouring of a community’s dead, that swells the ranks of Hamas, and makes Israeli shock at their recent democratic election so hard for many Europeans and non-violent Palestinian sympathisers to understand.
To those protectors of tolerance and understanding at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, I would say this: an ancient Muslim cemetery is being bulldozed to make way for an Israeli museum. Who in the Jewish world will protest this action? Features Editor Jess Brammar
FEATURES:POLITICS
*Beaver|i4 February 2006 109
Who will guard
the guardians?
Mark Whitehouse explores whether the UN can effectively respond to today’s problems with yesterday’s power configurations.
A little over ten years ago, a mass genocide caused the deaths of 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans in front of the eyes, and newspaper headings, of the world. The great shock that rippled through the passing of this news was not, merely, that this was the greatest massacre since the Holocaust, but that no one had taken action sooner. The attention duly rested on the United Nations as the one and only unilateral peacekeeping force and its failings in dealing with the crisis.
The main issues that were
“Questions have arisen over the UN’s power to deal with such
humanitarian crises
 and whether a
new humanitarian force is nee.ded.”
raised were of the UN’s failure to react quickly, their lack of cultural expertise or foresight of the growing tensions between the factional ethnic groups, and their inability to organise their respective member states into a unified force. This article, then, could quite easily have focused on the UN’s efforts to combat these weaknesses and their continued maturity as a world body. Instead, the Darfur massacre happened.
The UN recently published its account of the death toll from the Darfur crisis, estimating that around 70,000 people died. In truth, this figure covers only six months of the two years of fighting. The actual figure seems to be closer to 200,000. Again, the same questions have arisen over the UN’s power to deal with such humanitarian crises and, in some more extreme areas of opinion, whether a new humanitarian force is needed. If the Rwandan genocide was the failure to learn from the Holocaust, what possible reasons could there be for another such massacre less than ten years later?
It is with this in mind that it is necessary for us to re-evaluate the role of the UN’s crisis relief efforts and highlight the need for changes in the organisation and scope of the current peacekeeping forces. It must be understood that this does not cover the general workings of the UN, or question its status as a world body, but its specific role in the prevention of genocides and peacekeeping role during civil war (As was
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the case in both Sudan and Rwanda).
The first great problem that became apparent was the UN’s unwillingness to get involved. Weeks after the Darfur crisis had reached the headlines, the Secretary General Kofi Annan had to admit that the United Nations were unable and unwilling to intervene in the troubles as it had not decided whether the events could be attributed “genocide” status or if they were merely “civil unrest”. The United Nations defines “genocide” as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in or in part, a ethical, racial or religious group”. Though preliminary suggested that were “genocidal intentions” by Janjaweed militia, it was not certain if their violence was intended as a genocide of the native black Africans of the area, or whether it was merely an attempt to grab land.
This hesitation due to administrative protocol meant that the already desperately needed peacekeeping forces were delayed yet further. Though the UN has never officially deemed the recent event ’’genocide”, they have sent out forces. The plan was to send out 10,000 peacekeepers to deal with the situation but, due to a collective withdrawal of troops by China and Russia and subsequent copycat actions from other member states, the force was depleted to 4,000. The UN, in its current format, was powerless to intervene or persuade it’s own members.
It must be noted, though, that the UN is not a nation state. The African region, in particular, is reluctant to allow outside influence in their current affairs with the African Union going as far as claiming that it amounted to colonialism. It is, thus, a very delicate balance for the UN to strike if it is to keep its profile as an impartial, non-aggressive, peacekeeping force. It also has to be aware that, though a desperate situation, there are many civil conflicts occurring every day. This does not, nor should it ever, amount to an appeasement of the United Nation’s relief effort. It is unacceptable to mollify certain states at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives but it is only through knowledge of the processes of the organisation that it can be improved.
Similar to its impartial status, the United Nations is only a force in world politics because it is wilfully enrolled by its con-
stituent member states. This was abundantly clear in both the Kosovan and Iraqi wars. In both cases, America chose to exercise its veto capabilities by taking action outside of the UN. It is also apparent that, had the UN wished to intervene over Saddam’s dictatorship, China and Russia would have used their veto power against such actions, since they had substantial oil deals with the current regime.
It is this precise Catch-22 that is of most concern to those currently in power at the UN. Its power base is so reliant on its members that it cannot take independent stances for the fear of being vetoed. In such crisis situations (I include the Kosovan genocide) the conflicting and controversial nature of such discussions is such that the organisation is forced into collective stalemate by the veto power of its own member states.
I will not pretend for one moment that this particular issue has an easy resolution, but it does not mean that the UN should not take steps to alleviate the current burden. The main focus could easily rest on its ability to reduce the power of such vetoes. At the moment, it is sufficient for a single major power (plus a few minor states) to veto for
movement to be defeated. If this were made more stringent (two large members or a certain percentage of the electorate) at least the foundation for any actions will only be vetoed if its own members go to enough trouble to organise their decent.
Likewise, the punishment for bypassing could be increased. In this respect, the UN has keenly taken up this point, refusing to involve their forces in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the war. It seems perfectly sensible that valuable resources should not be rendered on a war that was against its own constitution. The great problem with this is that they risk becoming irrelevant in the actions of their members. With no presence in such crisis zones, they are diluting their own presence in such international relations.
This is then, the crucial hurdle for the UN to face. There is a recognition of its need to stay prescient in the minds of its more powerful members, and in so doing, it must make certain compromises. But there is still a duty that the UN holds to those members in the states that aren’t the interests of their larger neighbours but where, without the UN’s intervention, thousands of people will die for reasons that we have a duty to prevent. There are only so many times that you can learn the same lesson.
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2006
IBeaver: 14 Februar
FEATURES: POLITICS
Freedom of speech: use with caution
Features Correspondent Lisa Cunningham attempts to reconcile freedom of expression with concern for the beliefs of others.
The printing of 12 cartoons in newspapers across Europe has caused an angry and heated reaction. This has resulted in a near crisis in the balance between religious offence and freedom of speech. The furious retort began with Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, printing an editorial piece criticising self-censorship after a writer could not find an illustrator for his children’s book about the Prophet Mohammed. The article was accompanied by illustrations showing the Prophet in a variety of satirical situations. As the cartoons were republished in newspapers across Europe, and the reaction snowballed. Governments of Islamic countries protested, then embassies were closed and Danish products boycotted. Protests have become increasingly violent with death threats and even fatalities in Afghanistan.
This reaction shows us is there
is an imminent need for a re-evaluation of the balance between being respectful while being free to speak one’s mind. The right to free speech is integral to democracy and necessary to ensure people are not prosecuted for holding an opinion. I strongly believe in it and would defend it fervently. It is a basic principle of human rights. If we begin to neglect the need for free speech inevitably our society becomes less free.
But with freedom of expression so must come responsibility. If we are to live in a society that cherishes free speech we should also hold tolerance and respect in equally high regard. This is the only way people who hold diverse beliefs can live in harmony. We live in an increasingly global and cosmopolitan world. Societies are no longer homogeneous, people with various backgrounds, speaking many languages, from diverse cultures all live together in cities such as London. It is therefore
“Although many in the West do respect the beliefs and customs of Islam, that respect is far from universal.”
increasingly necessary to accept the assortment of attitudes people hold.
But how can this be done? On a small scale consider the example of my household. I am secular, even atheist, but my flatmate is a staunch Christian. Despite our polar belief systems we live in harmony a lovely, but admittedly small flat. The key to our peaceful coexistence? We respect each other. I would never tell her that I think praying is a waste of her time because god does not exist, nor would she tell be that I will
burn in hell for eternity despite both of us believing these respective statements to be true. Moreover, we would both defend each other’s right to express these values. Crucially, however, we respect one other enough not to attack the other’s faith, or lack of it.
Respect, therefore is crucial to tolerance. It is my suspicion that although many in the West do respect the beliefs and customs of Islam, that respect is far from universal. Racism and intolerance still exists in the West. In the UK, for example, Black and Asian jobless rates stand at 12%, compared with 5% among white people. Perhaps as a consequence race riots have erupted recently in Britain and France. If everyone in society was granted equally high levels of respect and every belief system were tolerated I doubt these riots would have occurred.
Indeed, I doubt that Muslims feel sufficiently respected across
the world. Imagine for a moment that nations far richer and more powerful than Britain had recently waged an illegal war against us, when we visit this nation we are treated with suspicion and contempt and confused for terrorists, and extremist sectors of our society, say the BNP, are considered representative of all British people. We would feel not only vulnerable but also incredibly resentful towards that nation, right?
The West should value the principle of free speech, but with it should come an understanding of the offence some viewpoints can cause, particularly when directed at a group who already suffer such unequal treatment. Perhaps once respect is valued as highly as free speech and people are treated equally, regardless of their religion, culture or background, the publication of cartoons will fail to cause such a ferocious reaction.
Separating identity from ideology
Features Editor Joshua Hergesheimer debates the difference between who we are and what we believe - and why it is important.
The Iranian newspaper Hamshahri	recently
announced that it will hold a ‘Holocaust drawing’ contest. If it goes ahead, the editor will select 12 caricatures for publication. The contest is in response to the decision by European newspapers to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) under the banner of press freedom.
Iran’s President believes that there is a clear case of double standards in the West. He argues that while the European press feels it has the right to publish images of the Prophet which offend millions of people, Europe does in fact have certain issues which are off-limits. President Ahmadinejad points out that Holocaust deniers run the risk of jail in several European countries.
In fact, the denial of the Holocaust is only one of many taboos the European press observes. Though each country has different rules and standards of behavior, general patterns emerge. For example, homophobic, racist or anti-Semitic material are not legally published in British newspapers. In fact, any material which is designed to or is likely to stir up hatred or violence against people because of who they are (Asian, Black, LGBT) is strictly off-limits. On the other hand, no belief or value system is insulated from criticism, regardless of whether it is
deemed by the group that holds it to be perfect and therefore beyond scrutiny. For those who adhere to this point of view, the difference is obvious.
Who we are - our ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation - is understood to be immutable, an accident of birth, something over which we have no control. We must accept this aspect of identity unconditionally because we are all equally human and equally worthy of respect, regardless of where we were bom or to what ethnic group, gender or sexual orientation we belong. It is when the topic turns to what we believe - our allegiances, ideas and belief systems - that there are points for disagreement. Our beliefs are considered to be the product of rational choices, the result of conscious decisions make by free-thinking individuals about how they want to live their lives. Since people have the ability to change their affiliations, discard or reform their previous convictions based on new evidence, no thoughts, ideas or value systems should be beyond scrutiny.
This in no way implies that people do not have the right to believe whatever they want. It simply means that other people are not required to refrain from scrutinizing or even criticizing those beliefs. In short then, who we are is protected, whereas what we believe is not. Whether one accepts that this is a legitimate distinction or not, in Europe the
freedom of the press is based on this understanding.
In Europe, the separation of church and state has been a hard won battle. Though many people
“In short, who we are
________________is	protected,
_____________whereas	what	we
believe is not.”
have been offended along the way, the overall feeling is that it is better to live in a society where all belief systems are open to scrutiny than to live in a world where the truth is dictated by unelected religious leaders who have the ability to silence or marginalize alternative viewpoints.
When the results of the Holocaust drawings are revealed, there will undoubtedly be millions of people who are deeply offended. But we should watch the reaction closely. Will Iran’s embassy be burned down in Norway? Will the Danish army issue statements saying that all Iranians in Europe will be targeted? This issue will be a litmus test of whether Europeans can be collectively offended and yet refuse to lump together and attack all people who happen by accident of birth to be Iranian. This would go a long way towards showing that Europe really does accept that we cannot judge all
people by the actions of a few. If we can be critical of the decision to publish the drawings without descending into racist remarks about the origins of those who
published it, such a result will go a long way towards demonstrating that who we are and what we believe are best kept separate.
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FEATURES:P0LITICS
iBeaver 14 February 2006 11
Oil is a dirty word
Features Correspondent Adrian Li discusses the ups and downs of the oil industry - and why we should care.
The past week has seen oil come up several times in the headlines. It was mentioned in the State of the Union address, where President Bush said “America is addicted to oil”. (Incidentally, the phrase “addicted to oil” was the cover title of The Economist, 15 December, 2001). Shell announced a record profit that still did not assure shareholders who remain nervous about the company underperforming and that was relying on high oil prices to boost revenue, rather than increased outputs and exploration results. Oil also made headlines when it was reported in The Guardian that more people are choosing not to fly so as to not pollute the environment.
It would seem that oil is now a dirty word. It is, pardon the pun, messy. The world economy is literally sucked in into the grip that oil, and to a larger extent, the energy industry, has on every aspect of it. If the first step to recovery is admitting that there is a problem, then Bush has taken the first step, but he cannot stop there with a nice speech.
The two problems with oil is that, as with all hydrocarbons, it is in limited supply and that it is dirty and polluting. Our economic lifestyles literally run on oil. We use oil to produce electricity and we own or aspire to own cars, no thanks to snazzy marketing of cars like the Audi RS4 or the new Jaguar XK Coupe. (If I had won the Euro Millions lottery, I’d have
gone to test drive both instead of attending an IR304 lecture.)
As pointed out on “Question Time” on BBC1 last week, the problem isn’t that we are using too much oil to produce electricity. The problem is that we are using too much energy. If we find alternatives to oil, it might be gas, which still pollutes, or nuclear power, which brings a whole new set of problems of disposal and safety, although it does not produce carbon emissions. The best way is to make renewable energy
“The current high price of oil is what is distoring the fortunes of the oil companies.”
very efficient and to perfect the technology as soon as possible. With regards to our love affair with the car, making cars more fuel efficient and cleaner is perhaps the best and easiest option we can have now. The energy policies of countries all over the world need to address how to find new sources of energy that are cleaner to generate electricity for consumption and for car manufacturers to produce more efficient cars.
Ignoring the environmental issues about oil, the finite nature of the supply of oil and who owns the oil fields are what worries governments. Bush’s objectives of replacing imports of oil from the Middle East by 2025 are borne out of the fear of oil shocks.
However, given that the oil is a fungible commodity traded all over the globe, a disruption of supply from the Persian Gulf will be disastrous. The current high price of oil is what is distorting the fortunes of the oil companies. There have not been new discoveries of new major drilling areas for oil, leading to attempts to redefine its business to “beyond petroleum”.
The only silver lining to be taken is that oil producing West African countries can benefit from new investment in the region for oil drilling and the increased revenues from higher prices. If managed properly, countries like Nigeria can benefit tremendously from prices of US$60 a barrel of crude oil.
Globalisation and terrorism
Yee To Wong delves into the complex connections between global trade, media and the spread of violence.
International Relations is largely a study of violence. Although there are a myriad theories about the origins of violence, whether it be human nature or anarchy at the international level, the best way to solve this problem, at this point of human evolution, is through some sort of authority. In the current political system, governments are supposed to have sole control over violence.
In the age of globalisation, however, violence has become decentralised. One of the consequences of globalisation is the erosion of the state’s role as the unitary actor in international relations. This fundamental change is coupled by the rise of non-state actors, such as transnational corporations, non-governmental organisations, and, more notoriously, terrorist groups. While the status of the state is diminishing, so is the power •of'the govemmenthn-con^“*
trolling violence. The military is no longer the institution that has means to weapons. Terrorist groups, exploiting the advantages brought by globalisation, can easily mount an operation.
Many point to increasing social inequality as being responsible for breeding terrorists. In other words, poverty is what compels poor, innocent minds to seek to advance their aims through violent means. And many would argue that it is precisely because globalisation is not truly global in scope yet that many parts of the world are left out of the process and, as a result, remain poor. However, we may ask how these poor parts of the world are to participate in the global economy when the playing field is not level? How about the forces controlling the IMF and the World Bank? Rather than achieving anything beneficial for the Third World, these institutions, headed ¦ ¦’by-the advanced industrial cornr--
tries, have been accused of deliberately keeping states poor so that they can extract raw materials at low prices. It can be forcefully argued that global capitalism is not a progressive idea but rather a reactionary one, perpetuating the detriment of many for the benefits of a few.
 “Globalisation has
 added a whole new
dimension to the function of the media: it becomes the battleground between the ‘coalition of the willing.”
Added to the mix is the omnipresence of the media in every corner of the globe. The globalisation of information technology has made it possible for
news and information to travel faster than ever. The poor masses can simply click on the internet for information on how to make a bomb. Video clips of captured foreign journalists in Iraq could appear on Al-Jazeera and subsequently CNN within split seconds. Half a century ago, no one could take on the world’s superpower using terrorist tactics like those employed by al-Qaeda. To challenge the United States, one would have to use conventional arms and weapons, like the Soviet Union. Nowadays, with the help of the internet and satellites, images of four commercial airplanes crashing into the World Trade Centre in New York City and the Pentagon could instantly be transmitted worldwide, demonstrating America’s vulnerability to a global audience in a matter of seconds. Globalisation has added a whole new dimension to the function of the media: it becomes the battleground
between the “coalition of the willing” and the terrorists.
Globalisation is not necessarily a bad thing. Any core-shaking phenomenon like globalisation is bound to have a massive impact. While globalisation has opened up many parts of the world and has made people more interconnected, it has also elevated the level of destruction that terrorist groups are capable of inflicting. The erosion of the state has allowed non-state actors, including the likes of terrorists, to have increased influence over political affairs. The appalling poverty that still exists in many parts of the world brings doubts over whether globalisation is exacerbating social inequality. The spread of information technology and the global reaches of the media have made it easy for terrorists to convey their message. In sum, globalisation, while broadening wealth and knowledge, is proliferating violence.
12|iBeavert 14 February 2006
FEATURES:
Remembering
Rwanda
Alexa Sharpies discusses Rwanda with Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of UN peacekeepers during the 1994 genocide.
In a 100 days over 800,000 men, women and children were brutally murdered. In the fastest rate of mass killings in the twentieth century, roughly 10 percent of the Rwandan population died. The victims - horrifically butchered - were Tutsi, and moderate Hutus.
The world did nothing, and all that stood between the Rwandans and genocide was
Force Commander of the UN mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR), Lt. General Romeo Dallaire and a couple thousand ill-equipped UN peacekeepers.
Tall and grey-haired with an amiable demeanour, Dallaire commands the presence one would expect of an army general of his distinction. But under this dignified exterior, the burden that he carries with him is an
immensely heavy one. “I had as a principle that when I left Rwanda that I’d do everything I can to keep the Rwandan genocide alive.”
The UN sent Dallaire and 2,600 troops to Rwanda to oversee a recently agreed peace treaty between the Hutus and Tutsis. However, on April 6 1994 the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, both Hutus, were killed
when their plane was shot down. Hutu extremists immediately blamed the Tutsi ‘inyenzi’ (‘cockroaches’) and began calling for their extermination, and the murder of sympathetic moderate Hutus. Radio broadcasts gave details on whom to kill and where to find them. By the end of the next day, an estimated 8,000 people were murdered.
The genocide was planned. Detailed lists of targets were drawn up; hundreds of thousands of machetes, axes, hammers, razors and guns were purchased and stockpiled; tens of thousands of militia were recruited and trained. The UN received many warnings. The most prescient was on January 11 1994. Dallaire warned of a plan to kill 1,000 Tutsis every 20 minutes. It was dismissed as an exaggeration.
As the death toll mounted, Dallaire pleaded with the UN in New York for additional troops, ammunition, and the authority to seize Hutu arms caches. In an assessment that experts now accept as realistic, Dallaire argued that a Rapid Reaction Force of 5,000 well-equipped soldiers and a free hand to fight the extremists, could bring the genocide to a rapid halt.
When the genocide started, Dallaire dispatched 10 Belgian peacekeepers to secure the home of Rwanda's Prime Minister. They were ambushed and murdered and, as the extremists hoped, Belgium insisted on pulling its troops out.
Dallaire’s warnings were ignored and his pleas were rejected by the Security Council. On April 21, when the death toll was over 100,000 people, the Security Council slashed the forces to 270 peacekeepers and issued a statement calling for a ceasefire. Dallaire asked the US to block the Hutu radio transmissions. The Clinton administration refused to do even that.
“Rwanda just didn’t count. The major powers are dominated by self-interest and Rwanda had absolutely nothing to offer...The Americans had made the Western world, or the developed world, gun-shy by pulling-out of Mogadishu when they had 18 soldiers killed, and so abandoned hundreds of thousands of Somalis because of their losses.”
“The UN ultimately was emasculated from doing anything because it is totally dependent on sovereign states providing troops, and by then the normal troop-contributing nations were using the argument that they already were committed.”
This was to seal the fate of hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. Once it was clear that the UN was abandoning Rwanda, the killing spread rapidly. In Kibuye, in the west of Rwanda, 17,000 people were murdered in two days in a local church and stadium. Hutu militia butchered victims in front of UN soldiers who had no mandate to intervene. The murderers had nothing to fear from the rest of the world, and Dallaire and his troops were reduced to little more than spectators.
Without the authority, manpower, or equipment to stop the slaughter, Dallaire saved the lives he could and was able to maintain safe areas for some 25,000 Rwandans. The genocide finally
‘Once it was clear that the UN was abandoning Rwanda, the killing
spread rapidly. Dallaire and his troops were
reduced to little more  than spectators.’
ended over, three months later, when Tutsi RPF forces captured Kigali, the Rwandan capital.
So 12 years on, what went wrong? Why did the world turn its back and world leaders feign ignorance? Dallaire attributes a big part of the answer to the fact that “Yugoslavia was going on, and that was Europe and it was closer to home, and essentially was also white and in the Northern hemisphere.” But racism wasn’t the only aspect. “In the ‘90s, not only with Rwanda, Somalia and other missions, we’ve seen the developed world prioritise humanity, more than even during than the colonial era. In so doing, essentially by their non-response or response, they ' \ • - .
*" ¦ ' *• A A .C A-

14 February 2006
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Music
An exclusive interview with The Early Years, who are destined for greatness
AROUND
Tnnsdfiy
Anti-Valentines Soho Soiree 7-llpm
Digress, 10 Beak Street £15
Fashion
Are children wearing designer clothing the hottest accessories for parents this season?
Film
Mob films are more powerful than any Mafioso or his revolver
\
PAhGLAO cockpit a
Travel
The final part of our Philippines travel series has finally arrived
EDITORIAL
The editorial week could not have started any better. Maybe because we knew the next issue would come out on Valentine’s Day. Last Wednesday, Jami got an unexpected interview with actor David Suchet, of whom he and his entire family are great fans.
Kevin and Sam spent the whole of Tuesday night in the pub with The Early Years. The guys got free drinks all nights, so it’s good they remembered to turn the dictaphone on. We devoted the centrespread to this interview andconfession night.
There are reasons for everything. Anyway. Casey walked . into the office on Wednesday night with a bandaged arm; he broke his hand playing hockey. I don’t know how, but he put together a fantastic page.
real issues with the Bea	Ifcgpple	say	loads stupid
things all the time (e.g. Jimmy Tam during the charity auction), so picking the best one was tricky.
Alex finds Valentine’s Day depressing. Today he has a job photographing at a club, so a lucky lady won’t be getting a £200 dinner. On Wednesday he will be blindfolded for an entire day to raise money for Water Aid. Spare a little something for him, change or whatever else you can offer. He hasn’t had any for a month and is unlikely to get some anytime soon.
Whilst you all give each other flowers and make out for hours in the freezing cold outside The Savoy, we will preparing for our interview with GQ Editor Dylan Jones next week.
jamimakan and alexteytelboym
Misunderestimating President Bush Through
Cartoons
9:30am-5:30pm
The Political Cartoon Gallery, 32 Store Street Free
Valentine’s Night at Tate Modern
7-llpm
Tate Modern
£15
Wednesday
The Producers 2:30pm
Drury Lane Theatre Royal £5 And Up
Uxbridge Craft Exhibition 9am-5pm
Pavillions Shopping Centre, Uxbridge Free
Goldie Lookin’ Chain
8pm
Astoria
£TBA
Thursday
Bollywood and Bhangra Dancing Lessons 10am
West London YMCA Health Club £35 for 6 Weeks or £7 Per Lesson
Tequila at Rococo R&B
10pm-3am £5, £8, £10
Lee John
Pizza Express Jazz Club
Dean Street
£15
Friday Night Skate 7:30pm
Duke of Wellington Arch, Hyde Park Corner Free
Arctic Monkeys 6-llpm
Carling Brixton Academy Sold Out
The General 8:30pm
National Film Theatre £5.25
Saturday________________
The Strokes
8:30pm
Carling Apollo Hammersmith Sold Out
Soul to Soul
9pm-3am
Herbal
£7, £4 before 10:30pm
Fiery Dragons and Faithful Doj
llam-4pm
British Museum
Free
Sunday.
Costa Urbana 4pm-lam
Notting Hill Arts Club £5, Free Before 6pm
Sunday Roast 1 lam-1 lpm The Lock Tavern
Anna Piaggi: Fashion-ology 10am-5:45pm
Victoria and Albert Museum £4 with NUS
Monday
Oldboy DVD Preview 8pm
Prince Charles Cinema £7.50, £6.50 members
James Blunt
7:30pm
Carling Academy Brixton £22.50
Blues Jam 8pm-Late
Ain’t Nothin But the Blues Bar Free
Walking Home Alone By Anonymous
I have paid attention to you since last year, when we lived in the same residence hall together. I would always notice you sitting alone in the computer room downstairs, sending Myspace messages or surfing the internet. Once or twice we shared the lift or would pass each other in the corridor. The way you combed your black hair back, your tight cigarette jeans and your dark eyeliner went together perfectly. You looked stunning in an incredibly unique way.
I was so surprised to find out we have so much in common. Fashion magazines, Babyshambles, alcohol and Chinese food. We are both mellow kids, never too talkative. In addition, we share several close friends, some of whom recently encouraged me to go for you. ‘She probably likes you’ they repeatedly suggested.
Last week, we started staying up late talking to each other, and I fell for you. Hard. You seemed like the perfect girl since I enjoyed your company and neither of us was in a hurry to hook up. One night, you invited me out with two of your friends, and we all had a great time at dinner. The food was amazing, and we even made plans to return to that same restaurant soon. Afterwards, we went out and I thought the rest of the night would continue to go well.
I was so wrong. You bumped into some random kid you knew, and started talking to him for literally two hours.You did not bother introducing us, and you hardly payed attention to me as I sat quiet, bored and lonely. Normally I would have got up and left, but I sat through your conversation since you were the one who invited me out. I did not know anyone else there. And I figured I would be a gentleman and at least walk you home.
You suddenly turned to me and said, ‘I’m going to go to his place’.You sent me away by myself. After inviting me out, you basically ignored and then abandoned me. Without exaggerating, my walk home was probably the coldest and most embarassing one of my entire life.
Thanks a lot. You had me and now you’ve lost me. I guess I will be spending Valentine’s Day eating take-away Chinese, listening to Babyshambles and drinking alone. I sincerely wish we could have spent Valentine’s doing those together.
Send anonymous thanks, confessions or accusations -changing or deleting the names of the guilty and innocent-to thebeaver.art@lse.ac.uk with HeyYou!’ as the subject line. Hey You! inspired by the OC Weekly of Santa Ana, California.
14 February 2006
i
All in a day’s work
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LSE students with the faintest hint of bibliophilia (it would be hard to find any student without an intimate relationship with the printed word) will find the sight of Simon Cody’s trademark half-moon glasses a frequent and reassuring spectacle. Who, preparing for holiday reading at the end of term, has not pondered the story behind the shab-chic vestments that enrobe our favourite bookseller? Is he a former parliamentary undersecretary who left Westminster a particularly nasty fallout with a particularly nasty party Whip? Is he a Central Saint Martins-trained portrait artist with a string of aristocratic conquests under his snakeskin belt? Or is he a former touring thespian who eventually came to work more with print than plays? If you guessed the last one, you are one step closer to unearthing Simon’s story, which is as essential as those others that fill the shelves of Alpha Books.
A Londoner by birth, Simon now lives in Brixton, although he spent much of his childhood under the auspices of the Crystal Palace football stadium in south London. It was a childhood coloured by memories of sporting heroes and views of London from the top of the Palace hill. His family was very much a literary one; his father was a journalist, his mother wrote material for children and his sister ended up in publishing. ‘There were always books around the house’ he says, ‘I think I was fortunate.’ Following his grammar school education, he studied drama at Guildhall towards the end of the 1960s. At that Drama and Music school, the leftist ideology floating around LSE and other universities was very much in the air, although it was a far cry from the LSE experience of barricades and manifestos, he tells us.
Upon finishing his ‘all too brief’ student days, Simon hit the road, working extensively in regional theatre up and down the country, as well as doing some writing. He recalls a life spent ‘running around for £10 a week and wondering why I thought this was all so glamorous.’ His favourite roles were appearances in several successive productions of Hamlet, working his way up to playing the title role, or the ‘premier league’ in his words. He also appeared in various plays by Peter Terson and Peter Nichois, who were his contemporaries. ‘It does make you feel slightly ancient when you see plays that you’ve been in revived.’ Throughout his life as a thespian he spent time ‘haunting second hand bookshops’ begging, borrowing, and ‘I won’t say stealing!’ books. Gradually, though, he returned to London during its Greater London Council heyday.
He remembers with fondness the London at a time when the city was more reasonable; he says such memories are not romanticism, but rather a fiscal truth. In particular, Ken Livingstone’s London was
Who knew that ‘the Alpha Books guy’ used to star in Hamlet? We profile LSE’s erudite entreprenuer whose vitae is definitely not on the curriculum
more favourable to the needs of booksellers, and gave a sort of ‘rent amnesty’ to traders along Charing Cross Road who represent a vital part of the area’s character. Nowadays, though, the vagaries of the market come down full force on booksellers. Simon talks with an enthusiastic knowledge of the trade he’s a small part of. Over the past few years he has seen a revolution in the way books have been bought and sold, spurred on by technological advancement. Internet sites like Amazon, ever increasing rents and the changing nature of publishing houses have all served to make life more difficult for independent traders like himself. Despite this, he still remains firmly committed to serving the LSE community, trying to offer the largest possible discounts on student textbooks and buying everything students offer him when they leave for the summer.
When Simon first started trading with the LSE community it was in a more piecemeal fashion. He sought to combine his work on the stage with his work selling books, but ‘gradually the books took over’ he says. He first came to our school running a weekly book stall which he took to other universities as well. However, this committed Spurs fan, always faithful to the underdog, gradually started spending more time at the small LSE campus. What also attracted him to the place was what he refers to as the Catholicity of the place; LSE seems like a miniature United Nations, he remarks. Professionally, he enjoyed meeting the tastes of such a diverse student body and enjoyed a warm welcome here. When the Students’ Union refurbished the Quad six years ago, he asked to be considered for a permanent unit, since running stalls at several different universities represented extremely difficult work. The Union repaid the kind attention Simon has given to LSE students over the years with the site Alpha Books now calls home.
This brings us sharply to the present. We pick our way back through the Quad back to the shop. Whilst students browse around us, Simon obligingly poses for some shots framed by the paperbacks lining the walls. He’s chatting to us in glorious tones that are part Royal Shakespeare Company and part Battersea, telling us what books he gets asked for most frequently. The are Michael Lewis’ banking expose, Liars Poker, Kundera’s existential The Unbearable Lightness of Being and J.D. Salinger’s classic Catcher in the Rye. We smile at the revelation; market forces contriving to describe LSE students better than any prospectus. We must admit that when it comes to knowing the LSE, the man who trades textbooks will always be Alpha and Omega.
petercurrie and ismatabidi
14 February 2006
L
Tacit stardom and an unusual celebrity surround David Suchet. The legendary actor discusses his early career, the National Theatre satire Once in a Lifetime, his famous role as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and the ineluctable allure of mystery
An unusual celebrity surrounds David Suchet. He defies Hollywood VIP stereotypes, yet both teenagers and grandparents alike immediately recognise his name. His personal life does not make front page headlines, yet his programmes reach 850 million people in 85 countries. My own family gathers on Saturday midnights, in a frenzied and bizarre ritual, to watch his famed television appearances as British crime fiction writer Agatha Christie’s detective character, Hercule Poirot. In short, David Suchet seems exalted in a peculiar and unconventional way, but exalted nonetheless. As fascinating as the characters he plays on the screen and on the stage, he boasts a tacit stardom.
‘I couldn’t perform to this full house every night until I’m 100 and reach one night the population that watches Poirot’ he tells me in a dressing room at the National Theatre, where he currently performs in the satire Once in a Lifetime. Minutes ago, he finished the matinee performance and still sports one of several loud, striped suits from the wardrobe. He kindly poses for photographs before removing makeup and peeling off his moustache. Before the interview, one friend had begged me to ask whether the Poirot moustache was real. Here was evidence to the contrary, but I decline to ask as his deep voice fills the
room. Its bass cuts straight through sporadic announcements to cast and crew members from overhead speakers.
About vaudeville actors who abandon New York for Hollywood to open a voice school for fading stars of silent movies, Once in a Lifetime sees Suchet reprise a role he played 27 years ago with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. His character, studio executive Herman Glogauer, had dismissed the idea of movies with sound and now regrets his decision. So when the vaudeville actors arrive, he works with them to produce his first talking picture, which turns out to be the worst film ever made. But because Once in a Lifetime is a satire, the film is also Hollywood’s most successful. ‘The thing that differentiates my performance now from the one 27 years ago is that now I’ve met people like Herman Glogauer, who shall be nameless since we’re doing an interview. Those caricatures actually exist.’
Of Glogauer he says, ‘That seems a very hard concept to believe, that somebody would believe that talking pictures or cinema wouldn’t catch on. In the same way that my late grandfather, bless him, never believed that color photography would last. He thought that black and white was the thing, and if he
knew we were doing digital now he would turn in his grave I think.’ As a young student, Suchet was influenced by his grandfather, a very early press photographer who pioneered the use of 35mm. Suchet wanted to work behind cameras on film sets, although his original intention was to follow in the footsteps of his father, a notable obstetrician and gynaecologist.
‘In those days you didn’t go into a job thinking “Oh if it doesn’t work out then I’ll get another job” which is really what is the fashion now,’ he says. ‘Everyone leaves university and most people don’t even know what they want to do anyway. But then in those days you made a decision: that’s what you wanted to do and that’s what you went with, and nine times out of ten that’s what you hoped to stay with. So it was a different sort of psychology. And that’s where the National Youth Theatre was a great influence on me.’
Suchet joined the National Youth Theatre after receiving good reviews at the Wellington School in Somerset, where a favourite, avant-garde English teacher appeared in ‘Macbeth’ with him. After spending time at the NYT, he was turned away from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), to his surprise and delight, offered immediate placement. The first two years seemed terri-
14 February 2006
'
.  . _   _________________________________________________________________
ble as he struggled to find his niche. But then he discovered his talent for becoming other characters on the stage. ‘I got a tremendous desire to act not just from “Oh look this is a job I can do” but to serve playwrights.’ Upon graduating, he received the ‘Best Student’ prize.
We pause so that David Suchet can take a call from his agent. The mobile signal weak, he walks to the window. When he sits back down, I recite one quote from a BBC profile, which suggests that he ‘takes naturally to darker roles with an undertow of menace or repression.’ He asks me to repeat it again.
‘Who said that?’
‘The BBC.’
‘They said that about me?’
He takes a few seconds to respond: ‘No matter how high up the ladder you get, very rarely can you actually, in real honesty, choose what you want to do. You end up doing what you’re offered. I don’t think there’s any doubt I do get offered dark roles because I’m very interested and can portray the complex psychology of people. In everybody there’s a dark side, there’s a Jekyll and Hyde. And that’s what I like to discover but I can only discover it through the material that I’m given. So I don’t go out just to do it, and the material I’m given usually embraces that.’
Anyone who has read Agatha Christie understands that the role of Hercule Poirot represents one of delicately complex psychology. Initially, the Agatha Christie estate and ITV had approached Suchet with a one-year offer. He was somewhat familiar with the books but remembered films starring Peter Ustinov or Albert Finney as Poirot more than anything else. After accepting the part, he sat down to study some of the books, which instantly captivated him. ‘I’ll tell you why I was gripped,’ he explains. ‘Because I started reading about a man, a character that I had never seen portrayed on the screen. I had never seen what I was reading portrayed. I had always seen a caricature, a pastiche not taken seriously. And Agatha Christie actually created a character of enormous depth, a caricature from his appearance and his mannerisms but three-dimensional inside. And of course that suited me down to the ground. To get the complexities of the man inside and allow the outside to become a caricature. To hit the fine line between the two, which is what I’ve tried to do ever since I started.’
Over the years, Suchet has become the singular face of Hercule Poirot. But because Poirot represents the role with which he is most closely associated, I ask whether he feels limited in any sense. He insists that he remains enormously proud, and suggests that to be remembered for something as an actor represents a phenomenal achievement. In fact, he has done the complete opposite of abandoning that career-defining role; he plans to shoot four more Poirot episodes in the autumn. After those, only eight of the detective stories will remain for Suchet. If time allows, he would like to finish the complete works. But then he adds, ‘We live a day at a time.’
At the end of March, David Suchet will head to Cape Town to play the British Prime Minister in a film called The Flood, with Tom Courtenay. Also lined up is television film about the devastating tsunami. Meanwhile, three theatre plays for next year sit on his desk waiting to be read.
Before we leave, I ask him to autograph a Once in a Lifetime flyer for my family. He walks us to the door of his dressing room. It is a small dressing room, in the middle of a nondescript corridor painted yellow. As I leave, I am bewildered by the modest setting. After all, David Suchet is a man whose charm and talent seem limitless. And he is a man who perfectly captures the ineluctable allure of mystery. One of his anecdotes illustrated the universal appeal of mystery perfectly: ‘We have to go back to when Agatha Christie wrote them. When she wrote them, they were as popular as JK Rowling’s books are now. No question. They used to queue outside the bookshops all night for the latest Hercule Poirot mystery. It was the talking point on all public transport. Nobody was allowed to tell anybody the end of a story. It was huge news to such an extent that when Hercule Poirot died in a book called ‘Curtain’ that was published way down the line, his picture and obituary were on the front page of the New York Times’
14 February 2006
LIVE MUSIC SPECIAL: INTERVIEW
The Early Years are one of the
hottest bands in London. Championed by the likes of Radio One's Steve Lemacq and Huw Stephens as well as XFM's John Kennedy, they seem destined for greatness. Since forming less than two years ago, they have recorded at the BBC’s Maida Vale Studios and Death In Vegas' Contino Rooms and have even received that sure stamp of success: crazed emails from a psycho fan clearly several discs short of a box set. On the eve of their debut British tour, guitarist Roger Mackin, drummer Phil Raines and vocalist and guitarist Dave Malkinson spoke exclusively to The Beaver about making records on the road less travelled
How did the band first come together?
Roger: It all started when I got Dave to perform a solo set as support for a punk band that I was in at the time. I was really impressed with his psychedelic guitar work and decided that that sort of sound was what I really wanted to be doing as well. The punk band split shortly after and I joined forces with Dave.
Phil: I was still in the process of moving down to London at the time, but Dave, who I knew from Blackpool, got in touch and we had our first rehearsal in April of 2004. Dave: Phil just nailed that krautrock beat, which allowed me and Roger to experiment with our sound over the top of it.
How did the first gig as ‘The Early Years’ go?
Phil: Our first gig was just a month later, at Pleasure Unit in Bethnal Green. I’d say we had about 15% of our material prepared, and the rest was improvised.
Roger: We were still kind of finding our feet as a band, but as our rehearsals improved we booked more and more gigs.
Dave: We decided to play one gig a month for a year, and then see where we were by the end of it. At the time London was full of bands trying to sound like The Libertines, so we were doing something different. We made music for ourselves, stuff that we’d like. We had nothing to lose so we didn’t give a shit whether it was what we thought people wanted, just what we thought sounded good.
Roger: As we started to find our sound through gigging, we recorded a couple demos. Dave: I mailed them off and of course totally forgotten I’d done it. Then a week later an email appeared in my inbox telling me that we were going to be on John Kennedy’s XFM show. He apparently loved our first demo,‘Things’, and kept on playing it. Roger: We all sat in Dave’s car to listen to the show. It was insane listening to ourselves on the radio for the first time.
Dave: We were just like,‘Well, that’s never happened before!’
Phil: Then Huw Stephens on Radio One played our second demo, ‘All Ones And Zeros’, which became our first single.
Dave: The DJs just ping-ponged off each other. Huw Stevens passed the track on to Steve Lemacq, who subsequently invited us to do a session at Maida Vale.
Roger: Of course, when John Kennedy heard about this he felt like he was going to miss out, so offered us an XFM session at the same time.
Was this the point when labels started getting interested?
Roger: Yeah, a couple of labels were interested. But when Beggar’s Banquet got involved we knew they were the label for us, for a start some of my favourite bands have been on this label!
You recorded your first single with Tim Holmes, of ‘Death in Vegas’. Flow was that?
Phil: It was a fantastic experience. The Contino Sessions is one of my all-time favourite albums, so to actually record at The Contino Rooms was incredible.
Roger: They have all sorts of rare equipment there. They could open a museum with their synthesisers alone!
Were you worried that with such a big name producer involved you would sacrifice artistic control and end up with a ‘Death In Vegas’ record rather than an ‘Early Years’ record?
Roger: No, not at all.
Phil: The anticipation was a little nerve-wracking, because you realise that you’re going to be working with someone who you’re a big fan of. But by the second day we went in it was like popping round to see a mate.
Dave: Tim was fantastic to work with. We were relaxed as soon as we started jamming and chatting about music, and while he got very involved with the single it was always a collaborative process. The tracks we came out with are very much our own, although there’s maybe a little nod to Death in Vegas on ‘I Heard Voices.’
The story of Vashti Bunyan and her music is truly captivating. In 1966 Vashti was taken under the wing of Rolling Stones svengali Andrew Loog Oldham, who was convinced he would make her a star. With his help Vashti released the Jagger and Richards-penned single ‘Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind’, which sunk without a trace. Disillusioned with the music industry she decided to follow Donovan up to the Outer Hebrides, where he was intending to establish and artists commune. She left London with her partner, Bess the Horse, Blue the Dog and an old green wagon to embark on a journey that would last a year and a half. While travelling she wrote songs reflecting the beauty of the country life, and upon her return to London (after stopping for the winter) she got in touch with Joe Boyd who persuaded her to make an album.
The subsequent record, Just Another Diamond Day, was released in 1970, and much like her debut single was either ignored or given negative reviews by the reactionary music press of the time. The subsequent rejection was too much for Vashti to take, and hence she abandoned music (both playing and listening) in order to build a home and a family in Scotland. Nothing happened for many years until one day in the late nineties Vashti decided to type her name into google, only to discover that in her years of absence her album had gained cult status and copies were trading for hundreds of pounds. This set in motion a train of events that led to the
re-release c Royal Festi Collective Devendra (s The Hands, album: Loo So‘Folk music in ge position as traces her i rary artists First on th from the li Bert shares is his unusu are accomp ming and s< ing guitaris that the 60s tive as anyt King Ci 24 albums i biggest foil-despite th unbearably certain rou down some-his art, but ing nature < Fortuna London’s ot
14 February 2006
of the Week
Who? The Strokes When? 17 & 18 Februrary 2006 Where? Hammersmith Apollo How much? £25
On the final leg of their UK tour, the coolest band on the planet return to the capital for a two night jaunt at the Hammersmith Apollo. With three albums’ worth of material in their armoury expect an extensive set of intense New York swagger, ranging from the classic svelte neo-punk hits of debut Is This It, the world weary swoon of sophomore effort Room On Fire and the fiery raw power of their latest offer, First Impressions Of Earth. Undoubtedly most emphasis will be given to songs from First Impressions which may be the weakest of the three but has the potential to completely outstrip its predecessors for sheer visceral live sound. First Impressions Of Earth is better tailored towards a live setting, featuring a more professional and refined guitar sound with heavier bass. 'Heart In A Cage', 'Ize Of The World' and 'Juicebox' are foot to the floor, riff-heavy tracks that fly like a Ferrari doing 1 OOmph down 5th Avenue, guaranteed to set the crowd alight. Indeed The Strokes are renowned for the energy in their live performances, throwing themselves into gigs figuratively, and literally in the case of Julian Casablancas, the singer having a lemming-like penchant for regularly diving into the crowd. If this wasn't enough how could you resist the delights of classics like 'Last Nite', 'New York City Cops', '12:51' and 'Reptilia' performed by the most stylish men in rock? Get tickets somehow, sell a kidney if you have to. Don't miss out.
nathancapone
live Review
Who? Be Your Own Pet When? 3 February 2006 Where? Bush Hall
Once I found an iPod shuffle on the street. It’s a long story, but the gist of it is that I have the iPod, but not the guilt. Anyway, I’d fill it every few days with random songs from my iTunes library. Lately, I’ve been hearing this really catchy song with a killer chorus: postpunk in a Futureheads sense. Thing is, since it’s a shuffle, I had no way of telling who it was. But then, I was watching the support band, and they went and played it. Good Shoes. Bad name, but catchy songs.
So anyway, the show was really all about Be Your Own Pet. They’re quite literally a bunch of kids from somewhere like Texas. I’d put them all at about 16 years of age, and tonight’s audience is somewhere close to that figure too. They burst onto the scene a year or so ago with the hyper-infectious ‘Damn Damn Leash’, with an accompanying video they made themselves on a budget of around $12. They got snapped up by XL in a shot, and nestle in their eclectic roster of acts such as MIA, The Chemical Brothers and White Stripes; basically, a pretty big deal.
Their live show is pure hormones. I don’t know about you, but all through high school, I thought that I really should be attending some last-minute party in some kid’s garage, with some crazy band playing a crash course through their parents’ record collection - all riffs pinched from The Stooges, Blondie and The Clash. But, as it turned out, that shit never happened. Somehow my life didn’t materialise into the episode of Saved By The Bell that I’d quite imagined. Oh well. Tonight almost feels like a flashback to that time I never had. Their singer baits the crowd as only a teenager with a major record label deal can; their bass player is sporting a moustache far in advance of my best efforts.
Should I be worried that I missed , the boat somewhere, five years ago? Maybe. But they had some guy come on stage before they played and sterilise their microphones. Make of that what you will.
mattboys
)f the album, a live performance at the ival Hall, collaborations with Animal (on the Prospect Hummer EP) and singing on the title track of Rejoicing In ), and last year the release of a second kaftering.
: Britannia’ isn’t just a celebration of folk neral; it is an event that affirms Vashti’s queen of wayward psychedelic folk, and nfluence down to the host of contempo-that share the stage with her tonight, e bill however is one of Vashti’s peers )60s, Bert Jansch from Pentangle. What with the recent crop of Neo-Folk artists lal singing style. His uniquely rich vocals lanied only by his own acoustic strum-ome bluesy riffing from his accompany-;t. Bert delivers a set that demonstrates ; folk artists can be as weird and innova-hing we have now.
reosote is a DIY legend, having released n eight years, and heading up one of the : labels in England (Fence Records); yet is impressive pedigree his music is dull. There’s no denying that he has a gh charm, and one doesn’t like to put one who obviously cares so deeply about that doesn’t escape the essentially bor-of his music.
tely the next act to take the stage is Am Neo-Folk minstrel Adem. After a few
brief minutes of tuning up Adem and his band gather round and begin their musical serenade with the ever uplifting ‘Everything You Need’: ethereal harmonium, deftly picked guitars, and upliftingly simple hand percussion combine in perfect measure to produce a truly beautiful song. Adem informs us that he’s been hard at work on a new album, and that said album will have a ‘space’ theme. Any doubts I have about the quality of an inter-stellar themed folk album are quickly washed away by the moving ballad ‘Of Love And Other Planets’, if this song is anything to go by the album is sure to be brilliant. Adem closes his set with the joyous ode to friendship that is ‘There Will Always Be’, as tinkling chimes and xylophone rise out of the speakers the whole band join Adem in singing “And if all the lights that lead you/Lead you to my door/It will always be open/There will always be lights on/There will always be room at my table for you.”
After a brief interval we return to our seats only to find that we are forced to sit through some dull classical minimalism courtesy of Max Richter. The less said about Incredible String Band member Mike Heron the better. The signs aren’t good when he announces that his daughter will be accompanying him, and it only gets worse from then on. The combination the most horrible guitar sound I’ve ever heard, out-of-tune singing and cheap Casio sounds (synthesised harpsichord anyone?), leads to many audience members laughing at the prospect that such awful music is allowed to grace the
Barbican’s stage. Fortunately the musical quality is considerably improved when Vetiver take the stage, even if they are confused as to why a bunch of hairy American hippies have been booked to play a show entitled ‘Folk Britannia.’
After all this build up Vashti calmly walks to the stage accompanied by Adem, Kieran Hebden (a.k.a. Four Tet), Max Richter and a sting quartet. As she begins to sing the first thing that strikes you is the unchanged nature of her voice. Her vocals perfectly replicate the ethereal whispered nature of those on ‘Just Another Diamond Day’. The set list has obviously been given much thought, and the resulting decision to alternate between new and old songs is inspired. The main attraction of Vashti’s music has always been the way her innocent, simple, and shy personality shines through, and on stage this ever more evident. Each song is given a near whispered introduction, detailing when and where it was written and what the songs about. The highlight was most definitely ‘Glow Worms’, whose haunting melody caused the hairs on my neck to prickle. After much clapping Vashti returned to sing her 1966 single ‘Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind’. ‘I’ve always loved this song’ she reveals, just as the triumphant horns strike up. The image of Vashti standing at the mic shifting uncomfortably, on the verge of giggling at the thought of herself as rock star, is one that’ll stay with me forever; you just want to giver her a big hug.
samashton
/S,
PREVIEWS AND REVIEWS
You seem to have a preference for epic jamming sessions. Do you feel constrained reigning in the music to a three minute single?
Dave: The songs just come out the length they are. For example, the B-side ‘I Heard Voices’ makes our single too long to be eligible for the chart, but we’d rather have the perfect sound than cut it to worry about the charts.
Is it more difficult for you to re-create your sound live, compared to a garage rock band?
Phil: Our live sound is definitely different to how we sound on record.
Roger: Our gigs are a lot rawer.
Phil: The problem is we’d need twenty people to recreate the sound of our record live. We only have three pairs of hands!
Dave: Yeah, we’re actually looking for another member to join us live. Another pair of hands would help us recreate that rich sound that people have come to associate with our records.
Roger: The live show is definitively a lot more punk!
What’s your favourite live memory?
Phil: Our most memorable show was probably at a festival we played at in Hertfordshire. Do Me Bad Things were headlining, but when their set finished the organisers had arranged for fireworks to announce our show on the secret stage. Dave: Everyone thought the night was over, then they were like “what’s that noise?” Roger: It was about 3.30 in the morning by this point, so we were all completely wasted. We started playing as the fireworks ended.
Phil: I’ll never forget watching hundreds of people coming down this path from the main stage to see us.
How about in London?
Phil: Most of our gigs to date have been here in London. We’ve played everywhere from 93 Feet East to ULU.
Roger: Yeah, ULU was a great gig. One of the biggest audiences we’ve ever played to and a lot of people hearing us for the first time.
Dave: We got a really good reaction. I think we won them over.
Has it ever all gone horribly wrong?
Roger: When we played Upstairs at the Garage, everything that could go wrong did. Phil was away anyway so it was just me and Dave playing an acoustic set. My amp pedal broke at the beginning of the show and from then on things just got progressively worse. I just left Dave to it in the end.
Dave: We were gutted when we came offstage, but we still got some really good feedback. It just goes to show that your perception on stage is very different to how the audience perceive you. As we’ve got more and more live experience under our belt, we’ve got better and better so we’ve raised our own expectations as to how we should be sounding. Each show is better than the last. That’s the key.
Looking forward to touring?
Phil: Definitely. It’s going to be a step up, at the moment we’ve mostly been playing in venues that we already know well, whether as fans or performers. The tour is going to put us in unknown environments which will be a challenge.
Roger: The singles had a brilliant reaction and we get emails and feedback from all over the country, so it’ll be great to meet those fans.
Dave: Also it’s a chance to play our music to people who haven’t heard much of it before, if at all. It’ll get a much more pure reaction.
The London shows are at the start of the tour, right?
Phil: Yeah, we play the Barfly with Calla tonight (14 February), the Tatty Bogle Club on Friday (17 February) and The Buffalo Bar on Hiesday (21 February). We’re looking forward to it!
+ -
B8
14 Febraary 2006
Enfant terrible
Are toddlers the new Gucci handbags? One wonders whether parents who introduce young children to fashionable lifestyles and expensive clothing lack taste
I read a story a few weeks back regarding a fancy nightclub in New York; it was strictly guestlist only and had an uncompromising dress code to be adhered to. Whilst this is not atypical of some of the smarter districts in all major cities around the globe, what made this particular instance all the more striking was that this was a club for teenagers. No alcohol of course, though being in the US this concept was never really going to be about the issue of drinking copious amounts of hard liquor. In fact the real bone of contention here is a phenomenon which has been spreading, gradually, but pervasively, throughout the last decade. It is about the growth of the ultimate accessory: fashionable children.
On the surface this issue seems so minute as to only be worth a summary mention in the most mediaeval of newspapers (perhaps The London Student will wish to take note). But what this really comes down to is the deep and phiosophical question of what fashion really stands for. Put simply, this question requires an immediate determination on the part of individuals of whether fashion is a public good or a private good. The difference, should you happen to read a copy of Public Goods, Private Goods by Geuss, to a certain extent comes down to whether you wear an item of clothing for your own personal satisfaction, or whether it is a considerate tool with which to influence, or at least attract, the attention of the mediocre man or woman wandering amidst the thoroughfare. Now, the point is not about what Diogenes the Cynic was doing in the forum, but whether parents, of whatever income or social standing they happen to be, wish to express themselves through the medium of their young children, most of whom will not understand or recognise symbols of wealth or of class which can be communicated through a logos or motifs.
By saying this I am not merely suggesting that a two year -old child is being placed on the same hierarchic scale as a Hermes handbag (indeed it is much lower down the
chain in some cases), but you have to question the judgement of some parents who, either wittingly or unwittingly, may give their children the misfortune of not appreciating the value attached to something, whether it be a piece of clothing or other materialistic possession.
Therefore the problems here are twofold: in the first instance, the parents will give the impression that their kids are just accessories; ways to flaunt wealth or social standing. However, this is really the minor problem. Parents may just want to give their children the best (perhaps they never had nice clothes when they were young, or perhaps they were forced to wear one cousin’s hand-me-downs which were still two sizes too big). Still, this leads to the more serious point alluded to at the beginning of the article: these progeny are going to go through life expecting to be waited on, and are going to believe that fashion is everything and that dress codes must be adhered to at all times.
So here it is, I’m laying everything down on the line. Fashion is all about personal taste, about how we are all judged by our social peers (think of Sarte and Huis Clos) and whether or not we actually care. It’s one method for expressing how we think; our personality, so to speak. Who decides whether something is right or wrong? Fashion is at the heart of a great philosophical debate about public and private nature, or rather consider it as a big social experiment that most of us are unaware of when we visit any shop in any country around the world.
On the one hand it is what we wear on the inside, beneath all the clothes, that counts. On the other, life is all about other people, about interaction, and fashion is at the heart of this interaction. It helps create norms; businessmen wear suits, some people have uniforms. The day we all wear identical shiny, silver space suits as a universal uniform is the day that the world ceases to exist in any real sense.
benlamy
Be my Valentine
A list of where to spend money for those lucky enough to have dates
Those of you who have been here for many years and bother reading the About section will recall my hatred of the over-syrupy commercial pap of St. Valentine’s Day. The eponymous Valentine actually also represents the patron Saint of bee keepers, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, plague and travellers. In short, quite a resume. However, we have to use the hand we’ve been dealt; if you don’t make an effort you’re either a) going to piss off your partner, or b) miss out on any potential action (unless, of course, you are the type that goes to Valentine’s parties and picks up desperately lonely singletons whose plight is exacerbated by this ‘magical day’). It’s great to show someone you love them, so if you don’t want to buy into the Valentine’s spirit you can always take the advice in these columns and utilise it for any occasion!
For the Flowers:
Sadly, the week surrounding 14 February is a time when all of the florists in the universe seem to realise that there is a global shortage of flowers, or maybe they’re just profiteering bastards. Whatever the case, you’re going to end up paying through the nose, so you may as well stick with a dependable company who can deliver just about anywhere for you. Interflora can be found at www.interflora.co.uk and offer a nice single rose in a vase or a mixed dozen of roses for under £20.
For the Chocolates:
Hotel Du Chocolat have both a website at www.hotelchocolat.co.uk and stores in Knightsbridge (5 Montpelier Street) and Kensington (163 Kensington High Street)-. They’re selling the standard heart-shaped chocolate boxes and the like, but also offer some pretty intriguing alternatives: slabs of milk chocolate studded with real strawberry, praline coffee swirling sticks and comedy bars of chocolate with musings on why chocolate is better than sex inscribed on the packet.
For the Drinks:
Albannach (66 Trafalgar Square) is a new contender on the London bar scene having opened just over a year ago. It houses both a cocktail bar and a whisky bar, but it is the former in which we are interested in - the upstairs whisky bar, whilst fabulous, is not the most romantic of places (but that’s not to say they may not tart it up on the day), but the downstairs cocktail bar is filled by tartan, kilt-clad staff and has mellow music being played. Ask the waitress what cocktails they’re experimenting with at the moment as they’re always exciting. I last had a chilli champagne cocktail which was sublime, but unusual to say the least. For those of you who are wondering, ‘Albannach’ is Celtic for a Northerner, rather than ‘Sassenach’ for a Southerner.
For the Meal:
St. Moritz (161 Wardour Street), whilst it will summon up images of divine pistes for the skiing fanatics, is also a fabulous Swiss restaurant that most notably does fondue and has a dubious reputation, or so I hear, of being the venue of many an illicit liaison between married people (although I’m sure that’s just gossip and hearsay). You could certainly imagine why though (small cosy alcoves and candle-lit tables, sharing a luxurious pot of bubbling hot Swiss cheese). It doesn’t get much more romantic or indulgent than this. Hopefully, it won’t be plagued with the usual ludicrously overpriced set-menu which almost any other decent restaurant offers on 14 February, so it should remain perfectly affordable.
For the Dancing:
Of the few clubs that I have been to one has stood out of the crowd by miles: Tantra (62 Kingly Street). Rigorous door control ensures that you don’t end up with the Capital Club style of people glassing each other in the face, nor do you have the dodgy tourists picking up drunken under-age kids (as in Equinox). So far so good. On the night I went, there also seemed to be a distinct lack of sleaze and overt drug-taking. Internal decor is fabulous, with glass tiled floors and a room with beds; unusual to say the least. The music I went last time was great, very easy to dance to modem music without falling into playing useless electro/dance pap.
garethrees
+
14 February 2006
9B
Mob movies
Blood, drugs and strip clubs. More powerful than any lethal firearm, mob films appeal to those intrigued by passionate criminals and dangerous underworlds. This special issue features reviews of two notable classics, Casino and Donnie Brasco
Casino
Crime/Drama
Directed: Martin Scorsese Starring: Robert De Niro
A few weeks ago my friend Adam showed me a story online about Joe Pesci punching a star-struck fan at a shopping mall. He was apparently upset because the photographer had interfered with ‘his business.’ The story is funny for two reasons. Firstly, Joe Pesci is a real-life hobbit who got his ass kicked by Macaulay Culkin on two separate occasions; once while his parents were in France, and again when Culkin was lost in NYC. Secondly, I can’t think of how getting your picture taken isn’t part of ‘his business,’ since after all, he is an actor, unless of course ‘his business’ is walking through shopping malls. This allows me to conclude that either the leathery-faced thespian is a violent little man who has taken method-acting to frighteningly new heights, or that his mind has rotted from years of being type-cast into playing the exact same roles. Or both.
As far as I know, every movie Joe Pesci has ever made has him starring as either the weasely little brother (Raging Bull), criminal (Lethal Weapon), lawyer (My Cousin Vinnie) or, where this multitalented actor truly shines, as the hyper-violent Made Man whose rampant drug and alcohol abuse has sent him spiralling out of control (with the exception of With Honors, where Pesci plays a homeless man stuck in the sewers bartering with Brendan Fraser for pages to his Harvard thesis).
Perhaps nowhere truer than in the three-hour cinematic yawn that is Casino. This time, Pesci stars as Robert DeNiro’s sidekick who follows the mobster-turned Las Vegas hotel magnet into the seedy underworld of Nevada’s gambling culture, ultimately threatening the life of the casino empire when his violent personality clashes with his lust for drugs, women and power.
Director Scorsese seems to have poured this film from sure-fire-hit-mafia-movie mould. It has the loveable head of the family who engages in criminal activities but still retains his ‘heart-of-gold’ persona, plagued by a troubled family life (see, Tony Soprano) because he just can’t shake his love for the druggy bingo-mom. The cyclical rise and fall is true to the genre: man from humble beginnings builds empire, empire grows and life is good, trouble mounts, empire crumbles, man ends up either dead, in jail or in some protection program. Sure, the film is multi-layered. It has identifiable characters. There are excessive amounts of drugs, drinking and a scene or two at a strip club. If, like billions of students around the world, you have a Scarface poster somewhere in your possession, then Casino is worth a watch. It certainly isn’t a bad movie. But it’s damn far from being a good one.
Now, it’s not that I am some bizarre sociopath weirdo who gets sexually aroused by Guns N’ Ammo magazine, but the real heart of Casino comes from our man Pesci who provides comic relief in the form of gratuitous, stomach-churning violence. Sparing no visual expense, Pesci engages in some niceties in the form of stabbing one in the neck with a pen, crushing another’s head in a vice until his eyeballs pop out and smashing a hand to bits with a hammer, peppering every bit of dialogue with a loving variety of profanities.
Thus, one can only conclude that Joe Pesci must think he is Nicky Santoro. Or Carmine. Or Harry Lime. So be warned. Despite the fact he has a face that looks like your grandma’s armpit and the frame of an 11 year-old girl, Joe Pesci could very well kill you. Especially if you interfere with his business, or worse, say Casino is just an okay film.
dorianpanchyson
S
DONNIE BRASCO
When you go to a mob film you expect nudity, violence, intrigue, swearing and a lot more violence. Donnie Brasco has all of these things, but what sets it aside is its compassion. Not something you expect from a film about an FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate a New York mob family.
Newell, director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, constructs a story of slow-burning development in the relationships between the central characters and a fairly paced story. The film is based on a true story, so he
Crime/Drama/Thriller
Directed: Mike Newell Starring: Johnny Depp, Al Pacino
can be forgiven any shortcomings in the plot. What sets the film aside is the immaculately portrayed father-son relationship between Don ‘the Jewel Man’ Brasco (a.k.a. Agent Joseph Pistone, a.k.a. Johnny Depp) and Lefty (a.k.a. Benjamin Ruggiero,
a.k.a. Al Pacino).
Under his assumed identity, Donnie is taken under the wing
of Lefty who begins to show him the ways of the mob in Brooklyn. Brasco positions himself to get the confidence of Lefty, enforcer and ‘stand-up guy’ in the New York mafia. The action remains steady throughout the film with the expected wanton violence, factional infighting and endless scams.
We follow Depp as his juggles
his family with the corruption and devouring responsibility of being undercover. His friendship love for Pacino’s character makes him reticent to leave his assignment. The demands of his job increase and Depp’s character begins to give into the tension between the two personas, Pistone and Brasco.
Depp is mature and sympathetic in his portrayal, and is effectively supported by Al Pacino. He transforms from FBI good guy to criminal as Pacino transforms in our eyes from a has-been, worn out mobster to a frail father figure. He has dreams and desires, and seems to be surrounded by inescapable failure. All he seems to want is freedom. Depp empathetically represents Brasco’s attempt to save them
both from the bleakness of their situation.
The real jewel in the film is Anne Heche, as Maggie Pistone, Don’s wife. The pain and compassion of the film is made flesh in her performance, as she patiently and resiliently resists Don’s slide into corruption.
The film leaves you impressed by the performances of its actors and actresses, the compassion oi its characters and the seamlessness of its direction. Donnie Brasco isn’t a shoot-em-up, dry ‘life-story’ like Pacino’s Serpico, and it isn’t an epic mob tale like The Godfather. Instead, it is a compassionate look at a friendship in a very odd place. Fuggedaboudit.
azanmarwah
14 February 2006
Yeats to Keats:
literature that makes for some relaxed reading
The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol. I W.B. Yeats
This book felt like a particularly long and boring tube journey. The perpetual twists and turns, predictable rhythms accelerating and halting, sweaty compartmentalization and fetid wordplay summoned the ennui of the Bakerloo line quite readily. But for me it was not all that placid a ride. Lines like; 'For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the depths of my heart.' made me want to vomit indiscriminately upon the other passengers. Titles like 'The Lover tells of the Rose in his Heart' sent me looking for unattended bags to stamp on. For there is something about Yeats that to the modern ear, is redolent of the vilest of cliche and greeting card sentimentality. Were he writing today, Hallmark would have him strapped to a chair whilst they siphon off his putrid syrup and schmaltz for their latest 'congratulations on your temporary separation' line.
One redeeming feature of Yeats' work is that he wrote a poem about a woman being raped by a swan but that isn't in here.
danyates
mm
John Keats (Everyman's
Poetry]___________
John Keats
*****
Wrting a lit-e r a r y review is hard, particularly when your literary knowledge is as rudimentary as mine. Why do I do it then, you may, justifiably, ask. Well the guy who asked me to do it once stabbed some kid in the face; he was really drunk and I didn't want to test him.
I told him I'd review a Ted Hughes anthology, as I've always had a soft spot for Hughes. I mean I find his poetry fairly uninspiring, but driving your obviously more talented wife to suicide is pretty sick and, therefore, incredibly rateable.
Anyway, I couldn't get hold of any Ted Hughes, so I had to take what I could get. And that turned out to be an inspiringly named anthology on Keats entitled John Keats (Everyman's Poetry).
I'm not sure if I fully understand Keats' poetry but I like some if it, I think. He's pretty old school in the sense he uses rhyme and rhythm but he does fuck about with them with flair. He's pretty good at articulating stuff about things in a romantic way (he's the guy who said A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’ in ‘Endymion’). ‘Isabella: A Pot of Basil’, apart from having a brilliant title, is fairly enjoyable and engaging. He's got loads of others, some of which are probably better.
So, yeah, if you like reading and thinking about things, romantic and emotional things, read some Keats.
hasibbaber
One’s Wedding, a Diary
Elisabeth Salzhauer Axel
* * * *
Everything you have always wanted to know on Prince Charles' innermost thoughts before his wedding with Camilla is in this book. This is indeed meant to be his diary.
It begins on the 28 January with the unexpected acceptance by Camilla to a proposal Charles has no memory of having done. The tone is set. It seems things are getting too much for the Prince of Wales manhandled by ‘mummy's third under secretary’, who sees his wedding becoming an act of ‘Spotty Blair’s’ campaign. With a Private Eye style, the author goes through all the major challenges faced by the Royals with the point of view of an insider. Such as, who is going to take up the throne once the Queen is dead (though she apparently does not want to die, as everybody knows) to how to chose an engagement ring of the right size (use a sausage the size of your betrothed's finger), nothing is spared.
This is the hardly- realistic diary of a sometimes childish (how could one live without his favourite pillow?), most of the time spoilt (what is the problem with using an RAF plane to get back the hairbrush you had forgotten, frankly?) but always funny and witty Prince of Wales.
Without revealing the end, I can tell that like any story involving princes and princesses (sorry, duchesses), it ends with a ‘they lived happily ever after’. Though there is no evidence that they will have many children.
luciegoulet
Filthy in Philippines
Having sucked up Manila’s tawdry-chic and the thick, slow heartbeat of the islands, it was time to get down to business. The highlight of any trip to Asia is always a chance to see blood spilt: whether it’s a bare-knuckle boxing match, a dog fight or just a day-trip to the market, you can scarcely avoid a good bit of gore. Cockfighting is the Philippines’ blood sport of choice, so I headed out to the big Sunday night event. A predominantly male crowd patronised the Municipal cockfighting ring (sponsored by San Miguel) and it was a heart-warming sight to see these proud men mulling around holding their chickens and razor blades. I bought two beers and a pack of local cigarettes to get in the sprit of things and was overjoyed to find change from a pound.
The ring itself was reminiscent of Van Damme’s ‘Bloodsport’ and the shabby wooden bleachers were packed with punters. As we entered a contest was about to begin, the two handlers were holding their feathered pals and encouraging them to peck at each other’s heads in order to get them annoyed enough to fight. When the birds were deemed optimally pissed off, the handlers let them go in a flurry of wings, dirt and razor-tipped claws. The fights can last from twenty seconds to five minutes and end when the winner kills the loser. On at least three occasions there was a draw, when both birds managed to inflict mortal wounds on the other.
These contests were neither interesting enough to be a spectacle nor grisly enough to be prurient; the real interest is in the gambling. This is done by attracting a bookie’s attention, pointing at your bird and using finger signals to indicate how many hundred or thousand pesos you wish to wager. No money changes hands at this point. After the fight you throw balled up notes at the bookie if you lose or alternatively he throws up your winnings. Since both the loser and the winner end up as dinner, there are really no favourites and try as I could, my stats for the night were 0/7.1 have never gambled well.
A Note on Culture
There is a saying that Filipinos are‘Malay in culture, Spanish in love, Chinese in business and American in ambition’.
This is our new feature, where you find a list of upcoming reviews for this section
Next week: a literature section special dedicated to' the late holy godfather of gonzo journalism, Hunter S. Thompson RIP (July 18, 1937-Febuary 20, 2005)
A quick look at the English press is often a good way to gauge a place; whilst a typical page two of Japan’s Daily Yomiuri might cover a pachinko parlour arson or a shunned mother poisoning, The Manila Star will typically cover violent stories related to revenge, shabu, amok, or all three.
‘Amok’ is where a man loses his mind, picks up a ‘bolo’ or machete and steams around killing everyone in sight, family first. After the event he claims not to remember anything. It is predominantly a Malay phenomenon, but which many attribute to societies which do not permit expressions of hostility.
‘Shabu’ is an addictive methamphetamine crystal commonly used amongst gamblers to stay awake and is often a component of revenge killings.
In many respects the Philippines resembles a South Pacific nation more than an Asian one, there is the Christianity, the spoken English, and the easy going island lifestyle and character, not to mention the strong identification with America and the West.
So....
After 18 short days and long nights it was time to risk my skin on Egypt Air once more. I took an extortionate taxi back to the Ninoy Aquino and endured 7 separate security checks before slumping into my tiny economy seat. We leapt into high earth orbit and I looked down on the Manila night as life went inexorably on. Text messages flew high over corrugated iron rooftops and young boys dreamed of heroism as mothers wept on 3000 islands and missionaries whistled in their graves as gamblers smoked shabu and stayed awake for 86 hours at a time, constantly outwitting each other on matters of chance and the young lived and old died as islands shifted in unnoticeable increments and the Anito chain of love hotels reported brisk business as movie heroes plotted improbable political victories while nipa huts sank slowly into the sand and nobody questioned the wisdom of the brave.
sebastianvansaar
14 February 2006
The Balcony, the latest drama society adventure, takes a leap into the unknown. For two nights in Week Ten the Quad will be transformed into an opulent love shack, where strange men, with even stranger fantasies come to let go. Brutality and power are the name of the game. This is very much a cast with guts giving it their all, “ in a performance constantly* on the edge. I say ‘performance’ because The Balcony cannot quite be defined ass j a play. It is an experience, intended to push our boundaries in its glorification of filth and abuse. Although the action is set in a brothel, the theme is concerned less with | sex and more with power. Political institutions are sati- ' rized
and political actors mocked.
Watching this play is like watching a circus gone wrong. It will unsettle you and have you shifting in your seats as the cast involve the audience in their assorted antics. This is interactive theatre at its best! In Week Ten you will walk into a world where anything can and does happen. Some of it is strange, some of it disturbing. None of it romantic. So enjoy the romance of Valentines Day, because in four weeks time we will revel in its opposite.
sorrallbeadsworth
Once in A Lifetime
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Moss Hart was just another aspiring playwright when, in 1929, he sent his script for Once in a Lifetime to George S. Kaufman, then the reigning king of Broadway comedy. Kaufman loved it, together they refined the script, and after it opened on Broadway in late 1930 Hart never looked back.
Hart’s story, of how the coming of the ‘talkies’ revolutionised Hollywood, should be familiar to anyone who’s seen Singin’ in the Rain. In fact, on seeing Once in a Lifetime at the National Theatre Olivier, one realises how much that movie borrowed from the much earlier play. There can be no doubt that the humour is dated, many references are obscure (there is even a glossary in the programme to help with this), and the jokes are extremely corny. But fans of 30s screwball movies like Bringing up Baby should find this play, as I did, an absolute delight.
The plot concerns one May Daniels, who, along with her beau Jerry and neb-bish partner George, is just scraping along as a vaudeville act on Broadway (the ‘legitimate stage’) when Warner Brothers release The Jazz Singer and turn the show-business world on its head. They decide to quit the stage, and head out West to set up an elocution school for the vocally-challenged stars of the silent era. With the help of an influential friend, May manages to get them started at the studios of movie mogul Herman Glogauer. Things do not go well, however, and their Hollywood dream seems lost until George suddenly and
unintentionally comes to the rescue...
Mark Thompson’s excellent (and very expensive) set design makes good use of the big Olivier stage, particularly when the huge golden staircase of the Hotel Stilton comes spinning up out of the floor, drawing a smattering of applause from an oth-
erwise reticent Monday-night audience. The set and costumes work well together, both changing subtly during the play from the muted browns of chilly New York, to the sharp monochrome efficiency of the Glogauer studios, which are subsequently highlighted with pinks and reds as George
takes control.
Once in a Lifetime is a three-act play, with the first two acts run together. It would take too long to get an audience in and out of the Olivier for two intervals -especially the matinee crowd, who spend longer in the loos (though at least they get the jokes). What this means, however, is that the second act feels too short, and rather insubstantial given that most of the interesting action happens in the first part.
Ed Hall’s stylised direction calls for heightened acting throughout, and although this can be rather tiring over the course of the long first part, it is entirely in keeping with the screwball style of the piece. The performances are mixed, with the American accents slipping in places, and some of the minor characters fail to convince. However, the leads are excellent: Victoria Hamilton as May was strong and assured throughout, and put me in mind of Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. Adrian Scarborough gives a superb comic turn as the hapless George, and his tirade at the end of Act 1 that wins over Glogauer was the highlight of the show.
However, the most impressive performer on display is surely David Suchet, playing Glogauer himself. He simply energises the whole performance each time he appears, playing the role of a no-nonsense Jewish entrepreneur who wants everything done yesterday. ‘That’s the way we do things out here’, he tells George. ‘No time wasted on thinking.’
stevebond
BLUE MAN GROUP
Valentine’s Special
Blue Man Group is coming to the aid of amorous women by staging two special Valentine’s Day shows during the expanded half-term schedule, making them the perfect place to take their men on a date.
Playing host to London’s lovers in their own inimitable way, Blue Man Group will offer couples the chance to declare their devotion or desperation in lights, using electronic LED display message boards which will flash up scrolling text messages at the start of the show.
Audience messages emailed or texted in advance to Blue Man Group before the performance starts will be selected and as
many as possible played in front of a packed New London Theatre on the message boards.The messages can be (almost!) anything from “Love you but not the snoring” to “Will you marry me...?”
Blue Man Group’s show on Valentine’s Day is the answer for women who struggle to get their guys to take them out to dinner, or face a gargantuan effort dragging them to one of London’s West End shows. The simple answer to this conundrum: men love Blue Man Group. It’s a fast-paced explosion of a show that cannot fail to entertain even the most laddish of lads.
There are even extra performances scheduled for half term!
+
B 12
14 February 2006
CR0SSW0RD8
m f
5
Across
I. Tibetan priest/Dalai (4)
3.	Supplier (8)
9. Yeast, mould (7)
10. Tease (5)
II. Generating from the self (4-8)
14.	Sharp hissing sound (3)
16. Lowest deck of warship (5)
17. Residue of tobacco (3)
18. Agent for gifted people (6,5)
21. Grave robber (5)
22. Patella (7)
23. Fathers’ fathers (8)
24. Opposite of editorial (2-2)
Down
1. Same size original (4-4)
2. Conforming to standards of right and wrong (5)
4. Condition of sexually aroused deer (3)
5. Assembled in air-tight container (6-6)
6. Social variety of language (7)
7. Flat wooden boat (4)
8. Driven by jet propulsion (3-9)
12. Young owl (5)
13. Temporary lodging place (5,3)
15.	Mechanically operated piano (7)
19. Remove covering (5)
20. Eager (4)
22. Young sheep/child (3)
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Hello girls and boys! My, my, aren’t we getting quite racy these days! Maybe it is the cold February wind that is making you homy children want to warm up with each other. I wonder what lovely surprises Mr. Shaw has in store for me this Valentine’s. He was installing a swing in the living room last week. Remember, you can never be too old to have fun! Have a wonderful day and night of hot passionate love.
Love as always,
Auntie Shaw
I really don’t want to tell u this but i have spotted Mr. Shaw going to Spearmint Rhino's the other day. I really hope you know about this since your marriage could be at risk ;-((
Your very worryied friend (via Facebook)
First off, thanks for your concern. As usual, I’m afraid, it’s completely unfounded, you nosy parker you! Mr. Shaw and I have always enjoyed a loving marriage, so every year round about Valentine’s we put on a little demonstration tour for the needy investment bankers at houses of iniquity across the land to bring a little extra marital bliss to the less fortunate amoungst us. Mr. Shaw’s ‘fellatio into your fifties’ power point slides are enough to send them all running back to their wives!
Coming to a town near you,
Auntie Shaw
I wanna pleez ma bitch tonite wid summit gud in da bedroom. Gimme a move dat will make us famous!
Smack ma bitch up, Auntie Shaw!
Peace
I have just the thing for you...The Amazing Butterfly! Enjoy! This is definitely for when you’re in the mood for quality, because-you’re-worth-it climaxing. It is the best move for unequaled ecstasy without high-energy commitment. The key to taking wing this revolutionary position is lining up correctly with your lady. Find a place - maybe your bed (if it's a high one) or a desk, counter, or even the hood of a car - where your pelvis is about one foot higher than hers. Let her lie back while you stand in front of her. (Tip: you might be able to kneel if your bed is superlow.) Let her lift her legs and rest her feet on your shoulders. Now the girl must do the following: tilt her pelvis upward so that her back forms a straight line angling up towards you and your crotches meet. Put your hands just under her hips so you can hold her booty at the perfect angle while you thrust away! I cannot begin to tell you how famous you will become once you’re done mofo!
Bust out that Butterfly,
Auntie Shaw
How do I politely decline chocolates from my man this year? I’m on a low carb, no fat, high protein diet. No chocolate for me?!
2nd Year LLB Law
You are a silly little girl! I am supposed to help all you young ones with your issues, but I think you may need something more professional. Who says ‘no’ to chocolate from a man? I certainly think that you need to ‘get over it, girl’! I do hope I got that hip phrase correct down to aT!
Auntie Shaw
I have a good friend who I occasionally get together with for mind-blowing sex. We’ve agreed to keep it strictly fun since we’re such good friends. My flatmate wants to make her move on him on Valentine’s Day and I’m very jealous! I think, well I know, I like him, a lot (and it’s not just about the sex!) What do I do? If I tell him, he might get all weird and run away. I’ve dug myself into a deep pile of s**t haven’t I?
Stressed Out 1st Year, Bankside Halls
Confess, confess, and confess!!! You’d be surprised how easy it actually is and you will feel much better when you have. Getting all weird and running away? That’s a job for silly little girls, and he is not one of them. Neither are we dahling! Mr Shaw and I started out like you two and we’ve been happily, polygamously married for a wonderful few decades!
Best of luck,
Auntie Shaw
I guess you’ll have lots of these questions each week, but I’ve been fancying the girl next door ever since I saw her making out with a girl off her course during Freshers’, yet I’ve never had the balls to do anything. After all, it would be super awkward if it went wrong and I had to see her every morning for the rest of the year. Would you have any suggestions as to how I can hop on the Valentines’ bandwagon and get some without jeopardising our relationship?
Daniel, Carr Saunders
Yes, I’ve had quite a few like you this week. And letters too. So for all of you frustrated halls lovers out there, I’ve created a simple equation to help all of you out. Calculate the object of your desire’s fitness ranking and your own. The difference between the two is the amount of alcohol you are going to have to get down them to get them between the sheets. So put your best togs on, throw mysterious romantic gestures a plenty at them and actually knock on their door. I guarantee that a well dressed stranger turning up with a bottle of bubbly, strawberries and some rose petals is assured an invite. Be warned, though if the difference between your ratings is more than three, you’ll have to shake up the champers and fire it down their neck from the doorstep to get them drunk enough to let you in. Once you are in, though, you’re on your own. Best of luck, LSE!
Yours truly,
Auntie Shaw
I can’t for the life of me get a date for next week so can you post this letter up for anyone who would like the pleasure of my company for an evening? My interests include chess, sports, music, TV, Radio 4 and Wildlife in Brazil. 0786678223
Chris 2nd Year, High Holbom
Ladies (or Gentlemen), give him a call!
Good luck, really! I’m sure our readers would like to know how yourV Day panned out!
Ever your auntie,
Auntie Shaw
1: INTERVIEW
-‘Beaver 14 February 2006 Il3
have reflected that sub-Saharan Africa...unless there’s a self-interest, then there is the lowest the priority in humanity.”
This self-interest could not have been more clearly demonstrated by the Permanent Five members of the Security Council. “The French had their own deals going, the Americans with Mogadishu were not interested in going back into a problem like that, the Brits were fiddling and abdicating, I think, an enormous role that they could have played, and the Russians and the Chinese were not in the exercise at all.”
The UN’s failure to act also stems from the UN Secretariat’s reluctance to take Dallaire’s warnings seriously and pass them on to the Security Council. While it was Kofi Annan, then Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping, that Dallaire was reporting to, “Boutros-Ghali was not to be found most of the time. And so if anyone is to the carry the can for the Secretariat, it is he.” When the killing began, Boutros-Ghali had refused to break off from his European tour to deal with the situation and didn't allow any change in UNAMIR's role on the grounds that he wasn't sure what was going on.
Meanwhile, Rwanda was actually occupying one of the rotating seats on the Security Council, which was “an incredible perversion.” Dallaire laments that “because [the Rwandan Ambassador] was there, he was getting a far better feel for the international position regarding Rwanda and he was feeding that back to the extremist government. So he was getting better information and was able to get a better feel for what the international community was going to do or not, than I could. And that undermined the Secretariat’s efforts with me in the field.”
Independent reports investigating what happened criticise Annan for repeatedly ignoring warnings of genocide. Despite this, Annan went on to become Secretary General of the UN. Dallaire’s opinions on this are surprising: “There is no doubt in my mind that his appointment was correct...because he has the
depth of the responsibility of the job,” citing the reforms that Annan has initiated as “absolutely critical.”
In terms of Dallaire’s views on the UN in general, “there is no doubt that the world - as we move into this global environment and with the advancement of human rights - needs an international body to turn to as an arbiter, as a conscience, and as support. So, the UN is critical. But, if these reforms, which the Americans have blocked so much, are not given the opportunity to come and see the light...they will
___________‘Without the
authority, manpower, or equipment to stop the slaughter, Dallaire was able to maintain
safe areas for some 25,000 Rwandans.’
continue to make the UN less than effective.” He asks, “now, is that the strategic plan of the big powers? Do they want an effective UN fiddling out there in what they consider to be their fief-doms? Or do they prefer keeping an outfit that is semi-effective that they can turn to and use as a scapegoat when they don’t want to do things?”
The answer to the latter has cost Rwanda immeasurably and the country still faces great challenges, not least in the reconciliation process. In the villages, Dallaire describes the 24 year-old woman who was raped as a 14 year-old girl and lost everything having to face the perpetrator being reintroduced back into the village. With the present leadership structure, Dallaire expresses his concerns that it “is still very much one-sided, and that has got to be rectified.” And a major concern is that with “the extremists, the intelligentsia, that escaped” still “sitting pretty” in France, there still remains the threat that the situation “could regenerate itself.”
Dallaire sank deep into despair after returning from Rwanda, and suffered from severe
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Today, “recovery personally is a day-to-day exercise with the principal of building a prosthesis for the mind, so through pills and therapy and so on...The injury is as significant as losing a limb. No matter how good you become with your prosthesis, it’s still a prosthesis. And so, it’s the same thing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Since Rwanda, Dallaire has “moved on to look at the African continent and building its regional capacity,” and much of his work is centred around the belief “that any reconciliation, in so many of these countries, will be possible only through two instruments. The first one, in these male-dominated societies, is the empowerment of women. And the second one, which will provide the depth to it, is the education of children.”
His work with children in particular draws attention to the reality that “children are now very much part of the conflict arena. And couple the conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes that result off and from [child soldiers], with HIV/AIDS in regions like Africa, you often find that in fact children, often girls in their teens, are the backbone of the family structure. There are no more adults. As such, they are now in the frontlines of conflict.” Dallaire’s views on the West’s reaction to Darfur, where over
200,000	people have died since 2003, are that: “We’ve been tested and seem to be waning again. When Darfur started, there was no interest, and at nearly the same time you had the Tsunami. We went berserk in supporting the Tsunami...We had more people however killed, injured, internally displaced, refugee-d and raped in Darfur...and not a plug nickel went to Darfur. And recently, in North America anyway, at Xmas time they reminded us of the first anniversary of the Tsunami and not one article was mentioning Darfur.”
Despite the damning indictment of world leaders and UN bureaucrats who failed to stop the murder of over 800,000 people, the international community seems to be forgetting the situation in Darfur is all too familiar. We must remember Rwanda.
Genocide Timeline
1993
August 4: Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis negotiate a power-sharing agreement in Arusha, Tanzania. It is viewed as a sell-out by Hutu extremist leaders.
1994
January 11: General Dallaire sends a fax to UN headquarters urgently requesting protection for an informant who outlined Hutu plans to exterminate Tutsis and kill Belgian troops, and revealed the location of arms caches.
The UN Peacekeeping desk replies, disagreeing with his plan to raid arm caches and demanding that he inform the Rwandan president planning the very slaughter what he has discovered.
April 6: Rwandan President Habyarimana is killed when his plane is shot down. Hutu extremists seize control of the government.
April 7: Hutu extremists track down and kill Tutsi and moderate Hutu politicians. The deputy to the US ambassador in Rwanda tells Washington that the killings involve not just political murders, but genocide. Dallaire is told not to intervene and to avoid armed conflict.
April 9-11: Evidence mounts of massacres targeting ordinary Tutsis. Dallaire requests a doubling of his force to 5,000.
April 15: Belgium withdraws its troops after ten Belgian soldiers are killed.
April 19: Human Rights Watch estimates the number of dead at
100,000	and calls on the UN Security Council to use the word ‘genocide.’ Dallaire is down to a force of 2,100. He will soon only have a satellite link to the outside world.
April 21-22: The UN Security Council vote to withdraw 90 percent of the peacekeepers in Rwanda. The White House issues a statement calling on Rwandan military leaders to "end the violence."
April 25: Dallaire is down to 450 ill-equipped troops. He works to protect some 25,000 Rwandans. He still hopes the Security Council will change its mind and send him forces while there is still time.
May 1: A US Defense Department discussion paper is filled with cautions about the US becoming committed to taking action. The word ‘genocide’ is a concern, due to potential commitment it will require.
May 3: The US unveils a new peacekeeping doctrine (Presidential Decision Directive 25), emphasising the need to establish‘national interest,’ in any missions overseas, thereby limiting American participation in and support for UN missions.
May 5: The US rejects a proposal from Dallaire to slow the killings by using Pentagon technology to jam the extremists' hate radio transmissions.
May 13: Some members of the UN Security Council are finally ready to increase Dallaire's force. Dallaire's plan is for 5,000 more troops to secure Kigali and create safe havens in the countryside. But the US wants to create protected zones at Rwanda's border areas - a less risky option for UN troops.
May 17: The UN finally agree to send nearly 5,000 UN forces and 50 armoured personnel carriers (APCs). Few African countries offer troops and the APCs don't arrive until July.
May 25: President Clinton gives a speech restating his policy that humanitarian action anywhere in the world would have to be in America's national interest:
June 22: There is still no sign of a UN deployment to Rwanda, and the UN Security Council authorizes France to unilaterally intervene.
July 17: Tutsi RPF forces have captured Kigali. The Hutu government flees, followed by millions of refugees. The UN troops arrive and the RPF sets up an interim government.
Although more people die from disease and attacks on refugee camps, the genocide is over.
HH-
14 iBeaverl 14 February 2006
FEATURES: POLITICS
I
Love is...?
Arthur Krebbers explains why he’s opting out of this year’s Valentine’s celebrations.
“W:
Then I first met you I thought, you’re the most lovely, attractive, adorable member of the female species I’ve ever encountered” (sound of opening card) “Well, actually, my first thought was ‘nice bum’.”
Alas, the creative minds behind the greeting card industry haven’t managed to perk up their sense of humour for 14 February. Despite having a massive 364 days of preparation, this year’s harvest still exhibits the usual potpourri of salaciousness, lack of creativity and low-level punning.
In many senses they symbolise that feast for which they have been created in the first place. Valentine’s Day, once a jovial tradition, has become a hyped-up but void happening, grudgingly accepted by many a desperate bachelor. Whilst seemingly romantic on the outside, pierce through the crust and what is left over is utter commercially-imposed cheekiness.
The feast can be perceived as a fixed, annual incarnation of that lonely rose-salesman on the
touristy streets of Covent Garden and Leicester Square. That man you only seem to meet whilst with a friend of the opposite sex. Indeed, you happen to be accompanied by a girl/boy you adore, and yes, roses do symbolise these loving sympathies. Nonetheless, just because there happens to be a one-man business poking you with his blossoming commodities, you have no moral obligation to fulfil. Using virtually the same budget as you would have wasted on an overpriced, nearly deceased plant, you could have supplied your Juliet with a real treat.
The epistemology of love is in an intricate subject, but this much seems clear. Love feels like a swarm of butterflies rushing around in your stomach. One can not force a caterpillar to transform into one of these fine-looking flying creatures. The inner passion arises naturally.
It also surfaces in a very unpredictable way. When we open our heart, us sentient beings will be able to express the deep feelings which that swarm of insects brings about in us.
I choose to manifest these
emotions in a real-felt manner. No chain of stores or restaurants or any other corporate giant can strangle me into their have-to-buy-because-it’s-Valentines-day deadlock. Would I propose to someone	because
Woolworth’s	hap-
pened to be hosting special wedding-card discounts? Or would I ask someone out because the Pizza Hut were having a 2 for 1 ‘first date’ offer?
Absolutely not.
These early days in February -only just post-dating the Christmas time, New Year’s celebrations, holiday indulgences and the expenses that herald the new term are not the most financially healthy days for us intrinsically stingy students.
However, there is another dimension to this. Many |jj| of us will have to confess that we are quite dis-
tant from the status of Shakespearian lovers. We all get sucked up in the daily grind, the incessant string of trivial activities and that ubiquitous struggle
M
for academic and professional success. A lot of us do secretly long to have a Valentine, regardless of how often we suppress or ignore our primordial emotions.
One day in the year does flag this issue up in our biological clock. And yes, if we are truly about pursuing a sweetheart, well maybe we just ought to satisfy him/her by entering in that mass market of fluffy Valentine goods.
Your personal Yoko Ono (or Brad Pitt) does not simply arrive on the doorstep one bright day. The hunt requires various concessions. The road towards (sustaining) a relationship is littered with milestones. Maybe one of these is doing something f special for the day of St Valentine.
A necessary evil
Laurie Fischer argues that the future of British security still lies with nuclear weapons.
I
Although	the current
Trident system has at least 20 years left to live, the lengthy lead time required to develop a new system means that a decision must be taken on ¦Britain’s nuclear future during this parliamentary term.
' The current (if inadequate) debate on the issue portrays the reasons for keeping a nuclear deterrent in rather simplistic terms, echoing national pride and securing ourselves from as yet unknown threats.
The main thrust of the anti-nuclear argument is that by failing to renew Trident, the moral gravity of our action would some how pull others behind it to virtuously realign international politics. Because we could do this, it is argued, we morally ought. On closer analysis, there are significant problems with this rather simplistic line of thought.
The first is that actually, no other state would follow. The fundamental strategic policy of the US is to maintain its effective military hegemony. British disarmament will not change this. Israel will not disarm until all conceivable existential threats have been eliminated. Indian or Pakistani disarmament depends on each other. When was the last time the French followed a British lead? Furthermore, even
¦
if governments would be convinced by the move, the legislatures in Russia and the US have both recently rejected treaties on disarmament.
The point is Britain would be unwise to give up a huge legal, political, and defensive, asset without gaining anything con-
crete in return. Activists claim that disarmament would gain us diplomatic influence. This is a historically flawed argument. Only in 1998 did Britain give up gravity-based nuclear weapons, retaining only the Trident ballistic missiles.
Yet Paul Schulte, Director of
 “Britain would be
unwise to give up a legal, political and defensive asset without gaining anything in return.”
Arms Control at the Ministry of Defence, noted that in various disarmament conferences in the following years, abandoning the weapons was not commented upon by a single other country. In his words, disarmament would give “less and less opportunity for any real political leverage on the world over security issues.”
The second argument against disarmament is that the world simply is not ready. The problem is not rampant global conflict but an ever-increasing technology gap. The so called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has placed the conventional forces of advanced militaries far beyond the reach of most countries in this world. Nuclear weapons, or other WMDs, are becoming an increasingly viable method of bridging this gap. Russia has already begun re-emphasising her nuclear capability, recognising that she simply cannot keep up
with the US military. Iran, Pakistan and North Korea accelerated their programs for this reason. Nuclear proliferation programs in developing countries have been termed the Revolution in Military Affairs of the Poor.
The final point is that there is no physical, scientific method available to ensure that a country, on renouncing nuclear weapons, does not keep a stash fraudulently. The intrusive measures necessary for such verification are simply not politically viable in the current climate, as Iraq demonstrated so aptly. The greatest threats to our security come from states with a history of such deception.
Britain’s nuclear deterrent is an asset. It is also, incidentally, bound to NATO and is welcomed by every other member of NATO. The deterrent is maintained solely on a security basis. Other states are not about to disarm, in fact many more are trying to join the club. Unilateral disarmament would achieve nothing. Universal disarmament would leave us wide open to deceptive dictators. Sadly, the simple truth may well be that Britain and the world is simply not ready to renounce nuclear weapons.
+“
FEATURES:POLITICS 	leaver 114 February 2006 ] 15
Two cheers for democracy
Marc Andrew asks whether democracy is always the most progressive system.
i* I disc insert you* ballot above
Democracy, in the West, is often viewed as a stage very near to the end in the evolution of liberty. In that idea lies the public justification of contemporary American foreign policy. George Bush has repeatedly invoked the belief that the United States’ role in the world is centred on an almost messianic duty to spread liberty, the primary means of which ’ is the imposition of democracy. There is, of course, a rather large gap between the White House’ rhetoric and its accomplishments. The question is ^whether the rhetoric hold in its own right. Is the forceful spread of democracy worthwhile, or might it do more harm than good? Democracy as a promoter of tolerance has certainly taken a hit in recent 'weeks. The success of the 'Muslim Brotherhood in 'Egyptian elections, the strong 'showing	of an Iranian
’inspired Shia religious list in Iraq and Hamas’ victory in Palestine have each represented a move away . from peaceful accommodations of diversity. George Bush is left in the untenable position of justifying his appeals to democracy while
refusing to deal with those who enjoy democratic support, unless of course they behave a little more like the parties they defeated.
There is an important need in this debate to distinguish between qualitative levels of democracy. The American commentator Fareed Zakaria stands as one of the more articulate critics of George Bush’s foreign policy. Zakaria has advanced the concept of “illiberal” democracy, rightfully arguing that democracy on its own accord is not a value label. Holding elections is instead value-neutral, revealing the health of the societies instead of working to improve them. Elections can in fact be harmful when they lead to the radicaliza-tion of ethnic and religious divisions in countries that lack a national consensus. This type of balkanization of societal lines was a feature of the electoral process in countries as different as Nigeria, Colombia and Algeria. In short, if citizens feel a stronger identity with their tribe or faith than with their country, political parties will promote narrow communal interests and sharpen ethnic grievances instead of contributing to the national good.
What really matters are those elements beyond elections that contribute to liberal democracy.
Foremost is a national consensus that offers an incentive for the minority to accept majority rule. Relatively homogeneous populations make this easier, but that does not mean diverse nations are doomed to tyranny. India has fostered a vibrant democracy with more ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences than anywhere else. Its success lies in the institutional support of basic freedoms that promote a generally peaceful outlet for the expression of differences. Those institutions were imposed from outside but, vitally, the democratic movement itself was a product of an endogenous leadership.
An institutional commitment to rights and freedoms and sound domestic leadership are therefore as important to healthy democracy as elections. As such, Western policy should focus on supporting opposition movements in authoritarian countries and building stable institutions in those that are newly democratized. Current events prove that the violent imposition of democracy succeeds in little more than radicalizing local and regional divisions. George Bush may be on the side of history in his pursuit of democratic ends, but he has been very wrong in his choice of means.
Transport for London
The TfL Graduate Programme Where theory becomes reality
Competitive salary plus 30 days' holiday, free travel in London and other excellent benefits
There is probably only one thing that everyone in the capital has in common. They all have to travel in the city.
How they do so is our responsibility. We're Transport for London. We manage, develop and integrate the capital’s transport network - from roads, buses and the Tube to taxis, cycle paths and the river. And the challenges we face are almost endless. How can transport be made better? More reliable? More integrated? How do we keep costs down and efficiency up? How do we optimise performance without compromising safety? And how do we prepare for the future?
On our graduate programme, you’ll make a tangible contribution to some of these issues. Because whichever of our 17 schemes you enter on the programme - from Civil. Electrical, Electronic or Mechanical Engineering to Quantity Surveying or Transport Planning, to name a few - you'll be helping to provide a modern, responsive service for everyone who uses the network.
To find out more you can visit our stand at the Non-Profit and Public Sector Careers Fairs on 16th Feb at the Student Services Centre.
For more information on these and the other schemes we offer, please visit www.tfl.gov.uk/graduates
We want to be as diverse as the city we represent and welcome applications from everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith or disability.
MAYOR OF LONDON %f
11 million people travel around London every da
+-
16 |lBeaver j 14 February 2006
FEATURES: LAW/BUSINESS
Child support reform
Nimesh Mistry urges the government to branch out and tackle the root of the problem, not the twig.
Tony Blair recently admitted that the Child Support Agency (CSA) set up by his own government was failing. This brings to light a lot of questions about whether we can put trust in the government’s plan to reform the system. This is not about backbiting and party political arguments over whether a liberal or protectionist approach is better - it is more about raising some of the common-sense questions that most parents would want to ask Mr Blair, such as, “has the government actually even taken the time to mull over the root causes of the need for child support in the first place?” Especially in today’s modern climate, there is an emphasis on efficient and effective government. If this is the objective, then rather than spending all their time reforming the Support System, shouldn’t they try and provide solutions which will help prevent the need for Child Support manifesting itself in the first place? And if the government are not concerning themselves with this issue, then where else can the solution be sought?
The big issue with today’s Child Support System is the shocking statistic that absent parents owe a total of £3bn to the CSA. The CSA is also being overburdened by having to simultaneously perform the tasks of calculating and retrieving the above-mentioned debt, and enforcing penalties on those who fail to pay up. The biggest problem, however, is that the requirement of Child Support is increasing year-on-year. This kind of situation would
have been unimaginable just thirty years ago, when there was a greater sense of responsibility amongst parents and it was unheard of for a child to grow up without emotional support from a father and a mother. Nowadays not only is there less emotional support due to there being more broken families, but many irresponsible parents (predominantly fathers) are failing to even provide financial support for their children.
To be fair to the government, it is at least positive that they have been frank in admitting that the system is failing. However, the solution is not going to be found by purely focussing on reforming the existing system or even setting up a new system. Neither is it going be found through the tactics of opposition parties, namely
challenging the government’s leadership credentials without proposing a coherent plan of action. The solution will only be found in actually combating the underlying problems that cause child support to be needed - for example how can parents be persuaded to voluntarily fulfil their duties to their children in the first place?
The real problem lies in the over-emphasis in society on individual freedoms above all other considerations. This results in many individuals unsurprisingly being motivated by lust, greed and a desire to exploit those around them rather than taking responsibility for their actions. In order to fulfil this self-interest in the form of unrestricted sex, the current agenda has been to widely provide free contraception.
Ironically, one of the government proposals for Child Support reform is to spy on the absent parents’ private financial details, thus taking away their financial freedom as punishment for the misuse of their sexual freedom. The wide provision of contraception is, however, statistically failing: as more and more contraception is provided, individuals consider the purpose of sex to be sense enjoyment rather than the joy of bringing up a family and hence predictably there are more and more children born with absent parents. A society with many neglected children inevitably travels down this downward spiral of neglecting social responsibility. Basic spiritual awareness is the only practical process which serves to further the very principles which
would ensure that people respect the consequences of sex, namely a responsibility to provide for the child both financially and emotionally. But the fact is that world leaders today have no idea about or faith in the tenets of spirituality and so cannot orchestrate an extensive plan that would encourage people to imbibe those values.
Surprisingly, however, it does not require a radical acceptance of any particular faith or religion to understand the basic concepts that would help individuals become more responsible. The purpose of sex according to most spiritual traditions is to procreate population that through loving nurture and discipline will be able to contribute to society in a positive way as a service to God. Hence, it makes sense for government to educate the public about this true purpose of sex, in order to ensure people are prepared for the social responsibility that they have to accept when they have children. Thus there will be less need for Child Support in the first place. It may seem like a pipedream at the moment, but as the requirement for child support increases, there are only two options: the expanding of institutions to provide that support or the long-term combating of the root cause. Although the former may be sufficient in the shortterm, for the sake of the welfare of children, the latter should be made the absolute priority.
Googlesoft: mo sters
Kabir Sehgal looks at the ongoing rivalry between two giants of the technology world.
Google is a friendly monster. It’s big in revenue, users, and clout. But it doesn’t scare and offend. Its service is clean and user-friendly, hip and with it. Its company motto is “Don’t be evil.” Isn’t that straight from Elmo’s script? Google’s competitor Microsoft is your typical demonized monster a la Grendel from Beowulf. It invades other markets like the videogaming industry and eats competitors like Hotmail. Google’s fuzziness and Microsoft’s hegemony make for the archetypal struggle of good versus evil; “good” doesn’t always win in the real non-Disney world. The battle between Google and Microsoft has reached a fevered pitch. And, surprisingly, this time Grendel is on the run.
For as long as I can remember, Microsoft has counted on its traditional products to gen-
erate revenue: Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Microsoft probably owns your desktop with its 90 percent market share. Therefore, the company can cross subsidize money-losing ventures like Microsoft Network (MSN) with earnings from traditional cash cows. When Microsoft squared off with Netscape, it patched together Internet Explorer and gave it away for free. Netscape died out soon thereafter. And so the cycle has continued, virtually uninterrupted. A small innovative company comes along and Grendel eats it up.
But this time is different. At one point Google handled 85 percent of internet search requests. It has become the gateway to. the internet, attracting millions of users. “Tell me something new,” you respond. Google now has the user base to enact its
“master plan.” The master plan, as Microsoft probably imagines, is to expand into other areas like desktop computing. Google could release its own word processor that is integrated with Google search. Or it could launch a more dynamic presentation program. Google already makes billions from advertising revenue. If it expanded into traditional software, it could offer free word processing and generate even more in ad revenue. Grendel is grumbling.
There is a long history of entering an industry from a periphery market. Hewlett Packard (HP) made its foray into desktop computing by targeting the printer market. Once they had a printer on millions of desks, their marketing officials thought: “why not an HP computer too?” Google will surely attack Microsoft from the periphery
market of the internet. It is a business and military warfare strategy repeated by successful
“Google versus
Microsoft
is a classic
business
case.
CEOs and generals. Attack an enemy at a weak point.
Google versus Microsoft is a classic business case. Both companies are sitting on billions of dollars, have a talented workforce, enjoy larger-than-life images. The solution to this business case is quite simply to compete. Microsoft has launched its response to Google called
live.com or Windows Live. It looks and smells like Google, and Microsoft plans to launch Office Live soon, a way to access the Word or Excel applications through the internet. One may subscribe to an application like PowerPoint and use it only when you need it. Your move, Google.
Google versus Microsoft is a public battle. Most of us use Google and MS Word, so the winner of this war will affect us greatly. We customers will see a flurry of new services and innovations from both companies. Sit back, I say, grab some popcorn, and watch two monsters battling for your fingertips.
Daytime
GLOBAL WEEK PHOTO EXHIBITION
Venue: Quad
Info: Come view a selection of amazing cultural photos from around the world - taken by your own fellow LSE students!
10:00-16:00
PEOPLE & PLANET Society Event:	Fairtrade	Valentine's
Chocolate Box Sale Venue: Houghton Street Info: Show some love for cocoa farmers!
11:30-12:00
GREEN PARTY Society
Event: Weekly Meeting - for members
old and new
Venue: Underground Bar
12:00-14:00 KNITTING Society Event: Knitting Workshop (weekly) Venue: Quad
18:00
SIKH-PUNJAB Society
Event:	Rehras	Sahib	(Evening
Prayer) (weekly)
Venue: G215
19:00
RAG VALENTINE'S SPEED DATING LAUNCH PARTY Venue: Quad
Cost: £4 (includes RAG cocktail)
Info: Looking for fun on Valentine's? Yes? Support RAG at our speed dating launch party. Speed dating at 7pm or come from 9:30pm for FREE to support the launch party. All profits go to Wateraid, Strokes UK, St. Mungo's homelessness charity and the Disasters Emergency Committee. Contact: Ju (a.j.mcveigh@lse.ac.uk)
19:00
LIVE MUSIC Society Event: Open Mic Night: 'Where is the Love? Love is in the air! So... Let's get it on!'
Venue: Underground Bar
Cost: Members FREE, non-members
£2
Info: The second Open Mic of term! Whether you're loved up or down and out, we can promise you a great night of the best of LSE's live music! "I feel it in my fingers..."
Daytime
GLOBAL WEEK PHOTO EXHIBI-
venue: i^uau
Info: Come view a selection of amazing cultural photos from around the world - taken by your own fellow LSE students!
11:30-13:00
CATHOLIC Society
Event: Open Session (weekly)
Venue: Chaplaincy
12:00-13:00
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Society
Event: Letter Writing (weekly)
Venue: Upstairs, Quad
13:00-14:00
HINDU Society
Event: Vedic Lunch (weekly)
Venue: HI02
13:00-15:00
MATHS & STATS Society
Event: Homework Help Session
(weekly)
Venue: D002
13:15
CATHOLIC Society Event: Catholic Mass (weekly)
Venue: Chaplaincy
13:30
HISTORY Society
Event: Careers for International History students ...or with a background in Humanities Venue: E168
17:00
ARABIC Society
Event: Belly Dance Classes (weekly) Venue: H102 Cost: £3 per class
17:00
CHESS Society Event: Blitz Tournament Venue: Z030
18:00
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH QUIZ and
KARAOKE
Venue: Tuns
18:30-19:30
QUESTION TIME Society Event:	'Help or Hindrance?
Capitalism and the fight against poverty' - James Duddridge vs. John Hilary
Venue: Hong Kong Theatre Info:	James Duddridge is
Conservative MP for Rochford and Southend East, and founder of YouGov. John Hilary is Director of Policy and Campaigns at War on Want. Followed by drinks reception.
19:00
BULGARIAN Society
Event: Celebration Party for the Day
of the Wine-Growers - St. Trifon
Zarezan, the Saint of Vineyards, Wine
and Festivity
Venue: Underground Bar
Cost: Members £2; non-members £3
19:00-21:00
SWING DANCE Society
Event: Beginners' Swing Dance Class
(weekly)
Venue: G108
Cost: £2 for members; £4 for nonmembers
<D
13:00-14:00
UNION GENERAL MEETING Venue: Old Theatre
19:00-21:00
VISUAL ARTS Society
Event: Life Drawing Class (weekly)
Venue: Z032
19:00
CHILLED FISH!
Venue: Quad Cost: £4 on door
Info: Featuring Stonewall Jackson and DJ Ringo.
Yo folks! A rocking and highly entertaining evening with up and coming funk rockers Chilled Fish awaits you! Visit www.chilledfish.co.uk.
19:25
CHRISTIAN UNION Society Event: CU Central (weekly)
Venue: D202
Info: Come along to CU Central for dynamic praise and worship and practical teaching. Be expectant for great things - bring your friends! Visit www.lsecu.com for more information.
20:30
INTERNATIONAL Society: GLOBAL WEEK
Event: Global Show 2006 Venue: Old Theatre Info: The best song, dance, and entertainment from around the world - all in one show! Threg jbellydancers, Irish dancing, Chinese martial arts, tap, swing, a fashion show and much more!
Tickets available from SU Reception and Houghton Street.
Listings
To include your society event here, email your Societies Officer Jimmy Tam at su.societies@lse.ac.uk by Friday. For the most up-to-date listings, check out the What's On page on the LSE SU website: www.lsesu.com/whatson.
18:00
COMPARATIVE/IDEOLOGIES * Society'!- “P
Event: Head-to-Head: "Freedom of Speech: Who cares what Muslims®!^ think?" - Sajjad Khan vs. Claire Fosfis Venue: D702
Info: Sajjad Khan is Editor of Now Civilisation Magazine - a quarterly publication providing a unique perspective on Islamic political thinking to the western world. Claire Fox is Director of The Institute of Ideas, whose mission is to expand the boundaries of public debate.
19:00
INTERNATIONAL Society: GLOBAL WEEK
Event: Global Show 2006 Venue: Old Theatre Info: The best song, dance and entertainment from around the world - all in one show! Three belly-dancers, Irish dancing, Chinese martial arts, tap, swing, a fashion show and much more!
Tickets available from SU Reception and Houghton Street.
20:00-02:00
GLOBAL WEEK CRUSH Venue: Tuns, Quad, Underground Cost: Before 10pm - £2 LSE, £4 NUS; after 10pm - £4 LSE, £5 NUS Info: An international affair with all united for a world party - dance to beats from across the globe!
I GLOBAL WEEK '06 J
www.lsesu.com/globalweek	-	r
SATURDAY
18:30
CHINESE Society Event: The Grand V Show 2006 Venue: Old Theatre Cost: £10
Info: Set against the backdrop of the London ghettos, The Grand Show— Chinoserie is filled with upbeat and innovative performances from cutting edge drama to mainstream musical ana catwalks, performed by the selected from the wealth of talents that LSE offers. We aim to offer our audience a multilateral indulgence.
Daytime
RAG WEEK: JUMBLE SALE Venue: Quad
Info: Donations needed from students and staff, so clear out your cupboards! All items can be brought, bagged, to SU Reception by the end of Week 16.
18:00
ADVERTISING, MARKETING & PR (AMP) and COMMERCE Societies Event: Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group:	"New	Issues	for
Business Leaders"
Event: New Theatre (E171)
Info: Sir Martin Sorrell is the chief executive officer of WPP and has served in that role since he founded the company in 1986. Since then, WPP has become one of the world's leading communications services and advertising companies valued by the UK stock market at £7.5billion. It includes firms such as Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, J. Walter Thompson, and Hill & Knowlton.
19:00-21:00
SWING DANCE Society
Event: Improvers' Swing Dance Class
(weekly)
Venue: G108
Cost: £2 for members; £4 for nonmembers
Info: This class is for all you people who already know the basic 6- and 8-count patterns, can swing out, do some turns etc. See http://lsesu-swingdance.tripod.com for more information.
Tue 14:00-15:00
Joel Kenrick, Environment & Ethics Officer
Tue 14:00-16:00
Ron Janjua, Mature & Part-Time Students Officer
Wed 10:00-11:00 (S067)
Raihan Alfaradhi, Anti-Racism Officer
Wed 12:00-13:00
Nick Salter, General Course Representative
Wed 12:00-13:00
Kanishka Aubeelack, Students with Disabilities Officer
Thu 14:00-15:00
Anna Morgan, Postgraduate Students Officer
Fri 13:00-14:00
Chris Heathcote, Communications Officer
Fri 14:00-15:00
Sian Errington, Education & Welfare Officer
Mon 11:00-12:00
Farhan Islam, International Students Officer
Check SU website
Rishi Madlani, General Secretary
	U 	«	Cultur;
	m i	ilfiii
18 iBeaverSports! 14 February 2006
SPORTS
Lonely Heart's
 : : ; '
•>».	*,<4,	j
Looking for love?
We asked theAU and other members of the LSE to contribute to a lonely heart’s column for this special Valentine’s Day edition of BeaverSports - and this is what you sent in. Some are endearing, most are just worrying. If you like anything you see, email thebeaver.sports@lse.ac.uk and we’ll give out full details for the ad. Confidentiality was never part of the deal...
Men seeking women
EGOTISITICAL SPORTS EDITOR, 20, cantankerous to fault, soluble in water, asthmatic and injury-prone, seeks isolated woman for high jinks i and misdemeanours. Must enjoy shade, be lactose-tolerant and harbour contempt for others. Challenged need not apply.
FANATICAL, COCK-TOTING,
colour-blind first year Jewish Society treasurer (footy 6s) seeks arrogant, petite-nosed, gentile ladyfriend for wild inter-faith fallacio. Must enjoy chicken soup, Iranian enrichment, and debating matters of assimilation. Contact Eppers. '
DISLIKED FIFTH TEAM STRIKER, 21, always desperate to score, enjoys penetrating defences, flair player, good with head WLTM woman of similar abilities.
BLACK CUNT, with white man’s cock, 22. Loud, obnoxious, posh and very arrogant third team FC championship winning ex-captain seeks football trophy in shape of football boot. Preferably with golden tinge. Must enjoy orgy on mantlepiece along side league winners medals and ULU cup.
CYPRIOT seeks girl with short hair for enhanced viewing pleasure. Older women also considered. Meet 11am Tuesdays, 6th floorOld Building.
MARRIED mature student, 29, looking for a fling with a filthy slag. Fires blanks so condoms need not be used. Disabilities can be catered for.
LUXURIOUS FOOTBALL-PLAYING WIZARD, 20, seeks female for games with his wand. Must have GSOH, must not haveVD. Must enjoy spending time with psychos, rapists, women beaters and Andy Burton. Contact John B.
SENIOR MEMBER of the Beaver editorial team WLTM attached woman for months of unrequited passion and longing glances. Must supply over snakebite.
ANTEDILUVIANLY VILLOUS Club Captain yearns to unleash his rapacious side. Must be into circumlocutory tomes and have low tolerance for grammatical peccadillos. Has own Thesaurus.
ARE YOU AGED 21-30.
female, slim build, a trilingual post-graduate and into revisionist foreign policy and welfare economics? Then fuck off. I want a shit-thick fresher with no opinions and breasts barely contained by a distinctly non-gender-equality promoting strappy top. Contact me.
TALL, TUBA-LITERATE MALE seeking partner who really understands the significance of Oldham’s Great Escape (1992-93 season). Must have own Nick Henry keyring. Part-exchange for small, Greco-Dutchwoman considered. Contact Flash.
THIRD-YEAR RUGBY players, enjoys shouting loudly, making paper-missiles and cock o’clock, seeks one-time lover by name of ‘Bouncer’ for Calella ‘reunion’.
NARCOLEPTIC WING WIZARD, 18, seeks partner who shares passion for the sound of bones shattering at the bottom
of a lift-shaft. GSOH over arm-bruising essential, no haemophiliacs please. Contact ‘Knuckles’.
SELF-PROCLAIMED dead-ball specialist, 21, public transport DJ with pin-shaped head WLTM women who won’t just become friends with for dates in old building toilets. Contact ‘Birdman’.
CRICKET-LOVING POOR
MAN seeks cricket-hating rich woman for cricket-related frolics. Whites provided. Contact Davies (pgt).
£60 6ft PIECE OF MEAT with blonde hair, heavily abused liver, and who strips easily when under the influence. Looking for a girl outside the AU who doesn’t think I’m a slag, will be casual sex only though.	Contact
Barbie/Nail’er.
CLINICALLY AGITATED POST-GRAD enjoys both drinking and being bitter, ruffling own hair and gazing con-temptuosly at fellow students. WLTM woman bringing good conversation and Lucky Strikes Lights to the table to alleviate/expedite tedious wait for death. Contact P.May.
ONE-ARMED CRIPPLE seeks Australian female to test his physical fitness.
SHORT HOCKEY PLAYER,
22, has wood, WLTM AUgirl who enjoys light relief, potatoes and Guiness. Contact JJ.
VERT I C ALLY- CHALLENGED BABY seeks midget or shorter. Male or female. Eat or ugly. Not fussy. Contact Baby Luke.
HONG KONG goalkeeper, 20,
mixed race, WLTM someone to call‘‘mummy”. I’ll contact you.
POMPEY part-time actor, 21. Looking for a spitroast, ideally with a girl named K.Nixon. Occasionally struggles to get hard, able to bring Viagra on request. Contact 4th Team FC.
HOCKEY HACK, 23, likes disrupting the UGM, hates paper-throwing, WLTM male or female willing to pull my head out of my ass.
ABSENT-MINDED Muslim flair-player, revels in occasional brilliance but often disappointing, enjoys praying and Chicken Cottage. Seeks like-minded female partner to share Chicken Cottage Meal for Two. Often found in Chicken Cottage. Contact “Moks.
COCK-FEST ECONOMIC
department seeks women to undo gender divide. Any grades accepted.
MAN with beard, 20.
1ST YEAR FOOTBALLER.
runs and works like a well oiled machine, seeks whale-hound for wide open relationship. Cheapskates veterans preferred, those with mumps need not apply.
DESPERATELY SEEKING NANDO’S...a hot bird with a greasy box!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Others with similar GSOH contact me.
Women seeking men
ARE YOU THE tie-wearing troglodyte standing three feet away from me at the bar in the Tuns, smiling weakly and smelling rather too strongly of Lynx and spilt snakebite?
Because if you look at my tits one more time, I am going to glass you.
TWISTED AND EXTREMELY SARCASTIC American girl seeks handsome English gentleman to help her get out of unhappy relationship with top LSE football player. Must enjoy overtly sexual dancing, snake bite and snide remarks.
ARROGANT	FEMALE
SPORTS EDITOR, 20, seeks wimbledon debentures, MCC member and spurs season ticket owner for competitive sexual intercourse. Must be perfect but not as perfect as me.
SENSITIVE WOMAN who’s been hurt many times. First aid skills a plus.
ATTRACTIVE, VIVACIOUS
former News Editor and prospective hack seeks vegetarian, non-smoking, feminist, animal-loving, socialist male, for politically-correct jokes and John-and-Yoko-style bed-ins. Members of AU probably best not apply.
3RD-YEAR LSE STUDENT
seeks highly ambitious and morally dubious Econ graduate on Goldman Sachs fast-track scheme for corporate : dinners, dirty weekends on the company account and a foot in the door. GSOH not necessary.
FLATMATE OF SPORTS EDITOR seeks Birdman for finger licking good fun.
5’10” INSOMNIAC, 20 seeks accoungting student to send her to sleep.
Women seeking women
FEMALE SOCIOLOGY STUDENT seeks mother figure to
disprove Freudien theory. Likes placing rubbish lonely heart’s ads.
I ATE A PENCIL AND THREEPOST-ITS whilst this aid. Oh, and drank a bottle of correcting	fluid.
Whhhheeeeeee!!! Woman, 22-and-three-thirds.
ACCOUNTING STUDENT,
22.	I have created an excel spreadsheet to document all the lovers I’ve had in my lifetime; the duration of each relationship; and how much each affair cost me in financial terms. I’d like you to be cell A2; 40 years; nothing - we’ll have independent incomes.
I HAVE THE LARGEST COLLECTION of bus tickets in ¦ Central London. Beat that.
Others seeking others
EDITORIAL BOARD WLTM working server.
CONSTITUTIONAL STUDENT COMMITTEE, lacking in confidence, seeks mindless opportunists who are willing to be ridiculed. Apply via Doug Oliver.
FRIENDLY STUDENT RADIO STATION seeks listeners.	Contact
www.pulsefm.co.uk.
RAUCOUS ATHLETIC UNION WLTM insurance company who cover broken ceilings, smashed windows, generally trashed campuses, and whining poly students and academics. Contact Jimmy Little.
Sports top five: things not to say on a first date
Anonymous
The following statements are things which shouldn’t really be said on any date, or any stage in a relationship, but especially on a first date. They will guarantee failure unless the girl or boy is an absolute loon, in which case you probably deserve each other. And you’ll end up living in the bleakest outskirts of London in a bedsit full of cats and old newspapers, one of you stumbling home from the pub each night and banging on the door, and then proceed to scream and shout each other about how shit you both are (“How dare you say I don’t work! -
You don’t, you do bugger all!” etc) and keeping the student who lives in the flat above awake into the early hours of the morning, prompting him to piss on your doorstep before he has to head into uni tired as hell. So basically it’s a bad idea to use any of the following comments. They are compiled mainly from things Sancha has heard and Sam has said, plus some guest contributors who, for obvious reasons, wish to remain anonymous:
l.“I want to be lost inside
of you”. Dear God. What on earth was this guy thinking? Firstly, its far too forward for a first date. Secondly, it doesn’t make sense. Thirdly, it could be
construed as being insulting. Saying such a thing is simply a schoolboy error. Result = medium to firm strike across the face.
2.“[Date’s name] - that’s my mum’s name - I like that in a girl”. Comparing your date to your mum is wrong on many levels. If you are thinking about your mum on a date and you’re having a good time, this is also wrong. Explaining to your date that it is a compliment because you’re mum is really great will probably not work as well. Result = date will be shocked and confused, unlikely to hit out, more likely to suggest you see a psychotherapist.
3.“I’ve gotta be back by 11pm, as I’m only on day release”. Whilst this might be true, its never good to advertise criminal status on the first date. Being honest is overrated. I’d recommend waiting 2-3 years before revealing any skeletons in the closet. Result = date is very unlikely to attack you, and will probably just run away
4.“I want to be on you”. Lifted from the hit Will Ferrel film ‘Anchorman’, this comment will not work mainly for the same reasons as the first. Proceeding to sing “afternoon delight” also does not work, despite the genius lyrics “rubbing sticks and stones together
makes the sparks ignite, and the thought of rubbing you is getting so ex-citing”. Believe me, I’ve tried. Result = firm strike across face followed by kick to nether regions.
5.“I must warn you: one of my testicles is much, much smaller than the other and my penis is preposterously small. Also, it takes me an impracti-cally long time to achieve orgasm”. This is unlikely to impress, no matter how true it actually is. They will probably pretend to feel sorry for you but also distance themselves, usually physically. They’ll probably also tell all their friends, and so all your friends will find out, and then they’ll
make fun of you and laugh at you, and you’ll end up in your third year in uni without having gone near another girl, and maybe consider just becoming a Tibetan monk to get away from it all. Result = all of the above. Making fun of someone simply because of such a problem is really cruel and hurts deep down. It’s not fair to treat people like this.
Having said all this, and to give it the AU twist it so desperately needs, all of these comments will work absolute wonders in Calella. Then again, pretty much anything will work in that magnificent place. I can’t wait.
SPORTS	SeaverSports	14	February	2006	19
Tough balancing act for equilibrium
Feng Qian Ang
Ultimate Frisbee
It was with great trepidation, and a highly reduced squad due to two particularly virulent strains of influenza and i-could-not-wake-up-enza	that LSE
Ultimate travelled to Uxbridge for the Southeast Universities Ladder League on Sunday. The team warmed up with experiential confirmation of the theory that women are inept at reading maps (okay it was woman) which resulted in the team wandering around the broad expanse of the Brunei campus for more than an hour.
The first match was the epitome of balletic grace and textbook execution, LSE stamping its authority on the Bristol Mohawks 2nd team
with a convincing 11-3 score-line. LSE raced ahead 9-0 within the first 20 minutes of the match with Oliver sneaking deep to receive the field-traversing hucks of Peter K, and practically everyone breaking free of the defence to coordinate plays. The pareto
optimal equilibrium considerations of economists kicked in after that, and people decided to conserve energy, resulting in the match lasting much longer than necessary, before we reached the maximum score of 11 five minutes from time.
Bristol’s 1st team then
showed us why they are at the top of the table, learning from the mistakes of their junior squad and brandishing a wall-and-rabbit zone defence on us. Kudos to Joe for handling well under pressure, and the inability to break the wall ultimately led to our downfall - it was hardly surprising that we got crushed 11-1.
The	match	against
Imperial	“Disc	Doctors”
proved to be the highlight of the day. After the customary apology for the lack of females which they attributed to the demographics of their school, the match kicked off to them throwing another zone defence on us. This time we figured that if we could not get past them, we could tire them out by swinging it between the handlers, and it worked - however time was against us and we lost 11-3.
Of course, no Ultimate league would be complete
without the calls in between matches, during which we learnt that 1. LSE people win at calls even if they don’t win the match; 2. Banana guards are a real product and look highly compromising from
afar; and 3. finger fencing could result in serious injury.
The aftermath: one win, two losses, memorable calls and spectacular scores. That is Ultimate fun for Equilibrium.
RaAPSf,
, “Rainy Day lovers 'don’t hide love inside, they just pass it on.”
Ladies Squash
LSE squash senoritas sock it to RUMS sufferin’ suckers
Unprecedented display of masculinity secures overwhelming victory for boisterous LSE ball-bashing beauties
WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU, MA’AM!!! Sock it to ‘em, girls! Woo-hoo! Go LSE! ... etc
Nat Husdan
LSE 1st V	5
RUMS IstV	0
First of all I would like to say thanks for the magnificent response to the first lady squash article last week. Not 4 but, I think, at least 12 of you losers actually read the article. That’s, like,
0.17% of the LSE population! So, I have decided to create another literary masterpiece a la squash. Secondly, F* all of you who laughed at my excuse - erm - ‘reason’ for losing last week; I did go skiing the week before, and the little head shot above of me pissed and eating snow proves it. So there, jealous non-squash players.
Well, I think that’s that sorted...
So, following on from last week’s Beaver Sports excellent anti-Kings edition, I’ll tell you how the strand poly are cheating witches! And, on a lighter
note, how we won the fucking ULU league (woo HOO) for the first time in years.
So last week I told the tale of our 4-1 glory against the poly scum. Well the week after we met the biatches again to play our BUSA match. Interestingly, after my telling their captain that we needed to play at 4pm so as to field a full team, she gets back to me whining “sorry, match has to be played at 2pm, the guys need the courts at 4 for a match.”
Hmmm. This came as something of a surprise; it appears Kings ‘students’ are not SO thick that they don’t know how to play the game -the game of being cheating wenches that is. We turn up at 3pm with 3 players, I beat their number 1 this time. See? I can get my finger out when I want to, but our numbers 3 and 5 had little chance playing their numbers 2 and 3.
But, guess who doesn’t turn up at 4pm - or even 5pm? Yep, the men’s team supposed to be taking the courts. In fact, my detective work after the game revealed they were playing away in Portsmouth.
The crafty, lying scrotums! They knew the only way they
could win after the hammering they took the week before was to make sure we couldn’t get a full team together, so they lied and claimed the game had to be played at 2pm. Don’t worry; we play them in the ULU cup final soon, and when my opponent bends down for a drop shot she’s going to get a ...
Anyway, on to our sweet victory.
Another sports team won the ULU league at LSE last week. I’ve forgotten what the sport’s called - there’s like 11 of them, they ponce around with a circular ball for 90 minutes before bathing together, fondling each others balls whilst telling homophobic jokes - oh well, I canny remember. Nevermind, they’re just rubbish.
Let me tell you about a team consisting of 5 lovely lady legends who play a sport that doesn’t rival other sports, it kicks their stinky asses hands down. A sport requiring infinite quantities of stamina, fitness, technical skill - and thighs that Xenia Onatopp would kill for. Grown men die heroically of heart attacks every day just attempting to play it. Yep, its squash, and
your dearest lady LSE squash team were crowned queens of the ULU circuit, unbeaten, the day finally came.
RUMS arrived, we had a nice chat, then we battered
their butts 5-0. and kicked them off our courts. We were only saddened by the fact that we hadn’t asked them to play ‘pound a point’ as we’d each be pretty much 27 quids in by
now.
But gleaming gold medals (give them to me now Jarlath!) more than makes up for it.
20|iBeaverSports|i4 February 2006
SPORTS
Great Debate
The great debate no.5 why do some relationships
last?
While	rummaging
through the Beaver office’s extensive reference library, I came across, sandwiched between the ‘Idiots Guide to Making Sports Funny’ and ‘How to be Homosexual’, a dusty copy of ‘Countdown to Love’ (2005 addition) by David Hinds and his wife. It claims to have the matchmaking equation of ‘finding your ideal partner this time for good.’ So while Sam sifts through the AU lonely hearts in a desperate attempt to book out his Tuesday night, I have buried my blondness into this enticing little read, in an attempt to debate and accurately answer to a 2:1 standard the BIG question.
In all honesty, I’m not going to read the book, but then again rarely do I read any book; I find if you read the first paragraph and last paragraph of all enticingly named chapters (if they are unnamed then you’re reading a proper book and therefore go for chapters 11, 6, 85 because that’s my birthday) then that will satisfy; I have chosen the chapters entitled ‘flirting’, ‘the ex phenomenon’ and ‘sex - lighting an inextinguishable fire.’
For all those who attend Walkabout the book assures you that you should not be worried about making a fool of yourself while attempting to flirt. Flirting is in fact a reaction and as Mr Hinds points out, we are attracted to those who react in the same way as us to certain scenarios. Therefore I have an ingenious plan for all you singletons.
Find someone attractive (don’t deny shallowness) reading the Beaver, ask them, of course they already would have done so, to read the sports section numbering the articles 1-10 for humorous quality and compare your answers. If they are the same then you have found your perfect match. And if it has been a result of BeaverSports, we expect an invite to the wedding or first squash court appearance and a small email complimenting us to increase Sam and my already gigantic egos.
Part 3, chapter 3, the ex phenomenon. As someone who has been there, done that and now drunkenly text on Wednesday nights, the ex is definitely an issue we all have to deal with. Some do it soberly, some do it sexually, some use weaponry. David Hinds kindly lists the dos and donts of breaking up and although on paper they seem flawless, he seems to forget that when emotional we drink, smoke, not eat, eat, shop, make noise, listen to ‘night time’ playlists on our i-tunes and generally become our alter egos. Our alter egos are not a) rational, b) attractive or c) likely to ever date again. So my question to Dave is how do we prevent our emotions from getting the better of us?
In the ‘bottom line’ of the chapter it states ‘use a rubber band and your ex is history’ -I’m off to WH smiths to cause some major eye injuries.
‘Sex - lighting an inextinguishable fire’ is a beauty of a chapter, so good I read it all, and then read it again to make
sure I had read it right. Of course there are the usual ‘women take longer’, ‘different opinions of’, ‘how do you address the issue’ crap... There are also harsh comparisons between women and heated ovens, men and hot dogs and something about diesel engines. The chapter didn’t teach me anything more than any 20 year old female who has been through puberty, survived a boys’ high school and believes LSE to be sexually inept, knows. It however did drum home some facts. Men like women in slitty skirts and red tops, ‘from a cold state to orgasm, a healthy man can come in approximately the time it takes to boil an egg,’ sex is the expression and equilibrium of a loving partnership - ‘he wants to empty - she wants to be filled.’
You’ll be pleased to hear I have emailed Spark Notes requesting them to publish a more handy, laminated and illustrated summary and comment guide to the ‘Countdown to Love’ which when delivered I will flirtingly give out on Wednesday nights.
Why don’t relationships last? Because it’s far more interesting when they don’t.
I’m off to buy TopShop’s latest red number, stalk some more people on Facebook and conduct egg boiling experiments with the male Beaver staff.
Happy loving,
Sanch
In Lehmann’s Terms
Sam Lehmann
Other Editor \	^
u The	problem	with
London is that there are lots of pretty girls, but none of them fancy me.” Or so a great philosopher once said.
I think. Anyway,	with
Valentine’s Day approaching. like a prostate-check appointment with my GP, this thought crept into my mind. I found myself picking up a copy of the Times Education Supplement and browsing through the teachers’ personal ads. After perusing over the “women seeking women” and “men seeking children” columns (Ruth Kelly really needs to sort that out), I finally found myself looking at “women seeking men.” Unfortunately none of them ‘WLTM’ an impoverished student (don’t tell anyone I’m poor by the way, that’s a real secret) with a lax attitude to personal hygiene (I promised my football team I would not shower for the length of the cup run. For some reason, everyone underperformed and we went out in the first round). I then had a brief look at my local paper’s lonely heart’s column, which included gems such as “sikh seeks sikh”, but ultimately my search proved as successful as Dick Cheney’s attempts to shoot quails.
So for this week’s BeaverSports we decided to include our own ‘Personals’ section, hopefully to get some more love spread around the Athletic Union. You’ll probably notice that there are more guys advertising themselves than gals. How come it seems that 70% of girls at LSE are in relationships, yet only about
30% have got somebody to love? Is there some guy hoarding all the women for himself? How far does the conspiracy go? Is Howard getting up to his nuts in guts? Maybe I’m just bitter.
And we’re back to my thoroughly interesting life again. Last week I had more fun on the football pitch than a bunch of British soldiers getting stoned in Iraq. Deciding to play despite having shin splints, I managed to really fuck up my leg even more, and we lost to some cheating Gimperial bastards. On the plus side, I’ve taken more drugs than Keith Richards, and the endorphins released to my brain due to the pain have made me feel like I’m a character in Rainbow.
I plan to turn up at the speed dating tonight in my Zippy-esque state; acting arrogant, shouting loudly and drumming my fingers over my mouth before Bungle thumps me over the head with one of his large paws (apologies to foreign students who don’t have a clue what I’m going on aout - believe me, we didn’t have a clue either when it was on TV).
If Valentine’s Day goes as horribly wrong as it’s promising to, I think I’ll have to just give up and turn my attentions elsewhere. I’m considering just becoming a voyeur’s voyeur’s voyeur - I can really see the appeal in watching someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched, watching someone who’s watching someone who’s having sex. Such remarks probably aren’t helping my cause. Oh well. No one reads this crap anyway.
I hope you enjoy this week’s bumper edition and Valentine’s Day special. BeaverSports is continuing its catastrophic rise, reaching heights we never even thought
possible. The editorial board boomed with laughter when Sancha and I asked for an unprecedented SEVEN pages, but NOW WHO’S LAUGHING SUCKERS!!! 1BWOAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!! ! !! We’ve got more articles than ever before, and more sports represented than ever before too. Again it’s partly thanks to you, our great contributors, but mainly due to our hard work this week. Next week we’ve got a special feature on Berrylands lined up, including an exclusive interview with one of the groundsmen (you’ll have to wait until next week to find out who!). Those who want to contribute with their thoughts on the hallowed turf (particularly looking for third years who will be playing their last games there in the next few weeks) can email us at the usual	address
(thebeaver.sports@lse.ac.uk). A poem or ‘ode to Berrylands’ would also be most welcome, so hopefully all you creative LSE students (Accounting and Finance, I’m looking at you) can send some stuff in.
Only four issues left to contribute remember! Let’s try and make it even better than it already is,
Keep taking care of yourselves, and each other,
Love etc,
Sam
“Topical” - About Fat People
n awful lot of people are very fat. This is a Lproblem for them, and for society. But what is the scale of the problem, and what can we do about it?
The scale of the problem is terrifying. Levels of obesity in the UK have increase approximately 300% in the last 25 years. Tbday, 75% of the population is ‘overweight’, with about one third of these people being clinical 1}' ‘obese’
We live in a society which places a lot emphasis on, among other wishy-washy liberal values, the promotion of toleration. Despite the fact that many of the so-called ‘liberties’ which we believe these values allow us to enjoy are either illusionary, imaginary, or entirely inconsequential, we
still allow a misguided sentimental attachment to them to cloud our judgement on issues such as how to deal with the increasing obesity problem we face in this country.
I’m talking about things like the ‘right’ to be an individual; to cultivate our appearance as we choose, to not suffer abuse and persecution for the way we choose to look. I’m always being berated for my criticism of the overweight, as I’m sure are other people who voice their concern over and distaste for the prevalence of this condition. The attitude is one of self-righteous indignation at my ‘intolei'ance’ towards the fatty in question, and a sense that I have in some way infringed upon their rights. Quite apart from the fact that they appear to be forgetting all about my ‘right’ to be an individual who actively dislikes obesity, they’re also fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the issue.
So let us briefly consider the issue of ‘rights’. While vague and ambiguous ‘rights’ like that may be all well and good, what if my idea of ‘indi-
viduality’ is stealing from your house? Or fiddling about with your kids? Or blowing the bus that you’re travelling on up with a nail bomb? Because people have different - and sometimes conflicting - interests, having the ‘right’ to do something in general is not necessarily a defence of it in the case where it has negative or harmful effect on others.
So, what negative or harmful effect does obesity have on others? Well, a financial one for a start! A study by the National Audit Office in 2002 estimated that obesity cost the NHS around £500million a year, and the overall annual cost to the country is estimated to be a staggering £7.4billion! That’s over £120 per person. Of course, the 30,000 people who die each year from obesity' related causes are hardly able to contribute their share next year.
It’s also unsightly. Body odour is also associated with obesity, and I don’t think anyone enjoys the smell of spare tyres iubing themselves up for that crowded rush-hour underground journey. This is quite apart from the fact that
fatties just basically take up a lot of room. You’re lucky if you’ve never been prevented from walking up or down an escalator by some volumetri-eally exaggerated blimp. I wouldn't like to be sitting in front of some 20-stone behemoth in the event of a bus or train ci-ash - they’d crush me to death with their silly, oversized frame.
Oh dear, but perhaps I’m being rather harsh and insensitive? After all, obesity is a disease. It’s true - when you see a fat person you are looking at someone with a medical condition. This, however, is no defence. They afflicted themselves with this disease; just like someone who refuses to wear anything more than a furry g-string on a winters days inflicts the common cold on themselves; or how a man who insists on having unprotected sex with West-African prostitutes several times a day inflicts the disease of AIDS on himself; or the 50-a-day chain smoker inflicts emphysema or cancer on themselves.
Simply put, if your calorific intake is dramatically greater than the amount of
energy you burn off in a day through physical activity then, in general, you will gain weight. You will continue to gain weight while your calorific intake exceeds your usage. It’s not all bleak news, though. Because you’re now dragging around a lot of extra ballast stored unattractively under your skin, you’re working harder to get it from A to B, so you should be using more energy up. Damn, I bet dragging all that blubber around has given you an appetite, hey? Who wants a Big Mac?
So what can we do about it? We need to change our- attitude. Let’s start charging obese people more to use public services, especially those where space is at a premium. The London Underground is the perfect example. Perhaps a system whereby people beyond a certain girth must pay for two fares to use the Tube at rush-hour should be introduced. This would take into account the fact that these great big fat people quite frequently actually take up twice as much space as a more regularly proportioned person, and also for the increased energy
requirement involved in accelerating larger masses, and the inherent danger in carrying bulky loads - unsecured - in passenger compartments.
Let’s just stop acting like fat people are special in any way other than especially greedy, lazy and self-indulgent. And let’s stop trying to pretend they’re ‘beautiful’ - if a fat person is aesthetically appealing at all. then they are only so in spite of their obesity. Furthermore, they would surely only be more attractive if they could resist the temptation to stuff their greedy faces at every available opportunity.
Until we face up to the fact that obesity is basically the consequence of people’s unwillingness to moderate their consumption in line with the level of their physical activity, and start viewing obesity and the activities of fat people as a process by which some people allow greed to drive them to behave in a way which is generally bad for them, and certainly bad for everyone else nothing is going to change. It needs to change.
‘Fatty Arbuckle’
SPORTS
iBeaverSports 114 February 2006 21
Running
Ladies Rugby
The gimps from imp run short
The lir
Spaniard
After a long week at LSE surrounding myself with overly pompous investment ‘bankers’ (i.e. slouches who can’t hack economics—which would only be offence to the dick smacks at this school) it was finally time to flee this cement jungle and head to Hackney Marshes for the ULU cross-country championships. Once again we would embark on that gruelling journey that would make the rugby team cry like little girls with skinned knees—the 8k race (5k for the girls). Jokes aside, I have a great deal of respect for rugby, football, tennis, netball (well not really) and cricket but there is something sadistic about the fact running is the one aspect of all other sports that all other athletes hate. Maybe its because we’re too scrawny to play football or too ballsy for netball (pun intended) or maybe its because we’re
bad mother fuckers; whatever it was there was something in the air during the warm up. The mood was summed up when Matt “maybe I am like 38 and still an undergrad, fuck you for judging me”Rushworth exclaimed, “I feel better than Ghandi during a hunger strike—that whinny exhibitionist.”
The first mile was a blur as the field spread between those who actually run and ex-foot-ball players who figure the race would be an easy way to hook up with the girl’s team captain. This is a mistake; I have been running for seven years and trust me, being a runner never gets you laid. The next four miles were relatively uneventful as...well we were running. Usual stuff, left foot, right foot, hate myself for drinking last night (and the night before that, etc.), left foot, right foot, hate God for not making me even marginally good at a real sport.
After the race most the teams left, assuming they got their ass kicked by Imperial again (I fucking hate those mathematical twats. Seriously, I’ve known some major assholes in my time but these
fruitsticks take the cake). Yet being the arrogant pricks we are and the fact Tom “I’m tired of defending the UK to this team of Americans” Beedell had to go and win third place, so we stuck around for the awards. Eighteen painstaking hours later the dumb Imperial chick that Max wants to hit it with (sorry dude, I won’t tell anyone else—promise) and the homeless guy who organises the races figured out the results: tie. Thus, the 5th man became the tie breaker and that man was none other than Matt “my arthritis doesn’t mean shit” Rushworth. Imperial ran hard but in the end their efforts were about as useful as an abortion clinic in Riyadh.
It turned out Imperial got battered around worse than Mike “restraining orders are for pussies” McGinnis’s exgirlfriend. Leading the team in 3rd place, Tom “my country has no sun” Beedell followed close behind in 4rd Max “I may quote Star Wars but I will still mull kick you to the skull” Melstrom and Fran “I’m a bigot, but onlyto Puerto Rican chicks from Miami that I mistake for Cubans” Flanagan
came in 7th. Next up in 9th was Mike “I am the most hateful person in existence” McGinnis, in 10th Matt “I’m old (yah I’m getting lazy)” Rushworth and Scott “the lil Spaniard, a.k.a. beer miles are my bitch” Andes in 15th. Lawrence “I’m so damn nice because I don’t want anyone to know I have a rage problem and find the dead prostitution under my bed” Leong came in 22nd, in 25th Matt “destroying Kings was fun, I’ll do it again next year with or without the ‘splinter’group’’Thomas. Tome “the Macedonian devil” Sandevski came in 28th followed by Greg “I only run because the speed doesn’t let me sleep” Opie in 34th and finally Sam “actually a really nice guy and I don’t haveany-thing bad to say about” Martin came in 37th. On the girls side the team finished a fine 3rd overall with Chashah “freaking speed demon” Nicholas in 8th, Erin “the nicest neo-con you’ll ever meet” White in 13th and team captain Rebecca “I can drink more than any boy you know” Hogan in 15th.
All in all it was a fine day—one that Imperial won’t soon forget.
Shit kicked out of King’s slags
Sandy &
King’s 1st XV
Berrylands
Once upon a time there was a derelict Women’s Rugby team who lost most their matches and couldn’t field a full XV. Then on a typically grey English morning, LSEWRFC1STXV gathered at Waterloo station at 8.50am surprisingly NOT hungover and as per Rexus’s request, with clear urine. A long train ride, several coffees, and a heated debate on different colours of animal shit later, we were ready for the ULU cup quarter finals, prepared to avenge our 80 quid deficit against Kings. Great banter ensued:
“Netball? Fucking shit sport.” - ref
“terrorised? - go lock yourself in your classrooms. Again.” - us
“I’m hungover and you are doing my head in, slow it down you bunch of fucking psychos” -ref
First try of the game was awarded to LSE’s spunky monkey, after superior back-line play between Yvette, Spunky, Baggers and Helen. Kings retaliated by scoring their annual try which gave them a false ray of hope in life - little did they know that underdogs’ secret weapon Greedy Baggers would come back to score a whopping 5 tries. Josie’s red turban-like hair-scrum	cap	combo
flapped in the wind as she, Kimmy and the returning Tastie-Chicken took the ball into maul after maul, with Yvette bravely digging her
hands in to grab the ball from within the folds of KCL’s sweaty man-flab. Success -the ball was recycled to SpunkyMonkey who side stepped and handed off the groaning porkers to sprint to the tryline and pop the ball to Megs who placed it between the posts.
Coco and brilliant biflanker Rachel led the rucks with her deceiving ox-like strength, and then the beautiful winger wonger Fern had the ball, and after gaining ground for us, had her head unfortunately sandwiched between the ground and a meaty king’s elbow, resulting in a spectacular black eye on the touch line. Coco and Megs jumped eagerly to ‘spot- on’ Masturbation Balls by Kimmy, with lifters Sandyo, Josie and Rachel, which lead to a try to ex-forward (traitor!) Baggers. Kings started getting frustrated and put in some great hits, but could not get past fitness machine Helen, and amazing fullback Kristen. Team Mama doesn’t hold back, whether it comes to her saviour tackles or her open bar on the coach (she brought tequila, salt, limes, cups, etc). I blame you for vom o clock on Weds. Nisha sprint- ' ed down the blindside and dodged the beasts, leaving us in awe and standing around faffing, alas no support for her. Then, scrum down on their 5m. Sandyo as 8 finally became aware of a ball heading her direction in the scrum, and after pondering, picked it up, flew into their defense, popped it to Bags who rolled over their tryline for a 5th. My memory appals me - I don’t remember how Greedy’s 4th and 5th try came about, but they were spectacular, with the latter being converted by Moral Corrupted Jen.
Victory - through to the semi’s for Women’s Rugby. Still going strong.
Men’s Basketball
A weekend with the basketball 2nds
Joe Q
Friday 3rd Feb: Training
A typical Friday night started with a tough training session before back-to-back games over the weekend. A lot of time is spent on set plays and drills to stop us throwing the ball away under pressure. The session also saw more aggression and intensity coming out of team in attempt to stop playing “like a bunch of pussys”. Revelations of the evening include: Victor was once a Tank Commander in the
Singaporean Army, Captain Ricardo would consider a career as a pornstar and Vincent considers himself the ‘least ugly’ member of the team.
Saturday 4th Feb: Super
Seconds 71- 74 SOAS
As always the Seconds started slowly and the first quarter saw SOAS build up a slight lead. The second quarter was characterised by the Super Seconds committing too many unnecessary fouls which allowed SOAS to punish us from the foul line. However the second half saw a rejuvenated Second team come out harder than Dennis Rodman in Stringfellows, leading to a
deficit of only 9 points with 10 minutes to go.
Then like a Danish flag in the Middle East, strong defence and strong three-point shooting saw the LSE set the game ablaze with a tremendous run which saw us up by seven. With every hubris comes nemesis and the Super Seconds began to suffer as key players were fouled out due to earlier indiscretions. A reversion to type saw sloppy passing and bad shooting giving SOAS the opportunity to steal the game from under our noses. The small margin of victory undoubtedly led to blame and self-loathing as every player saw their own mistakes as gift-
ing the winning points to SOAS, however the Super Seconds can take better discipline and intensity as positives from this game. Tomorrow’s match against Queen Mary’s will be a greater uphill struggle than Big Brother’s Chantelle	winning
Mastermind, but like Chantelle we must also believe that dreams come true...
Man of the Match: Adrian Koh for his huge three-pointers that brought the Super Seconds to the brink of victory in the final quarter.
Quote of the night: We are going to get anal-ised tomorrow- Vincent Sadlak
Sunday 5th Feb: Queen Mary (Didn’t show up) v Super Seconds (Very pissed off)
If LSE needed another reason to leave the University of London, being associated with Queen Mary’s would be pretty high on the list. The Super Seconds travelled deep into the depths of East London to tip off against QM at 5 o’clock. Except that we arrived to find the Tarts from St Barts on the court and we were informed that we wouldn’t start till 7. The team hadn’t been this annoyed and disappointed since we heard Smash Hits had gone bust. Sitting round in QM’s bar (where a pint was
2 Op more than in the Tuns) we could observe the fecklessness of the ‘university’ as their whole rugby team spent an hour cramming round a quiz machine and failed to win anything. Seven o’clock eventually rolled around and we got onto the court to find out QM’s ‘ladies’ were playing and we wouldn’t start till nine. At this point we left faster than Michael Barrymore at a pool party. The game should be rescheduled but the message of the story is: don’t trust any poly whose alumni include R&B ‘singer’ Jay Sean, star of Top Ten hits such as ‘Eyes on You’ and ‘Stolen’.
'+
22 iBeaverSports 14 February 2006
Men's Football
SPORTS
Nail’er
LSE 1st XI Sl.Farts list? Berrylands
To most people, taking a dump in the toilets at Berrylands is not the most exciting of prospects. They’d much rather excrete in the luxury of the Old Building for example. This was not the case for Mr..Mellows, as he spent virtually the whole of what was probably the most important game of our season to date on the pisser. Whilst Joey was sat on the cum-stained, aids-infected bog, the filthies were on the pitch preparing for the game.
This was to be a game of firsts...For once el captaino didn’t have a pre-match bash, Joey turned up, and Gav the man who couldn’t score in a brothel, ended his goal drought as he finally hit the back of the net against St. Barts
Kick-off was delayed as it seems St Barts haven’t yet mastered the art of making the transition from platform to train. This left the filthies watching in awe at our referees’ pre-match warm up. This basically consisted of a lesson from the Welshman in how to miss the back of the net from almost any angle
The first half was virtually uneventful, with Bach’inho hitting the post and Joey com-
pleting his dump. So after an inspirational team-talk we took to the field and the breakthrough soon came.With a history of misses easier than a slag with a rohypnol addiction, Crouchy seemed certain to follow in Taffy’s footsteps and leave the FC after 3 years of trying without a single goal to his name. Yet after 1682 minutes of trying, his chance came, and it happened. We never thought it would, we never thought it could, and for the sadistic amongst us we never thought it should, but after being gifted a chance from his amateur strike partner Ryan Ramsay, Crouch finally found the back of the net....and Joey for once was not alone as we all came in our pants. The second came soon after, another stroke of luck for Ryan, this time the ball spinning off his shin and into the path of Tenderbender. Disorientated and scared after finding himself outside of the centre circle, he somehow bundled his way through their defence to make it 2-0.
Just to make sure we had an exciting ending to the match, we decided to give them a goal back. Our defence was, according to Ryan, tighter than the arse of a Merrill Lynch director, and so the filthies held on for their fourth successive win.
The Filthy Fourths are currently enjoying their best form of recent memory, with the cup on Saturday, and piss-easy game on Wednesday against the flaccid LSE fifths, may the fine run continue....
Men’s Football
Sickbed sevenths leave medics for dead
H	| Nick Green
LSE 7th XI 4	
GKT 4 th XI 1	
Berrylands	
For our thousands of supporters (K-lo’s girlfriend, K-lo’s dad) watching the 7s this season has been a lot like a visit to the circus; the absurd, hilarious, pathetic, and downright genius has been on display at various points, adding to that an injury list as long as the C&S was appalling (RIP Caspell, Krebbers, Douglas, Mawah et al!) and its been difficult to know whether to laugh or to cry.
Yet the second half of this circus act has proved a whole lot more palatable to watch. Whisper it, but we are beginning to string together some superb wins against top of the
table opposition, proving we are punching above our weight and gelling as a team. The delicious destruction of Royal Holloway 2-0, a riotous thumping of Strand Poly Scum 4-0 and most recently, the ugly, ugly GBH reeked upon GKT have been as glorious as beaver surveys are useless (there aren't many black people at LSE, REALLY? Students are stressed, SERIOUS? There are some subjects with more female students and some with less. Christ Jones, you'll win an
award with this gold).
So to the game. The 7s limped on to the pitch devoid of half of their Greek Gods out through injury, Raihan and myself playing with fever, Kamikaze's groin injury making him stiff and Mikey Hales playing blind. Despite this, a veritable 45 minutes of pure passion, sexy champagne football followed. I counted 8 glaring goal-scoring opportunities, 2 coming from an interesting new tactic. The 'scuff a comer so that the ball barely lifts off
the ground, fortuitously arriving at K-lo's feet, where-by he surprises everyone by firing in, thereby dicking on my own woeful goal tally’ is one set play which has gone straight into Jose Mourinho's training manual. While our attackers pounded their goal, with Kamikaze converting to make it 2-0 in typical style, me and Adrian won everything in midfield and our defence, under General K-lo, was as strong as the C&S was detestable.
Half-time came with another 'inspiring' K-lo team talk. Complete capitulation followed. Confusion, complacency and, well, being knackered played their part as we huffed and we puffed and they blew our house down. The medics woke up from their opiate-induced comas, forced a comer, and one missed defensive header later it was 2-1.
What followed next for us resembled the A&E department at my local North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton. It was ugly, filthy and made worse by the pres-
ence of idiot medics. While my own decision to go forward in search of a third goal thus leaving a gapping hole in midfield proved shocking.
Yet this circus is, if anything, much more stable at home. We weathered the storm without stringing together two passes. A thump forward to Kamikaze, a neat pass to
Raihan, and he'd sucker punched 'em. A replica counter-attack and Kamikaze netted his second, and he now challenges for the Golden Boot. 4-
1.	That's a game we woulda lost in the first half of the season. It's 3 or the top 4 beaten, and tomorrow we play top of the table St. Barts. We’re gonna Krebber them..
Team of the Week compiled by Dom Rustam
SPORTS
ffieaverSports| 14 February 2006123
Men’s Football
Firsts get sentimental
Knoxy
We fucking did it. Over these past few weeks I’ve tempted fate; mocked the enemies of serendipity; and indulged in vomitific hyperbole spewing countless analogies, allegories, similes, metaphors and piss-poor French at the hungry hoards eager to read Knoxy’s weekly instalment of the action classic that has been the Mighty Mighty Firsts 2005/06.
I could regale the details of the title winning match, how Dom, Fred and Fishy Fishlock allowed Matt Joy to get his steady hands on the ULU trophy, how Shankman San played without being able to see, and how Brummie hyperventilated with the thought of la gloire de victoire et de vie lui-meme. Instead, I thought you should all meet the heroes that made it all possible. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mighty Mighty Firsts: ULU Champions 2005/06:
Rich Gull (GK): The foundation of our team and the one who spared my blushes and felt my wrath for most of the season. Loud, commanding, reliable and a big game player - all that you could ever want in a goalkeeper. Quite why he has to pluck every inch of hair off his body so that his cock merely resembles a thinner version of himself is another matter.
Matt “Brummie” Davenport (DRC):	Undoubtedly my
favourite human being from Walsall that has ever lived. Also, it is feasible that he might also be the angriest man that has ever played the beautiful game. “I hate Whopper meals”.“I hate fucking Salt”.“I fucking hate football". Despite this vitriol, the real Brummie has an unappreciated dignity to his person and his game. The best reader of the ball I've ever played with and a constant source of advice and Marlbox-o Lights.
San “Shankman" Grewal (DL): The most improved player in
the first team. Regardless of if he’s throwing himself into two-footed challenges, playing without the use of his eyes, or spraying passes down the left wing, Shankman is football personified. Although prone to the type of distribution of fire that the CIA uses in Pakistan, in truth, this season San has blossomed into a composed and passionate defender who will die for the cause of the Mighty Mighty Firsts.
Matt Joy (DC and Captain):
Captain marvel. Captain fantastic. The Gaffer. Matt’s captaincy has witnessed the injection of some much needed professionalism, which although involved a training regime harsher than a romantic weekend at Guantanamo has produced the desired results. The amount of work that Joy has done, on and off the field is impossible to appreciate. Suffice to say, he made it all
John “Knoxy” McDermott (DC): Fulbright Scholar and all round good guy, Knoxy has done his best Franco Baresi impression in the sweeper role throughout the season. The only captain in my three years not to have won anything, Knoxy remains content with the fact that his propaganda machine has won the battle for hearts and minds. Leaves the FC in much the same way it was when he became Club Captain: the only thing at LSE worth living for.
Paolo Azzola-Bindschedle (AMR): A player whose grace and ethereal touch on the pitch matches his delicate charm off it, Paolo is that rare mixture of style and substance. As able to put in a saving challenge as he is a pinpoint cross, the wee Swiss street urchin who speaks almost as many languages as Brummie is a one-off. The most beautiful man in the most beautiful team in ULU.
Dom “Veteran" Rustam (AML):
As the team’s elder statesman one would hope that Dom . would have acted as a role model for the younger mem -bers of the squad. Rather, he’s demonstrated how not to wash your scrotum and how to run away from paralytic pixies. Despite or perhaps because of this, it has been an honour and a joy to play with Dom over these last years. True gentlemen are rare these days but Rustam is most certainly one. The kindest person I’ve ever known and a quite phenomenal footballer who delivers the goods game after game.
Chris “CP” Paterson (MC): A
beneficiary of Knoxy’s famed scouting system, CP was a like a gift from the gods at this year’s trials. Bringing some much needed pace and vision into the centre of midfield CP set the standard we all had to match if we were going to win the league. Although Chris has schooled me on innumerable occasions with his fabled “strawpedo”concoction, I can’t help but love this fellow Jambo who has graced us with his skill, wit and commitment. He will be sorely missed.
Stelios Stavrou (MC): One of
the few black spots of this season has been Stelios’prolonged absence due to a sniper attack by a Turkish guerrilla fighter. Yet this is the Mighty Mighty Firsts and we do not cast our kin aside. Stelios is, like the rest of us, a champion.
Bernard “Barney” Singer (AMRL): A player of unparalleled ability and technique, Barney’s incomprehensible jokes and anecdotes have been a source of much amusement to the Mighty Mighty Firsts. Displaying admirable grace and stoicism under fire, Barney has proved himself to be an indispensable member of the team scoring crucial goals at crucial times. Always caring and concerned with others' well-being Barney will leave a huge gap that may never be filled.
Fred Salt (FC): Through skill, will power and application Fred Salt has proved himself right and his doubters wrong
this season. The sceptics asked could he make the step up? Fred answered with a dominant and irrefutable yes. Not only is he our top scorer he has created countless goals for others too. For a man who has given so much to the FC, it was only just that Fred should be our leading striker in our championship winning season. This takes attitude and character which Fred has had to display more than anyone. I’ve gone from loathing the guy in my first year to having the deepest respect for him. A friend for life.
Ladies’ Hockey
James “Animal” Little (FC): Self-deprecating till the last, James has once again showed the character, resilience and skilk that makes a Mighty Mighty First player who he is. Composed and clinical on the ball, away from the pitch Jim has excelled in his role as an elder statesman of the FC. A proven communicator, who always leads from the front, Jimmy Little will continue to be a revered name in LSE folklore for years to come.
The hockey weekend of greatness
Essex 1st XI LSE 1st XI
Gareth “Fishy” Fishlock (FC):
What more can be said about this man? In only two years, Fishy has proven himself as one of the FC greats. Defying the impossible, the Welshman has actually got even better this season forming a potent strike force with his Hungerford Road nemesis Fred Salt. If there is ever a lull in a game, ever inspiration required, Fishy is invariably the man to provide it. A player to fear and a man to respect, Gareth: Fishlock is a living legend.
Rich Nicholls (MC): Rarely without a cheeky smile on his face, little Rich exudes enthusiasm and energy. Brimming with vitality, he covers more miles on the pitch in one game than Brummie and I do in a season. A strong contender for player of the season, this understated ladies man has a humility that belies his many talents. This is player who can light up a room like he does a football pitch.
Back at my family ranch in Birmingham, we have what is known as the Golden Weekend. Being of an entirely sporting ilk, the Golden Weekend consists of the following for the Venables family:	little	brother	wins
under 12’s football game for the team my Dad, Terry Venables (I’m not lying), coaches; I win University of London hockey match; older brother wins 6-a-side football game; Aston Villa win; Birmingham City get slaughtered; and England demolish any opposition that happens to stand in their way, sport immaterial. Last weekend was golden, and they are rare I can tell you, but what I am proposing is that the Golden Weekend has stretched itself into a Golden Week. Basically, the LSEHC, understated as it is in the AU, dwarfed by the giants of Football and Rugby, achieved three phenomenal results on Wednesday, and this article will celebrate the girls’ contribution...
The LSEWHC seem to deal solely in revenge matches of late, but more importantly, we seem to be constantly kicking ass. Once again we ran out onto the fair turf at Battersea knowing that pride was all we were playing for in BUSA, but once again we faced an opposition who were just, well, a bunch of idiots really. Essex claimed a walkover when we played them in bloody-back-end-of-nowhere, a 3 point deduction which inevitably has sealed our fate in this league, so we knew they were twats. After that game one Essex fool was forced to come and apologise to me for her “uncouthness” (I almost fell over from shock at her abovepoly vocab level) so a physical, verbal and mental battle was definitely in store.
The first half was tight. Zoe made a remarkable double save from one of their surges forward, but at the other end
our shots on goal were creeping nearer and nearer, the highlight of the first half being a fantastic move starting on our 25 when Yelly splayed a defence-splicing ball out to the right which Nat Black latched onto as if it were a rugby boy, driving up the line and then powering in a perfect cross... At this point we knew it was only a matter of time, and so did Essex. They stepped up the physicality but this LSEWHC team doesn’t take kindly to being pushed around - “Pain don’t phase me, baby!” - so with elbows flailing and shoulders dropped (maybe that was just el capitan) we made sure they didn’t bully us.
0-0 at the beginning of the second half but our confidence was high. Someone (Gabba) shouted ‘This is OUR game LSE’, which probably annoyed Essex that little bit more, but it was soon shown to be true. Yelly sealed a great performance with two fantastic goals. The first was the pick, coming after a lengthy drive and the strike being as sweet as a nut. This goal even provoked a comment from the hyper-criti-cal Robert Moore later that night that ‘perhaps, maybe, probably, but I’m not sure’ he couldn’t have hit it so well from that angle. Nice one the Slav, who soon doubled her tally with a deflected short corner that ended up in the top left hand comer. Perfect.
You know what they say,“If it’s not something that’s broken, then there’s no need to repair it”. Ju had yet another indispensable performance at left back, showing her Brazilian roots, and Sarah continuously dazzles four or five players on her runs down the right. We passed well, Kimmy and Vicky found space which shouldn’t have been there up front, and once again Emily, Yankee and Todd showed their defensive mettle. We destroyed Essex-in all areas of the game and the sight of their goalie lying in a heap whimpering (time-wasting I think it’s called) summed up our strength.
This is a serious article but we are SERIOUSLY ACE - two more wins and promotion is ours in ULU. Cheers to our supporters and well done to the Boys teams for their great wins. Hockey is back.
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Lonely heart?
Who will be your AU valentine tonight?
Valentines Day Special
Mighty mighty firsts
Knoxy talks us through his golden boys
Knoxy
Hockey hatrick
Hockey ladies complete perfect threesome for LSEHC
Louise and Ju
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
Woulda, shoulda, coulda for shiny new basketball 2nds
Joe Q
Goldsmiths 1st	74
LSE 2nd	57
Hackney (innit)
Due to the gross incompetence of the other ‘captains’ (who worry-ingly seem to be predominant-
ly medics), Saturday saw the Super Seconds run out for the first time since Christmas. This provided us with our first opportunity to show off our shiny new kits and it was perhaps apt that our opposition were none other than Goldsmiths College, the alma mater of Vivienne Westwood and	Mary	Quant.
Unfortunately the team that Goldsmiths sent did not seem phased by our sartorial splendour.
Goldsmiths were 2nd in the tougher of the leagues that we play, so strong competition was expected and with the Super Seconds missing key players due to a combination of interviews, holidays and Chinese New Year, Captain Ricardo had to make changes to his normal starting five. The first quarter saw the Super Seconds completely baffled by Goldsmiths’ zone defence, lacking the penetrating skills of a Lib Dem leadership con-
tender. This allowed the more finely-tuned Goldsmiths to build a substantial lead at the other end, which the Super Seconds spent the rest of the game trying to catch with the all the effectiveness of Michael Barrymore’s psychiatrist.
Goldsmiths strong defence neutralised the big game played by Californian Jessie, whilst Victor, Adrian and Poseidon were harassed on every offence as they tried to bring some creativity to the
LSE game. However our play was characterised by poor passing, lack of movement and missing too many simple shots. Debutant Martynas Vikelis made a strong a claim for a starting five spot whilst Vincent ‘glass half empty’ Sadlak hit some huge shots in the final quarter to narrow the deficit whilst still being the most irritating player on the court. A loss of 17 points to a firsts team in hindsight seems respectable but once again this
season the overwhelming feeling was that we could have and should have played far better.
Man of the Match goes to Marco Papi who fought hard under the boards to accumulate the points that stopped Goldsmiths’ lead from getting away from us.
More basketball page 21
Lonely Hearts page 18
LSE Football page 22
jN
Sod King’s, we’re off to Essex
Essex lst/2nd- XI LSE ist/2nd Xt Essex
R
-L, Vh
I ather than a clash of the titans, this could Jhave been dubbed the clash of the Titanics, with the loser destined to sink deep, deep into the oblivion of BUSA 4C (or something crap like that). So with our huge squad of 11, we wandered off to Battersea, where we were confronted by a group of chavs who had nicked our changing rooms and all Bailer’s spare change. It later
transpired that this rioting mob were our nemeses rather than the usual tramps one would find floating around Battersea Park....
With some random fat bloke in a pink top and the ever dependable (??) Victor Meldrew turning out to umpire, as a team we were as relaxed and ready as ever. Relaxed, that was, until one of the tramps turned up with a letter demanding that the game be played under protest. The stage was set. Frodo was an angry and threatened Hobbit, and after revenge.
Despite the enormity of the occasion, the first half was a bit shit, with very few chances at either end, even though the Essex chavs stole the ball for the majority of the
half. With solid defending from the central defensive partnership of Tesh and the “Pube Haired Belgian”, and, surprisingly, some last ditch heroics from some guy wearing our goalkeeping kit, Essex were unable take the lead, resulting in some attempted vandalism and 3 ASBOs. Tempers were high.
The second half was rather more interesting, especially given Furze’s attempt to hook the ball out of the Earth’s atmosphere when presented with the chance to replicate his hero Lance Klusener. Although not democratically elected, we can verify that Furze has indeed been awarded his 2nd “dick of the day” in a row for his escapades, also including a yellow card for
confusing his stick with his feet. Congratulations Furze, you earned it with hard graft, are we going to see 3 in a row ?
Before all of this, a chav wearing the number 3 shirt was sent off for being a knob, then sent off again, for still being a knob, despite the umpire’s warning: “don’t be a knob” [paraphrased].
Meanwhile, others ran around pretending that the whiter than white LSE boys had scythed them down: “knee problems” they claimed. Gerald was making such good friends with one tall chav that there was even talk of double dating with their respective mothers. At the same time Bobby Moore and Cinderella were beginning to make space
down the left, Frodo was thrusting forward, Bailer was cutting everything out that came towards him, and “Bargain Bucket” was playing shit. Annobelle started running at the keeper to scare him, and “Mute” continued silently to assonate all defenders that came his way. It was tight, but we were on top.
The goal finally came from a shoddy cross that no doubt Moore claims was pure genius, a few miss hits, a deft Mute touch, resulting in the ball trickling under the helpless shoplifter in Essex’s net. 1-0, 13 minutes to go. We held on. Game over. Victory. Essex relegated to whatever aforementioned shitty league. LSE heads held high. A big thanks must be given to our cheer-
leaders who turned up 2 minutes before the end, and still thought we’d lost.
Today was a glorious day for the LSEHC. The double header was won by both teams, the girls going on to destroy the chavettes in style. Essex though, struggling to come to terms with these defeats, brought out the White Lightning and with it came more witty comments. A special mention must go to Essex’s team spirit and especially their talisman: number 9, who was so obnoxious that he was disowned by his own side. But we think he’ll be alright: apparently Gerlad’s, Tesh’s, Moore’s, Bailer’s and Frodo’s mums all love him dearly.
Women’s hockey, page 23
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Inside this week’s bumper seven-page edition of BeaverSports: YD special. Joe Q, NaiFcr, Nat, Knoxv. Scott, Green, Feng