pugwash news issue 51

/pugwashnewsfans @pugwashnews

pugwashnews.com

Issue 51Wednesday 16th February 2011

Free

Relentless tour rips up Southampton

5

Page 7

Page 11

Isn’t a Poncho a sheet with a hole in it?

Portsmouth student, Keli Anne Bianchi, the city’s first

Poet Laureate

James Peckham

Students may have to live fur-ther away from the city centre, thanks to a new proposition put forward by Portsmouth City Council, which will change how multiple occupation houses work in Portsmouth.

These changes, which will come into effect from 1 Novem-ber, mean Landlords will have to gain planning permission before they can change a normal dwell-ing into a shared house for 3-6 people. Houses of 7 residents or more already require planning

permission. If more than 10% of houses in 100 metre radius of the property are already HMOs, it is most likely that planning permission will not be granted.

Bev Lucas-Christianson, from Portsmouth City Council Plan-ning Services Department, said: “A significant reason for why the council members want control HMOs is because we have had responses from residents who are living in areas which are in danger of becoming predomi-nantly HMOs.”

Many students in Portsmouth live in multiple occupation

houses (HMOs), especially in their second and third year of study. It is thought that these changes have been proposed to reduce the amount students, or rather non-related individuals sharing a dwelling, from living in one area of the city and creat-ing problems for local residents.

Lucas-Christiansen said: “We have things to think about like the viability of local schools, the changing face of local ser-vices, small convenience stores, groceries, bakeries or whatever changing to take-aways to ac-commodate the local popula-

tion. You get this knock-on ef-fect where actually this prevents or makes more families want to move out of the area.”

Matt Blackall, VP Societies and Community, said: “From my experience, most residents have a positive image of students in the community. There are many stories, for example, of students and neighbours getting along and sharing gifts.”

If the plans come into effect, many students will have much further to travel to and from lec-tures as well as for socialising.

Housing to move further from central Portsmouth under new Council bill

The new proposals may change the face of student housing - Dan Chesterton

Turn to page 3

Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011

Ben [email protected]

Position VacantDeputy [email protected]

Milly YoungmanCopy [email protected]

Joely DicksDesign [email protected]

Dan ChestertonPictures [email protected]

Laura CrottyHead of [email protected]

Hana McFaulFeatures [email protected]

Dan WhitewayArts & Entertainment [email protected]

Grant ClarkeOpinion [email protected]

Joe WilkesSports [email protected]

Sarah JacksonDowntime [email protected]

DesignDeputy: Adam PoolFanol ThaqiOndrej VálkaRebeccca FifieldLisa Baumgarten

News Deputy: Position vacantEliomar Delgado (Senior Reporter)Sammy Pinker (Senior Reporter)

FeaturesDeputy: Becka HoggConor McCorkindale (Food)Eliza Burt (Sex & Relationships)

Roxanna Negru (Health)

Arts & EntertainmentDeputy: Sophie WorrellHannah Whitnall (Screen)Lewis Dowling (Games & Internet)Paul Miller (Music)Maxine Mason (Restaurants)Sam Rohde (Culture)

Opinion Deputy: Naomi SpicerFrancesca Taffs (Columnist)Ross Keating (Columnist)

SportsDeputy: Andrew OtteyBen Hyams (Senior Reporter)Laura Collins (Senior Reporter)

Errors and OmissionsThe article titled “Students lose £6,500 as London College validated by University of Portsmouth faces financial ruin” on page two contained an error. The article incorrectly stated that 6 students would be studying at UoP. Pugwash News wishes to make clear that this error should not have been printed, and apologise for this inaccuracy.The University and the Professional Body have put in place arrangements which will enable level 6 students nearing completion to continue their studies with the University of Portsmouth, although they will not be physically based here.The Comment-in-Brief section on page two should have been accredited to Grant Clarke.

Advertising: For all advertising and marketing at the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union, please contact Hannah Crisin at BAM Student Marketing: T: 0845 1300 667 E: [email protected] sumarketing.co.ukSmall Print: Produced fortnightly by the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union. Printed by Johnston Press Plc - johnstonpress.co.uk, 02392 622 529, and printed on 100% recycled paper. Pugwash News bears no allegiance to any political party and discriminates against no-one. Editor in Chief, Laura Stevenson: 02392 843657. Visit us at The Student Centre, Portsmouth Students’ Union, Cambridge Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO1 2EF.

Editorial Team

2

Errors and Omissions: While we take every care to verify our content, we may occasionally make mistakes. Please contact us at [email protected] to report any inaccuracies or mistakes. Send complaints to [email protected]

Union News

ADVERTISINGFor all advertising and marketing at the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union, please contact Hannah Crispin at BAM Student Marketing on:

T: 0845 1300 667E: [email protected]

bam

News

Kathryn Glynn

Creative writing and drama stu-dent, KeliAnne B, has recently received recognition for her ex-traordinary flair for poetry by being prestigiously appointed as the first ever Poet Laureate of Portsmouth. Keli will now be working within the community to inspire people with the art of poetry.

Portsmouth City Council had recently decided to create this position in the city of Ports-mouth in order to add to the rich literary heritage of the city, which includes the literary ge-nius Charles Dickens.

KeliAnne, who was awarded the position after submitting four of her poems, said: “I am totally honoured to be cho-sen, as I was worried that they wouldn’t want someone only 21, but thankfully they took a chance on me and I’m going to hopefully show them they made the right decision!”

As Portsmouth’s Poet Laure-ate, Keli’s duties include not only writing poems for city events, but also working within the community to encourage people to get involved in writ-ing and performing poetry. Keli will be achieving this by running

a series of workshops in schools which may also be potentially extended to the new Theatre Royal.

Keli has already been busy in the community and recently at-tended a ceremony marking the 199th birthday of Charles Dick-ens, where she was officially ap-pointed. Keli also has an upcom-ing spot headlining the Not So Royal Variety Show on Tuesday 5 April at the Kings Theatre, Southsea.

This event is hoped to be the biggest student organised vari-ety show ever. Keli has said that: “people need to give perfor-

mance poetry a chance, and re-alise that it can be enjoyable and funny and that’s what I want to do the NSR Variety Show. I can’t wait to show the students of Portsmouth what performance poetry is really about.”

Whilst KeliAnne has ambi-tions of becoming a teacher, she still wishes to continue to fol-low her passion for poetry and is hoping to perform at festivals during the summer and is cur-rently applying to both Glaston-bury and Latitude.

Student chosen as first ever Poet Laureate of Portsmouth

Keli Anne B - UoP

Laura CrottyHead of News

Mike Maybury, more commonly known as ‘Clubbing Mike,’ re-cently celebrated his 76th birth-day on 3 February. This has caused public attention to return to his plight to be allowed back into Portsmouth club Liquid and Envy after he was banned in 2009.

Students from all over cam-pus have joined a group on Facebook, which received 200 members on its first day, to show their support.

Maybury became the victim of an unprovoked attack by an unknown male on 29 November 2009. The assailant allegedly kicked Maybury in the thigh, punched him twice in the chest and once in the face.

Maybury than grabbed the unidentified male by the shoul-ders and forced him through a door where both men had to face

a security guard. This alleged as-sault was not captured by CCTV, but Maybury was taped forcing the male through the door. Nei-ther Maybury nor the unknown male were banned at this time.

When Maybury found out that the accused male had not been identified, and therefore

not banned, he reported the in-cident to the Police for further investigation. Three weeks later, when insignificant evidence was produced because of the lack of CCTV footage, Maybury claims that: “It was the police investi-gating officer, at the end of the telephone, who told me that I was banned from attending Liq-uid.”

A letter sent by Liquid Gen-eral Manager Bill Dearsley to Maybury on 14 January 2010, stating that: “You will recall that at the time the police felt you were wasting their time and that CCTV indicated no assault had taken place. Their stance on this remains the same and so as such, regretfully, the exclusion remains as well.”

Since being banned from Liq-uid, Maybury has missed out on 20 hours of exercise a week – something which he deems in-tegral to his health. He has also

developed a blood clot in his right leg which, in his opinion: “should be put down to shock from lack of dancing and my so-cial life crashing down around me.” This is not the medical rea-son for the development of the blood clot.

On the nights when Clubbing Mike attended Liquid, he de-scribed how: “up to 30 girls used to come up to me and have their photo taken with me. Even the boys used to hug me and want my photo.” He goes on to say: “Students are so friendly; I had never known anything like that when I was younger. I was flab-bergasted by their friendliness.”

The Facebook group, named ‘Let Mike Maybury back in Liq-uid,’ states that Maybury was banned from the popular stu-dent club because “he was at-tacked for no reason of his own.” When asked about the ban on Clubbing Mike, Dearsley stated:

“It is correct that Mr Maybury is excluded from Liquid. I have communicated at length with Mr Maybury over the last year or so and explained my reasons for this exclusion which are dif-ferent from those stated.”

The debate on whether May-bury should be let back into Liq-uid continues as, even though some students loved to see Clubbing Mike enjoying student nights, many offer the opposite opinion.

One second year student said: “I think that it is nice that a man from an older generation wants to socialise with a younger one. If that’s his form of fun, who are we to stop him?” However, an-other second year student stated that: “Clubbing Mike is a lot older, if conflict surrounds him, then it might be best for him and others if he does not come back. Surely there are other forms of exercise.”

Group petition to to bring “Clubbing Mike” back to nightclub

Clubbing Mike - Joe Wilkes

3Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011 Sports20-24

Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19

Bangor University is reinforcing the dangers of cooking under the influence of alcohol after a student set fire to his food while he slept.

The unnamed student, who is living in halls, returned from a night out and decided to cook burgers only to fall asleep be-fore he had finished. He was luckily woken by the fire alarm and thankfully no one was in-jured.

The fire was extinguished and no ‘real’ damage was caused, however, students can be charged up to £300 for fire risk, so the University is now raising awareness and offering advice to all students on this is-sue.Source: seren.bangor.ac.uk

The University of Nottingham has announced that it is entering talks with the government of Shanghai to develop a new campus in China.

The University currently has six worldwide campuses, in-cluding four in the UK, one in Malaysia and one in China.

This new campus will be 140 miles from the one they already have in Ningbo and, providing the decision is finalised, is set to open in 2012.

This new campus will special-ise in courses based on life sci-ences which cannot be provided on the Ningbo campus due to lack of space for development.Source: impactnottingham.com

Students at the University of Kent have staged a 4 week sit-in that lasted through Christmas and New Year. The University’s Sentate building played host to a group of students from the Kent Radicals who were protesting against cuts made by the University in light of the new policies introduced by the Coalition. The last 5 protesters left the building peacefully 2 days before the issue was due to be taken to Canterbury Country Court as the University were seeking a possession order. A statement made by the Kent Radicals said: “we have achieved all we can from this occupation.”Source: inquirelive.co.uk

University Roundup: The best of student media from the UK

News

University

Matthew Willmot

On 2 February, the lavish £9 mil-lion University Dental Academy was opened by Health Minister Lord Howe.

The facility, which embodies a partnership between the Uni-versity of Portsmouth and King’s College London, will train den-tal care professionals and final-year undergraduate dentists.

It will not only provide state of the art equipment, but stu-dents will offer dental treatment to thousands of patients from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight under the supervision of a tutor.

Sara Holmes MBE, Director of the Dental Academy, said: “To-day marks the culmination of over two years of planning and represents a unique partnership between the University and the NHS.”

She went on to state: “The entire staff and student body are thrilled to be working and studying, alongside colleagues from King’s, in such a dynamic and progressive institution right at the heart of Portsmouth.”

The new development has been possible due to the support of the NHS and Higher Educa-tion Funding Council for Eng-land; the building and equip-ping costs, circa £9 million, have been met through capital contributions received from the HEFC England, the Department of Health, and the local NHS.

The additional revenue, circa £1.2 million, is derived from a combination of Dental Service increment for teaching (DSift)

and contracts with local NHS commissioners from Hampshire and Isle of Wight.

The new building more than doubles the scale of the existing facility, with the addition of an east wing that includes; 20 new dental chairs, radiography facili-ties, a state-of-the-art instrument decontamination centre, as well as a suite of seminar rooms that will be used for continuing pro-

fessional development activities.The new facility is an addition

to the University of Portsmouth School of Professions Comple-mentary to Dentistry which opened in 2005.

The facility will cater for 2000 patients a year, however, it is not currently accepting new patients with the exception of children under the age of 16.

One third year student, said:

“I think it’s great that the Uni-versity is able to combine teach-ing students with helping the community.

Dental care is costly and many people are not able to re-ceive the dental treatment they need, so this is a great way to both educate students and pro-vide a service to the Portsmouth community. I would just love to go there and have students pok-

ing around in my mouth!”In light of these new facilities,

students could lose the medieval stereotype of having a bad set of gnashers and, maybe in the near future, be found walking around showing a cheeky grin now and then.

For updates and to register for treatment, visit: port.ac.uk/departments/academic/denta-lacademy/patientcare

University Dental Academy to serve thousands in Portsmouth

Students get to grips with treating patients in the brand new Dental Academy - University of Portsmouth

Group petition to to bring “Clubbing Mike” back to nightclub

Lucas-Christiansen said: “We are not looking to spread people out, what we are looking to do is prevent concentrations of them in one very small area.”

UPSU has responded to the proposal by explaining how it is unnecessary; plans for more halls of residents will lower the amounts of students looking for housing.

Lucas-Christien went on to state: “If it transpired that the University are coming back to us next year and saying ‘we have students who are reporting to us saying that they cannot find accommodation in the city, even in halls and houses’, then we are going to have to look at this again.”

A first year Maths student who currently lives in Southsea said: “I wouldn’t want to live

much further away as getting to University every day could be a pain and coming home from a night out would either be more expensive or dangerous.”

An economics student who also lives in Southsea said: “If students start to spread out, the University would probably have to create another bus route es-pecially if it’s going to be a very long walk. There is also a risk that the extra time it will take students to get home on a night out means that they have in-creased chances of getting hurt.”

When asked about students concern with safety, Lucas-Christiansen replied: “We don’t fully understand the impact of this new policy so it is some-thing that is going to have to be monitored.”

Continued from front page

4 Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011

HUGE STUDENT SAVINGS! • HUGE STUDENT SAVINGS!

63-65 Fratton Road, Portsmouth PO1 5AE

To order call 023 92291291Opening hours: 11am till midnight 7 days a week

Online Off er Conditions: Collection or delivery. Please mention off er when ordering. Not valid with any other off ers. Valid at participating stores only. Only available online at www.dominos.co.uk. Limited delivery area designed with safety in mind. Off er is subject to availability and can be withdrawn without notice. Proof of student I.D. will be needed. ‡For a full explanation of Domino’s Family, please see our privacy policy at www.dominos.co.uk.

Two For Tuesday Conditions: *At regular menu price. **Free pizza must be of equal or lesser value than the fi rst. Available on medium or large only. Available on Tuesdays only. Not valid with any other off er. Valid for a limited time only and at participating stores. Please mention off er when ordering. Includes ‘Create your own’ up to 4 toppings. Subject to availability. Double Decadence and Dominator bases are charged as extra.

To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606. Text is charged at standard network rate.

To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606. Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.

Every Tuesday

Buy One Pizza*, Get One

Enter STUDENTS when promtedat www.dominos.co.uk

Holly Watkins

The Fair consisted of a number of events and tours around cam-pus to raise students’ awareness of the University’s involvement in activities which help the en-vironment.

Events included: a battle of the halls recycling competition, an environmental debate hosted by the politics and debating so-ciety, switch it off day in halls, and an environmental film festi-val. The main event, which took place on Friday 11 February, was the Environmental Awareness Fair, in which a small number of stalls from local environmen-tal organisations were able to showcase what it is they do, and show students how they can get involved.

Matt Blackall, VP Societies and Community, said: “There are a lot of organisations who are working on improving en-vironmental standards. These range from volunteer groups such as PCAN who lobby for


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19HUGE STUDENT SAVINGS! • HUGE STUDENT SAVINGS!

63-65 Fratton Road, Portsmouth PO1 5AE

To order call 023 92291291Opening hours: 11am till midnight 7 days a week

Online Off er Conditions: Collection or delivery. Please mention off er when ordering. Not valid with any other off ers. Valid at participating stores only. Only available online at www.dominos.co.uk. Limited delivery area designed with safety in mind. Off er is subject to availability and can be withdrawn without notice. Proof of student I.D. will be needed. ‡For a full explanation of Domino’s Family, please see our privacy policy at www.dominos.co.uk.

Two For Tuesday Conditions: *At regular menu price. **Free pizza must be of equal or lesser value than the fi rst. Available on medium or large only. Available on Tuesdays only. Not valid with any other off er. Valid for a limited time only and at participating stores. Please mention off er when ordering. Includes ‘Create your own’ up to 4 toppings. Subject to availability. Double Decadence and Dominator bases are charged as extra.

To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606. Text is charged at standard network rate.

To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the To receive off ers from the Domino’s Family‡ direct to your mobile, text the word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606.word ‘PIZZA’ & your postcode to 60606. Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.Text is charged at standard network rate.

Every Tuesday

Buy One Pizza*, Get One

Enter STUDENTS when promtedat www.dominos.co.uk

News

A black, silk, strapless dress previously owned by Marilyn Monroe is set to go on display in Ports-mouth Museum. The famous dress, which will feature in the ‘Little Black Dress’ collection, has been provided by a private collector and is due to appear in the Museum and Record of-fice until June. The ‘Little Black Dress’ collection will also show other famous dresses, popular culture, and film memorabilia from 1910 until the present day.

Hampshire police have seized £11,000 worth of cannabis in 2 raids which span two-and-a-half weeks. Officers from Pauls-grove’s Safer Neighbourhood’s Teams (SNT) uncovered a can-nabis factory when they raided a house in Harleston Road on 7 February. The shed of this property was found to contain 59 cannabis plants with a street value of £5,000. A previous raid on 19 January in Dursley Crescent resulted in the discov-ery of 27 cannabis plants. Ian Clarke, 50, of Harleston Road, appeared in Portsmouth Mag-istrates’ Court on 14 February charged with cultivation of and intent to supply cannabis.

Philip Foster, 40, pleaded guilty to criminal dam-age at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court early this month after he

smashed a window at Hamp-shire Boulevard pub in South-sea. Foster, from Stamshaw, was ordered to pay £108 to the pub £40 costs.

Aircraft carrier HMS In-vincible has been sold to a Turkish scrap yard, based near Izmir, which specialises in recycling ships. Leyal Ship Re-cycling purchased HMS Invin-cible in an online auction held by the Ministry of Defence; they did not reveal how much the aircraft carrier was sold for. HMS Invincible was in service for 25 years but was decommis-sioned six years ago. The ship will be towed from Portsmouth in March and will, ironically, take eight months to dismantle.

A statue of Charles Dickens is set to be erected to mark the 200th anniversary of the author’s birthday next year. The statue is being fund-ed by the Dickens Fellowship and Portsmouth City Council. The location is yet to be de-cided but possibilities include: outside the Central Library, the steps of Portsmouth Guild-hall and near Charles Dickens’ birthplace. Stephen Baily, the council’s head of culture, said there would be a competition to determine who will create the statue.

Holly Watkins

The Fair consisted of a number of events and tours around cam-pus to raise students’ awareness of the University’s involvement in activities which help the en-vironment.

Events included: a battle of the halls recycling competition, an environmental debate hosted by the politics and debating so-ciety, switch it off day in halls, and an environmental film festi-val. The main event, which took place on Friday 11 February, was the Environmental Awareness Fair, in which a small number of stalls from local environmen-tal organisations were able to showcase what it is they do, and show students how they can get involved.

Matt Blackall, VP Societies and Community, said: “There are a lot of organisations who are working on improving en-vironmental standards. These range from volunteer groups such as PCAN who lobby for

improved standards; to the Uni-versity who are in the process of completing their Carbon Man-agement Plan.”

Imogen Wright, who was in charge of the Oxfam People and Planet stall, spoke of a number of current activities that stu-dents may wish to get involved in. There is a petition circulat-ing in order to get a water tank installed which will recycle rain water for use in the toilets.

Another Oxfam sponsored scheme is ‘Urban Box’. This was initiated by Amy Baker and a volunteering team, and involved working in conjunction with lo-cal schools filling large sand bags with soil in order to plant in them.

Unfortunately, the scheme failed, however 16 of these bags are now outside Burnaby build-ing waiting to be filled by any willing students.

The Fair seems to have raised some amount of awareness, as one third year student who at-

tended commented: “I didn’t re-alise the University were making such an effort for the environ-ment, like recycling rain water for use in the toilets. It’s a really productive idea.”

The University employ four student Environmental Ambas-sadors for the Halls of Residence who work to increase recycling and reduce carbon footprints, and the Union are soon to be en-vironmentally audited, hoping to achieve a gold accreditation for their efforts.

Dr. A. Fasulo, Lecturer of Psy-chology at the University, who was manning the Greenpeace stall says: “You can do a lot of little things as part of your eve-ryday life, I wasn’t very optimis-tic, but since I joined the group I’ve learned a lot.”

The Environmental Aware-ness Week took place from Mon-day 7 February until Friday 11 February at the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union.

Union improves Environmental awareness

Fire leaves more than fat burnt at University gym after electrical faultEmily Wool

A fire broke out at St Paul’s Sports Centre in the main sports hall on Thursday 10 February.After the fire signal was raised to security at midday, two units from Southsea Fire Station were dispatched to deal with the blaze.

Using dry powder and a high level ladder, the fire was extin-guished quickly and safely after 64 gym members and 3 staff members were evacuated from the site.

It was confirmed upon arrival that the fire originated from a high level lighting area in the main sports hall, meaning a safe electrical supply to the area also had to be installed by the fire

brigade.The damage appears to be

limited to the high level lamp it-self and an official investigation as to how the fire broke out will be taking place within the next few days.

Lisa Wearn, Sports Facilities and Operations Manager at the Nuffield Sports Centre said: “It’s possible the cause may be over-heating or a wiring fault, but we do not know until the reports are finished”.

She added: “We would like to thank all of the students for their patience. The fire drills re-ally do help when the ‘real thing’ happens.”

A third year student who reg-ularly attends the gym said: “I

called the gym to make sure the class I was attending was still on. The staff were very helpful and everything ran as normal which is really good; nobody needs another excuse to not at-tend the gym!”

Although the main sports hall, in which the fire was situ-ated, may remain closed for a few days so the rest of the lights can be deemed as safe, the gym itself shall remain open as nor-mal. If you have any queries as to whether your gym experience will be affected please contact either of the sports receptions at on 023 9284 5555.

St Paul’s Sports Centre is largely functioning as usual - Dan Chesterton


Education

Becka Hogg

With an increase in university tuition fees of up to £9,000 from 2012 and now the complete scrapping of the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) scheme, which provides sixth form and college students a means-tested grant of up to £30 a week, the coalition government cuts seem to be having a damaging effect on the educational outlook for young people across the country.

With this lack of available fi-nancial support, where will the cuts to education end? And will many students decide that the cost of further education is sim-ply too high?

Principle of Highbury College, Stella Mbubaegbu, has described the government’s EMA cuts as ‘devastating’, and she is not alone in her concern for the impact the cutting of this grant will have on the prospects of young people. Many students across the country have been protesting against the government’s latest cut to education.

Without the correct financial support, many young people could be denied the opportunity of further study. It will arguably be the case that only those who are from wealthier families will have the financial means to continue their education beyond secondary school, leaving behind many able students.

Shadow Education Secretary, Adam Burnham, has said that the scrapping of EMA was ‘kicking away the ladder of opportunity’ for many young people.

However, Burnham admitted that many students did not spend all of this cash on their studies. To avoid this, student, Emma Barkham, argued that instead of scrapping the scheme altogether, “the government should provide stricter means-testing, so that those who are really in need of support receive the help they need.”

Without support for those young people who require financial assistance to further their education, the opportunities for many will be dramatically reduced.

In an economic climate where many are struggling to find employment, will it not simply be the case that those who cannot afford to continue their education will end up unemployed and costing the

Sales and Marketing Suite and Show Apartments open Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm (Fridays 4pm)

02392 816 150

2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartments with parking

from just £140,000

Picture this!NEW luxury student accommodation in the heart of the city

SOUTHSEAVista, Fratton Way PO4 8FD

Secure your trendy student pad, and a sound investment for the Bank of Mum and Dad

What your parents get:• A short or long term investment opportunity• Rental income of up to £750* pcm

What you get:• A modern and comfortable environment in which to live and study• Close proximity to the city centre and Fratton train station – direct line to Gunwharf Quays in 7 to 13 minutes• Allocated car parking space

... and you get to choose the perfect flatmate!

* Based on current rental values within the Vista building. Prices correct at time of going to press. Images shows the Vista apartments.

Vista, Fratton Way PO4 8FD

Sales and Marketing Suite and Show Apartments open Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm (Fridays 4pm)

02392 816 150lindenhomes.co.uk


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19Opinion

Education

Becka Hogg

With an increase in university tuition fees of up to £9,000 from 2012 and now the complete scrapping of the EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) scheme, which provides sixth form and college students a means-tested grant of up to £30 a week, the coalition government cuts seem to be having a damaging effect on the educational outlook for young people across the country.

With this lack of available fi-nancial support, where will the cuts to education end? And will many students decide that the cost of further education is sim-ply too high?

Principle of Highbury College, Stella Mbubaegbu, has described the government’s EMA cuts as ‘devastating’, and she is not alone in her concern for the impact the cutting of this grant will have on the prospects of young people. Many students across the country have been protesting against the government’s latest cut to education.

Without the correct financial support, many young people could be denied the opportunity of further study. It will arguably be the case that only those who are from wealthier families will have the financial means to continue their education beyond secondary school, leaving behind many able students.

Shadow Education Secretary, Adam Burnham, has said that the scrapping of EMA was ‘kicking away the ladder of opportunity’ for many young people.

However, Burnham admitted that many students did not spend all of this cash on their studies. To avoid this, student, Emma Barkham, argued that instead of scrapping the scheme altogether, “the government should provide stricter means-testing, so that those who are really in need of support receive the help they need.”

Without support for those young people who require financial assistance to further their education, the opportunities for many will be dramatically reduced.

In an economic climate where many are struggling to find employment, will it not simply be the case that those who cannot afford to continue their education will end up unemployed and costing the

economy in other ways?Another student, Laura King,

feels that they are right to scrap the current EMA scheme, “I do think that they are right to scrap the scheme that they have got, as people use it as an incentive to stay in education for the wrong reasons, but there needs to be a fairer way of getting money to those who need and deserve it.”

As it stands, the education maintenance allowance currently sets the taxpayer back £500 million a year.

With the Shadow Education Secretary conceding that this money is not always put to the best use, it is arguable that some reform of the scheme would be needed.

However, despite any failings of the current system, further cuts to education should be a prospect that we should all rebuff. Fundamentally, all young people should have the right to receive an education, and the government’s cuts will soon see that this is no longer a possibility.

The opportunities that many of us, as students here at the University of Portsmouth, have been fortunate enough to experience, could, for many, soon become a thing of the past.

Where will the cuts to education end?

Protestors at London NUS march - Sarah Jackson

The HMO bill will only de-stroy the community that everyone has worked hard to build, says Grant Clarke.

Portsmouth City Council seems very much bent on de-stroying the local economy. As they have recently unveiled the plans for next years budget, not a single word is being heard from outside of the offices of the council in guildhall square.

I take the most recent ex-ample of the abuse of power the council is exacting upon its constituents; the new rules for shared housing in Portsmouth. The new rules, which mainly effect Students (as they are the highest amount of people sharing housing in the city) es-sentially moves to spread them out. Landlords having to gain planning permission to change a house in to a shared house sounds a bit out of touch with the modern world. I can imagine that what they are hoping to do with this is to increase business in areas further out of the city,

with more students being spread about the city, using shops or drinking in pubs that usually only locals do. Whilst there is a good relationship with students and local residents (as with any-thing, i think it is the one or two bad stories on both sides of the equation that gives each a bad name), students, especially first years who are just finding their feet naturally draw to each oth-er out of fear of the unknown. I mean to say that when I started uni, I was terrified about being by myself for the first time, al-though i was excited, suprised and mesmerised by how vibrant and beautiful the city, the stu-dent community, and local com-munity is.

With this housing bill, I feel that the only gain that the council can make is a new pile of angry letters from students who can’t get houses with their friends, Landlords making a loss on what can only be termed the business of tenancy, and busi-nesses, large and small, who are

making a loss during the cur-rent economic climate because the people with the disposable incomes have been marooned so far away that it becomes too much effort to not only go to uni, but then have the expense of shopping too. Not that I’m massively pro consumerism, but a lot of people are. So, hey-ho-hum.

I think if the council honestly cared about helping the people that they’re supposed to be, they wouldn’t be spreading out the students, or anyone in a shared house for that matter. Whilst it’s true, we don’t pay council tax, we do enable those in the com-munity to be able to. spending money in local pubs and busi-nesses allows the community to stay afloat, and spreading over 20,000 students further apart is just going to increase costs for those all around, making Ports-mouth a very unattractive city to live in.

Student Housing

Student housing scene could be destroyed under new bill


Opinion

Nandini Indiran

“Most religions warn against war, yet more wars have been fought over religion than per-haps anything else. Christians have killed Jews, Jews have killed Muslims, Muslims have killed Hindus, Hindus have killed Buddhists, Catholics have killed Protestants, Orthodox have killed pagans, and you could run that list backward and sideways and it would still be true. War never stops; it only pauses.”

These are the words of Mitch Albom in ‘Have a Little Faith’ and whilst they may be true, we can do something about it. Most of us do have a religion where-as; there are also a significant number of atheists around. Now, let’s forget about wars and talk about what is happening around us. A group of black boys beat up a group of Muslim students

in London. A gang of angry white guys assaulted some black boys in Portsmouth. Why? Due to skin colour? Or is it because the media keeps telling us that a certain group of people should not live in our society?

“ So, why breed hatred when it does

not take us any further?

I am not a Muslim, but often people think that I’m a ‘Paki’. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? I heard a group of young children shouting things like “go back bitch!” “Go back to where you came from” “Paki bastards!” Where do they learn these things? Are their parents responsible or do they grow up in a hostile environment?

I think the time has come to stop discriminating people be-cause of their skin colour, race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever you can think of. The world is changing now and you can find a Jewish Chinese person and a Hindi African.

So, why breed hatred when it does not take us any further? I know it’s not easy to embrace all cultures when you have to deal with ethnocentrism-a belief that your ethnic group is superior. However, we should all try!

I think the first step is to put religion aside and live by ‘hav-ing a little faith’. Many people often get that mixed up! You do not need a religion to have faith. I define faith as ‘having com-plete confidence’ and you can have faith in a religion, science or a parent. So, stop preaching and start loving each other. Take care!

Have a little faith in multiculturalismHow can we learn to respect each other in society?

Hana Mcfaul

As university students, we are all expected to be able to look after ourselves. We learn to use a washing machine, make a va-riety of meals that don’t include pasta, and work without the constant hassle from teachers for the late bit of homework. So why is it that so many students constantly get away with be-ing lazy and messy, whilst oth-ers clean up after them? It’s not even that the ‘cleaners’ mind doing a bit of extra washing up, or collecting of last nights glass-es and bottles, except that we know that the help will never be reciprocated.

In our third year of uni we have mountains of work that keeps piling up, and looming deadlines coming out of our ears: is it too much to expect a bit of common cleanliness and a tidy work place? Would you

leave your empty crisp packets scattered around your parents house, or last nights dinner plate on the dining room table? With-out sounding like a whining par-ent, it is in everyone’s interest to clean up. start to make amends, before your housemates begin to get fed up with you.

If you are the cleaner, devise a way to talk to your housemate and sort out a rota, or some way to get them to get off their high horse. If you are the one who doesn’t pull your weight, get up and start to make amends, be-fore your housemates begin to get fed up with you.

With more and more sta-tistics coming out about dirty households, and shows like How Clean is Your House showing you how you could end up if you lived alone, it is worrying to think about the dirt that would build up without the coopera-tion of your housemates.

Dirty housemates

Alexander Vince

At a time where the words “Tough”, “Difficult” and “Pain-ful” are used by politicians from every calling to describe the next few years, where the future is made to sound far less sta-ble then the present, the world seems to be in a very precarious state. Because of this underly-ing uncertainty that seems to be running through the spine of society, the events happening in Egypt are exceptionally potent, where real progress appears to be being made in the face of hardship and authority.

By looking at what the pro-testers who seek to remove Pres-ident Hosni Mubarak are doing, by looking at who they are and where they come from, by look-ing at the actions being taken in order to try and stop them and by looking at the strength of feeling and support from across the globe directed towards them, we can really see the roots of a new form of progress that may eventually radiate across the world.

Though the protests in Egypt may never have taken off with-out the successes in Tunisia, they are able to successfully sustain

themselves. At the core of them is the use of social networking, where all those interested are able to quickly and easily find others with similar feelings, or-ganise and communicate. This is probably the most significant development in the movement and why it might affect all of us in the long term.

Though social networking seems familiar to all those who regularly use it, and I don’t doubt that most of you reading this will have used it in some form or another recently, it is a new unknown in the grand scheme of things. It is not some-thing that governments are com-fortable with using, particularly those that have been in power for decades preceding it.

It is almost exclusively a tool used by the young, one which very successful intellectual and authority figures still do not completely appreciate. It is used to great effect in England as a backbone to the student demon-strations, not by a small group of agitators, but by the large ma-jority. In Egypt, it helps connect all those interested in change, allowing them to work together beyond the usual confines of the different groups they may be

members of. As a testimony to its effectiveness, the Egyptian gov-ernment expanded a great deal of effort in order to try and shut the internet down across the region, and in a show of resil-ience, those outside who could not directly take part in the pro-tests were able to keep channels of communication open, were

able to keep the world informed of events taking place. While a conclusion to the events in Egypt still hasn’t been reached, the part played by social media cannot be questioned.

Though there are many wor-ries about the future, about the availability of jobs, about the fairness of society, about fees

and liberties, there is some re-lief in the idea that people are becoming more connected, are working together towards a bet-ter future, not in the interests of any one group or ideology, but in the interests of each other. The future might look fairly grey, but there are defiantly signs of brightness in it.

Of Egyptians and social networkingInternational

Local & student life

Ah

mad

Ham

mo

ud

The views expressed on this page and throughout this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of UPSU, Pugwash News or the editorial team.


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19Opinion

National Debate: Top Gear

Ross Keating

So soon after one scandal it seems another has to be thrust down the British public’s throats. If it’s not an MP spending vast amounts of the taxpayer’s mon-ey then it’s a long-haired dick-ing machine boasting about shagging an actors’ satanic slut granddaughter.

This week’s scandal? The ste-reotyping of Mexicans by three middle aged blokes on a BBC show. Seems harmless, doesn’t it? Well, according to ‘millions’ across the country, it isn’t so harmless and is in fact deeply offensive.

For those of you who aren’t up to date, allow me to recap in a very quickly. A Mexican super-car is to be released (the Mas-tretta MXT for those of you who want to know, and more on that later) and the boys on the show didn’t like it. Not only that, they used an outdated stereotype to

make it seem funny, which is amazing considering BBC’s Top Gear is seen as an entertainment show. So what was the problem?

“ Actually, can I put that or

will I have to send a letter

of apology to the citizens of the

United Kingdom?

Turns out they weren’t deal-ing with a tiny island nation full of moustache-ridden, lazy peo-ple. Oh no. They were in fact dealing with Mexico, the 13th largest economy in the world, and a country which can claim to have a lower unemployment rate than the UK, 7.7% for us to 5.5% for them.

To add insult to injury, the Mexican’s have a larger export economy than we do as well,

meaning they still have an en-gineering backbone. We don’t. We have the job centre. Actually, can I put that or will I have to send a letter of apology to the citizens of the United Kingdom?

Mexico has a rich and vibrant history as well, don’t forget. It was the seat of power for some of the most powerful civiliza-tions in history, from the Mayans to the Aztecs.

The food is also delicious. I will admit, yes, some dishes do look like they’d be more at home coming the other way in the digestive system, but come on, black pudding looks like it should be coming out of the back of a farm yard animal.

However, therein lies the crux of the issue. Why on earth is this vast, powerful country getting riled about a TV series which is often pushing the boundaries of its’ broadcasting? Top Gear is a bastion of British humour, which includes the playful (and

not vindictive) mocking of other nations. We mock the Aussies, Yanks, Krauts, Frogs, Japs and Ruskies, and yet they haven’t screamed at us have they? May-be you have to be in a world war to learn that this really is playful bantering at the heart of it.

Even at a micro level, we Brit-ish like to mock those of our neighbours who are different to us. Londoners, for example, will mock the Brummies as com-munist, idle and overweight with funny accents, whereas the Brummies will simply call the Londoners coffee-drinking ho-mosexuals with a penchant for leather.

Any Geordie will write any-one off as “gay” and all Scousers will plead for everyone to calm down. Of course, the north-south divide in Britain is still there, but I believe anything above the Watford gap is “the north” and therefore don’t ac-knowledge the existence of the

Midlands. So even at a micro level, the spirit of playful mock-ing is alive.

The car in question though, the Mastretta MXT, is based on a German car which was en-gineered in Britain and built in France. I will be surprised if you can get which one it is, be-cause it is at the heart of things a shameless rip off of a very nice European car and the Mas-tretta (not Mexico) should be ashamed of their blatant design copying. Maybe that’s how Top Gear should have responded.

In all then, they can take a joke too far and obviously they did with the simple phrase, “im-agine waking up and realising you’re Mexican.” Well, I’d hon-estly rather wake up and realise I was Mexican than British if this is the state of our society and media right now. At least they have an economy.

But isn’t a Poncho a sheet with a hole in it?leave your empty crisp packets scattered around your parents house, or last nights dinner plate on the dining room table? With-out sounding like a whining par-ent, it is in everyone’s interest to clean up. start to make amends, before your housemates begin to get fed up with you.

If you are the cleaner, devise a way to talk to your housemate and sort out a rota, or some way to get them to get off their high horse. If you are the one who doesn’t pull your weight, get up and start to make amends, be-fore your housemates begin to get fed up with you.

With more and more sta-tistics coming out about dirty households, and shows like How Clean is Your House showing you how you could end up if you lived alone, it is worrying to think about the dirt that would build up without the coopera-tion of your housemates.

Sofia Varona-Crew

Last Sunday, the 30th of Janu-ary, I watched with shock and disappointment how Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May were allowed to ruin the reputation of their internationally acclaimed show, Top Gear, as well as the BBC’s.

Whilst introducing a new Mexican sports car, the Mas-tretta MXT, the three presenters made bigoted comments that don’t go unnoticed by the view-ers.

Hammond said: “Why would you want a Mexican car? Be-cause cars reflect national char-acteristics don’t they? Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blan-ket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.”

Clarkson went on to say that there would be no complaints because the Mexican ambas-sador would be asleep while watching the telly. Continuing with their xenophobic remarks, Hammond and May then de-scribed Mexican food as “re-fried sick”.

I would have imagined that such a high profile television

show would make the appropri-ate effort to do proper research and not to let their commenta-tors look like ignorant racists.

An online user commented “I am sorry that the Top Gear show centred on outdated xeno-phobic stereotypes, but spoke nothing of the effort of Mexican engineers in building a wonder-ful car. Mexico is the 13th larg-est economy in the world and by parity it is the 11th largest consumer in the world. It out-

produces the UK in the manu-facture (and not mere assembly) of automobiles extensively. This fact alone represents many rea-sons as to why Top Gear would be more respectful of Mexico’s contribution to the auto indus-try. As to Mexican “laziness”, Mexico’s unemployment rate is 5.5% while the U.K.’s is 7.7% of the overall available workforce.”

The Mexican ambassador wrote a letter to the BBC com-plaining about this: “These of-

fensive, xenophobic and hu-miliating remarks serve only to reinforce negative stereo-types and perpetuate prejudice against Mexico and its people.”

A joke is a joke when every-one involved laughs, but making remarks such as “Just imagine waking up and remembering you’re Mexican”, can hardly count as one.

I am truly surprised the BBC, being the main representative of Britain throughout the world,

allowed for these comments to be aired, especially when Top Gear is broadcast in many differ-ent countries, including Mexico. Britain is a multicultural, wel-coming and accepting country, yet because of comments like these, its global image, not only in the media, is gradually being affected in a negative way.

Send us your thoughts on the debate to [email protected]

A joke is when everyone laughs - not just excludes others

BB

C

Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011Letters

Letters to the Editor

10

Have you got anything you want to write to us about or a response to any of the articles published in Pugwash News? Contact us at [email protected] and it may be featured in next fortnight’s issue.

Responses to extended library hours and sea lion sightings

Dear Ross Keating,

I truly am amazed at your psy-chic ability to claim that the pro-posed 24-hour opening time of the library will fail, especially without seeing the proposed sys-tem in place yet.

The library is an annoying place at times, but not for your reasons. Students bellow out noise from mouths and laptops, usually crap music along with how much ‘banter’ they encoun-tered the previous night, so if anything a 24-hour library will give me and others I see the peace and quiet we need to fo-cus on our work. In addition, people will not get bored by 2am, as there are students who do work, and your ‘anti-library’ stance does not reflect that of all students. Insulting the staff is no valid reason either, as I person-ally have never been irritated or disturbed by them, if anything I sympathise with them for the ignorance they have to endure from students.

Of course, it runs the risk of trouble, what building does not? However, I hardly doubt the mayhem and fornication you predict will be set upon the li-

brary, especially in May when people realise it is exam time. If anything, the article you wrote encourages people to go drunk to the library, so well done.

The one criticism I would have is that the trial could be sooner, as I think it would ben-efit dissertation students whose deadlines are fast approaching, but either way a trial will do no harm and I for one am happy for it.

You should probably focus more on why sports teams, most of which are not that good, wish to relocate exams, in exam time, in a seat of learning, so they can train. There I am thinking uni-versity was for learning and get-ting a degree.

I believe a 24-hour library would be beneficial, and at the very least, the trial should go ahead. You cannot knock it un-til you try it. So let us use this trial, and if it turns into a red light district version of Tesco as you state, I give you permission to continue to ignore the library between the regular hours of 8am until midnight.

Andrew Hill

To whoever is interested.

I was born and raised in Ports-mouth and have seen many sea going creatures over the years in our waters including sea lions and dolphins. One of my part time jobs has me working at Port Solent Marina at the top of Fare-ham Creek and we regularly see a sea lion in the waters outside the marina. As stated in the re-

port sea lions are usually fairly difficult to spot as they look very much like a buoy floating in the water but usually the wash in the water is a giveaway. I will keep my eyes open and see if I can catch a picture next time!Thanks for the hard work on Pugwash news.

Jonathan Lewington

Although it isn’t a permanent fixture, the 24/7 opening of the Library is at least a step for-ward. They’re trialling it in a time where student’s demand on the library is at its highest, with a lot of coursework dead-lines, dissertations and exams during this 4 week period. My only concern is for people who already spend extended periods in the Library, and whether this may open to the door for people pushing themselves too hard be-cause there is no limit to their study time.

This is their choice however, and it seems that the benefit this will bring to many will probably outweigh this concern. Hopeful-ly extending the opening times should relieve some of the de-mand during the busier hours, making it easier for students to take advantage of the resources available to them. Even though I only have 3 and a half months left, it’s good to see they’re tak-ing some student ideas into con-sideration.

Jack McKenna

Dear Pugwash News,

I would like to take a moment to clarify the position I have taken this year regarding the 24-hour library campaign.

This is a campaign that has been taken seriously by the Un-ion for the past four years, but has been spoken about with the University for the past decade.

At the beginning of my term of office the University had tri-aled extended opening of the IT suite for a week in May.

This was positively received and it was clear the University had strong intentions to roll-out another trial this year for the full library over a number of weeks.

This is a massive win for the students and I hope that it will be used over the five weeks overnight to ensure that the University see this as the correct move to make.

I do have my own quibbles regarding the encouragement of overnight study but it is a hard

habit to break, especially when the library is so overused during the daytime even in non-exam periods.

For me, a 24-hour library needs the support of being able to return home safely, IS service support on the helpdesk, securi-ty at the entrance and access to affordable hot food and drinks.

For this trial period it is im-portant that our students use the library and provide their thoughts and feedback on how this can be improved. So please let the Union and the University know that a 24-hour library is money well spent and that they should continue to invest in ex-tended opening hours of build-ings and bus services. Use it or lose it!

Sam ‘Goose’ Jones

Sirs,The proposed trial for a 24 hour opening for the library is a posi-tive step forward for the uni-versity. Libraries of many other universities around the country do have 24 hour opening, and given the rise in tuition fees in the upcoming years, students will expect more from their uni-versity’s services.

I myself have found frustra-tion at the library closing its doors before midnight, espe-cially since when one has settled down for the evening and is in full flow with doing work, be-ing told to up sticks and trudge home with a bagful of textbooks

isn’t really the best stance for a university to adopt.

Whilst the extended hours have been campaigned for long and hard, I am surprised that this year’s sabbatical officer has chosen not to follow through with it, since it is has been one of the burning issues for each sabbatical year-on-year. Unlike Dolly Parton, not everybody is a nine till five person - a large portion of the student body are more productive during the twi-light hours, and opening the li-brary during the night will cater for the night-owls amongst us.

Chris Yeoh

Sea lion sightings


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19Features

Pompey’s perfect poetHana McFaul Features Editor

Portsmouth University stu-dents trump the locals as the city’s first Poet Laure-ate, KeliAnne B, who was chosen on February 7th (Charles Dickens birthday), is a Creative Writing and Drama student at the uni-versity.

The honorary role is to in-volve writing poetry for events around the city and to encour-age the rise of both reciting and writing poetry. The birth place of Charles Dickens and an idyl-lic coastal city, Portsmouth is the perfect place to encourage and inspire young, and old, to write poetry.

At just 21, Keli has youth on her side to help interact with the whole community. Her role is to spread her love of poetry and her work around Portsmouth. Her passion for poetry is obvi-ous and when talking to her she says that she has been writing her whole life. “It's something I feel I "have" to do - I'm sure many writers can relate to this”. She is “inspired by everyday life, by relationships with others and just by realising that you can sort things out in your head just by writing them down”.

As well as writing and per-forming poetry, she loves to read it. “Anything by U.A. Fanthorpe or Phillip Larkin is so easy to read and fun, and just reading their work inspires me to write”.

Keli feels that the biggest barrier with poetry is that peo-ple think it’s boring or inacces-sible. She feels “it is my aim to make people realise that it can be fun and it can be enjoyable and easy to understand”. She has been working with Dom Kip-pin at Portsmouth City Council and planning lots of things, but

says she “would love to get into schools before World Book Day and run a small workshop to get the children inspired to write a poem to be performed at Guild-hall on the day. I think they'd love that!”

Her first step in the new role as well as planning events has been to write a poem that was filmed Monday 14th Febru-ary for World Book Day. She has also signed up for a perfor-mance and reading at the Conan Doyle event in the city Library, on the 21st February. She says however, that “at the moment we are carving out the role of Poet Laureate as it goes along because being the first ever one in Portsmouth means that we're just seeing what people would like from me!”

Poetry is a major source of expressing your feelings and

a great way to relax yourself. Keli advises any budding poets to keep writing and “When you get that little idea or line for a poem at 2.30 in the morning when you're comfortable in bed, make the effort to get up and write it down because there's no way you'll remember it in the morning! Get to as many open mic shows as you can, and make sure you ask for feedback on your poems - creative writing tutors are especially great for constructive criticism”.

Keli’s performance poetry is online at youtube.com/kelian-neb or look at her myspace.com/kelianneb for more po-ems. She will also be headlin-ing at the “Not So Royal Variety Show” on Tuesday April 5th at the Kings Theatre.

Inbetween Bonesby KeliAnne B

You and I are made of the same skin –I cannot explain how I know you will look in the morning,how I know the way you laugh,or how I just know.

Instead I find myself in the familiar curve of your elbow,when late at night, I curl into the corners of you,and escape everything that’s heading towards me.

“You just lie down here, sweetheart, and I’ll make sure nothing will happen to you”

Often, in the evenings, I am sucked into your backbone,whispering up your shirtsleeves -I am stuck in the chasm of you.

Making myself home between your ribcage,I will slide beneath sinews to learn the familiar taste of your mouth.My fingerprints will leave impressions on your tastebudsand I hope your lips taste of me forever.

And perhaps it is that I shall be found this way -hiding in the crook of your elbowendlessly waiting between bones.

Keli is now Portsmouth’s Poet Laureate - Dan Chesterton


Features

Sophie Kowalska

What is the deal with men just wanting one thing? And as soon as they get it, they are not seen for dust. I’m not naive, I know what a guy wants, and when it comes to it a one-night-stand is just that. People tell me that relationships can, and have, come out of one-night-stands, but in my experience, it hasn’t.

To be honest, I do not really want anything to come of a one-night-stand. I’ve seen too many girls chasing men just to be led on and get hurt by them. Why do men do it? Why can’t they just say it how it is from the start? The guys I have the most respect for are those who say from the start how it’s going to go. However, I have only ever met one of these guys.

Most guys are the kind who split up with their girl-friend, but still want her as

a ‘friend with benefits’. During this, they also

find a new girl to sleep with, and lead the new girl on just to satisfy his needs. I dislike these men a lot. Before you think that men aren’t like this, I can guar-antee that there is at least one idiot who is.

Most of you might not know about it, but there is a book called ‘The Game’. It explains to men a series of ways to ‘get’ girls. To boost their own self esteem and confidence. To get the pretty girl he wants and then to drop her and move on to the next one, just so he feels better. Yet the girl is left lost and confused about all the compliments he gave her. If a man does succeed in the ‘game’ he is treated as a hero, some-one to be worshipped. And people do, people follow author Neil Strauss around the world to attend his “pulling” seminars.

When a man does have a one-night-stand with a woman, after chasing her all night, he might see her as ‘easy’ or ‘desperate’. However, if they are dat-ing and the woman does not put out after a couple of dates, most guys start to lose interest. I am not saying this is all men, of course I am not.

On the other hand though, why do girls let it happen? Why do girls let their guard fall down at the first sign of affec-tion? And who is to blame for the hurt caused? Some might say it’s a woman’s fault for being naive. I just think people need to be honest about sex.

I am reiterating an old argument on the boy-girl front: Why can a man have lots of sex and be a ‘leg-end’, when a girl does the same thing, and is called a slut? We girls enjoy sex too!

Student Lifestyle

They say men are from Mars and women are from Venus

Neil Strauss, a God to men or a girl’s worst nightmare? Flickr: borkazoid

Do a Master’s, change your life

Purple Door, 28 Guildhall Walk, Portsmouth PO1 2DD. Drop in or book an appointment online at www.port.ac.uk/postgraduate.

‘My course looks at the principles of coastal management, the kinds of things affecting coastal change and how to best manage those changes. The course has given me a deeper understanding of my subject area and its place in the market and a qualification that shows employers that I’m committed to the sector.’

Chris Sergeant, MSc Coastal and Marine Resource Management

Deeper understanding

Postgraduate information days• Thursday 11 November 2010 • Tuesday 15 March 2011• Tuesday 6 September 2011

11.30am–2.00pm and 5.00pm–6.30pm.


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19Features

Katie Hildreth

In a society where consuming has become part of everything we do, it is important to reas-sess what we are spending our money on, and how important consuming is to us individually. As students we are all too aware of the lack of money and budg-et restrictions that we have to place on ourselves. Coming out of university with up to £21,000 of debt is not something that anyone looks forward to.

On a smaller scale it is im-portant to look at the money we spend on a weekly basis. I recently made the massive mis-take of checking my bank ac-count after about 2 months of ignoring what I knew was going to be a miserable balance. As I expected, it was quite shocking, my housemate took my cards off me and has put me on a strict budget of £20 a week which covers food, and not a lot else.

As a sociology student I find myself in a constant struggle be-tween knowing that the amount of money I spend on unneces-sary purchases is wrong, and still wanting to do it. I have managed to blow nearly my entire loan since January, with very little to show for it.

Consuming is extremely hard to avoid. We are plagued with advertisements wherever we go, bombarded with television adverts, billboards, film trailers, newspapers and magazines tell-ing us what to buy, seducing us with imagery and associations of products with a certain life-style, it makes it hard to resist.

I challenge anyone to go a whole day without buying any-thing, because it is not as easy as it sounds. If you manage a day, then try a week, and you may find yourself being excluded from a lot of activities because they all involve spending money.

Clubbing, the cinema, the pub: when the weather outside is as disgusting as it is at the mo-ment, it seems like nothing you can do is free. Our society has become a consumer society: the economy depends on it, social life depends on it, some people even pay for love by signing up to dating websites that charge people to find their ‘one and only’.

This may not sound like such a bad thing, but it is important to be aware of the massive in-equalities that are inseparable

from consumer society. Not eve-ryone can afford to consume and those that don’t may often find themselves excluded from society.

On a global level, the richest 10% of the population own 80% of the wealth worldwide. That is a huge percentage and high-lights the fact that only a rela-tively small percentage of the population are in a position to spend their money, like many of us students do, so carelessly.

As I am now on my £20 a week budget I am finding the hard way that I cannot do as much as I may like too, and have to miss out on things that my friends are doing. It is eye opening as I am being made much more aware of things that I waste my money on.

National Buy Nothing Day, in November, encourages peo-ple to not consume anything for one day, to try and counter all the consumerism that builds up throughout the rest of the year. Buy Nothing Day is a good idea, and students should try it to see the huge impact consumerism has on their lives, and to realise how much of it is just not impor-tant.

Visit buynothingday.co.uk and check out ways to rb your spending.

Money makes the world go round and roundBudget

Roxana Negru Health Correspondent

The one ingredient that strokes our inner chords.

Whether you hear the arpeg-gios on a grand piano, the high pitch harmonics of a guitar or the caressing of a bow on the strings of a violin, you cannot help but think that they are all pieces which fall perfectly into place, to form a bigger puzzle: music.

Characterised by timbre, pitch, intensity, this is the one ingredient that strokes our in-ner chords and lets them vibrate one at a time or together as one. How powerful and thought pro-voking is that?

The influence of music on our frail bodies goes beyond the limits of our imagination. On one hand, it facilitates learn-ing. An interesting fact which is not commonly known, is that Albert Einstein used to do very poorly in school, and his teach-ers considered him too stupid to learn. His parents did not give up hope, so they bought him a violin. Eventually Einstein be-came good at playing the violin and admitted that improvising

on the violin helped him find so-lutions for equations and prob-lems.

The answer to this mystery is that engaging yourself in playing a musical instrument (or sing-ing) helps activate both parts of the brain making it more capa-ble of processing information. If you have any instrument ly-ing around in the farthest cor-ner, most dustiest place of your room, give it a go! Who knows what you will manage to tap into!

Besides being an important element of entertainment in our lives, music is also connected to our mood, emotions and feel-ings. It can offer us the per-fect distraction from our daily problems, empathize with our mood and helps us release our emotions. Also, music is able to provide the perfect background for some introspection, letting us glide through memories and implicitly, through emotions. Basically, music can control and even improve one’s mood. With such a strong impact on us, mu-sic determined the appearance of the music therapy, which works wonders for patients with different issues. But you do not

have to get there to make use of the properties of music in gen-eral.

Even so, music may also prove to be harmful to the body in some cases. Studies show that the anapestic beat (two short beats, a long beat, then a pause) found in songs played by Queen, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin etc makes the muscles weaken in the entire body, because this beat is exactly the reverse of our heart and arterial rhythms. The fans of these bands may argue easily that this is not the case because they feel charged with energy whenever they listen to these songs. Where’s the truth then? Because we cannot have it both ways...

All in all, music is the best natural medicine one can take. The great thing about it is that music comes in different forms, colours and shapes, may be filled with ecstasy, joy, sadness or anger and can be there for us whenever we need it. There is the perfect genre out there for everyone. So next time you need a mood boost, put on your favourite tracks and let the mu-sic do the work.

Music is medicine for a disturbed soulHealth

Students come out of Uni with upto £21,000 debt - Flickr: A.drian


Arts & Entertainment

No Strings AttachedHannan Whitnall Screen CritcI am eagerly awaiting the re-lease of No Strings Attached, a story about a guy (Ashton Kutcher) and a girl (Natalie Portman), who insist their relationship is only physical - however we all know that this rarely works. We all love a good love story with a twist, especially with a huge dose of eye candy.

Marvel Vs Capcom 3: Fate Of Two WorldsLewis Dowling Internet and Gaming CriticWho doesn’t want to watch Wolverine pummel Dante, while Ryu watches ominous-ly? We’ve always wondered about which character was the strongest, and now we get to find out. Bring on the particle effects.

Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX – We’re New Here (Out 21st February)Paul Miller Music CriticWith a departure from his jazz-funk style, Scott-Heron’s vocal work on his recent album, I’m New Here, lends itself per-fectly to the XX’s remix style. Although an unlikely combi-nation, the sparse electronic beats and pulsing bass brings out the poet’s voice in a new light, without doing any dam-age to the originals.

I Am Number FourSophie WorrellArts & Ents Deputy EditorStarring Stormbreaker star Alex Pettyfer and Glee cheer-leader Dianna Agron, I Am Number Four is a fugitive on the run from people who want to destroy you, changing your identity and finding love along the way kind of film. Full to the brim with action, powers and unavoidable destinies, this film is set to be huge.

Feeder at Portsmouth Pyramids, 19th FebDan Whiteway Arts & Ents EditorOh, to go back to the days of sitting on Gran Turismo 3 with the only song playing on the playlist being Buck Rogers and filming yourself jumping around to Just A Day. Whilst we can’t go back to those days, we can experience the band that made those memories so golden. Apparently they have other songs too.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never – The Remixes (Out 21st February)Paul Miller Music CriticEveryone’s favourite obnox-ious little toddler is releasing a remix album. The only way it can possibly be good is if each song is over-remixed until it’s just deafening white noise that makes us forget he ever exist-ed. Then he can go back to be-ing a normal kid who gets bul-lied for caring too much about his appearance.

Never say Never Live DVDHannah WhitnallScreen CriticAs if a CD of remixes wasn’t bad enough, this is a live DVD! I couldn’t think of anything worse than watching an hour and a half of solid Bieber. It’s not like it’s going to match up to Michael Jackson’s This is it. If you ask me the boy is getting too big for his boots.

Farming Simulator 2011Lewis DowlingInternet and Gaming CriticIf you have to be told why this game will be shit then social services will be around to take away your console, because you’re obviously an abusive owner, subjecting your console to domestic boredom.

Jersey Shore: Season 1 (DVD)Sophie WorrellArts & Ents Deputy EditorOh look another reality show. Getting a bit boring now. Let’s face it, Jersey Shore is basically a show about a bunch of wan-nabes who want to be rich and famous and will do anything to achieve it, even if it means running around wearing barely anything, getting drunk, mak-ing out with strangers and fall-ing over all the time. The Hills was glamorous. This is pure trash.

Tinie Tempah at Southampton Guildhall26th FebruaryDan WhitewayArts & Ents EditorCall it a grudge against the man, long story, but after being promised an interview with the guy at 11pm, myself and a col-league ended up in a Gunwharf casino at 5am sans interview. His songs are so interchange-able and samey that Pass Out may as well just be played on repeat at his gigs. They are aw-ful catchy though.

InterveiwWhat’s Hot What’s Not

Sarah Jackson

Between studio sessions and preparing for their next tour, Grant Nicholas, Feeder’s front man spoke to Pugwash News about the highs and lows of the band.

Grant told us of the main is-sues they’ve had to face, “The hardest part was losing John, our drummer... that was the worst moment, because you’re not only losing a great drum-mer, but a guy who was with us from being young and a good friend. We haven’t really re-placed him, but yeah life goes on… we’re not trying to get the sympathy vote, but the fact that we was just starting to achieve quite big things as a band, it was a shame John wasn’t there to enjoy it with us.”

Another strain that the band have felt has been due to the current financial climate and the surge in music downloads, “In this kind of climate its quite a difficult time for everyone, now people don’t buy albums like they used too, certainly a

few albums back the CD mar-ket was a lot more healthy”, adding later; “Now everybody downloads and you have re-cord shops closing down eve-rywhere, so yeah it’s a bit of a shame really.”

This clearly upsets Grant, who feels that by downloading, people are missing out on part of the music experience, “It’s a shame… I still love the thrill of buying an album and seeing the artwork and the produced gear, and all that sort of stuff, I know some kids are still into that but not so many.”

He later reflected on the high-lights of the band, telling us of his favourite moments of being on the main stage at Reading Festival, having platinum and double-platinum albums, and also how they’ve made it to such success. He said: “We’ve always followed our dreams, we’ve al-ways worked hard, and we’ve never taken what we had for granted, and that’s something that may be a big reason why we’ve carried on for as long.”

Grant also told us about their time as The Renegades, an in-terlude that ignored commer-cial ambitions while refresh-ing the band. “It certainly sort of bought a new spark to us… we proved we’re not the sort of band that are too settled in their ways, we do like to shake things up and get back to our roots and do what we set out to do all those years ago, I really enjoyed doing the whole Ren-egades thing.”

Despite a fairly busy few months, they are showing no signs of slowing down. “We’ve got the UK dates, Australia, Eu-rope, then probably some fes-tivals and Japan” adding later “Our plan is to possibly get the album out this year and then maybe do a new album tour at the end of the year… at the mo-ment we’re putting the album out on our own label again, Big Teeth, so we’re very busy.”

You can catch the band at Portsmouth Pyramids on the 19th February.

Grant Nicholas of Feeder at Southampton University - Dan Chesterton

Grant Nicholas on life in Feeder

Gigs and Shows coming upFebruaryWednesday 16th One Night Of Elvis- Lee Memphis King at Kings Theatre; Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at New The-atre Royal

Thursday 17th Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown at Southampton Guildhall; The Feeling at The Wedgewood Rooms

Friday 18th Chinese New Year & Lantern Festival at Kings Theatre; Imelda May at Southampton Guildhall

Saturday 19th An Evening With Steve Harley at Kings Theatre; Black Label Society at Southampton Guildhall, Feeder at Portsmouth Guildhall

Sunday 20th Jane Austen at Kings Theatre, Mark Steele at The Wedgewood Rooms

Tuesday 22nd Zippo Circus at Kings Theatre (runs for 6 nights)

Thursday 24th Mickey Flanagan at Southampton Guildhall

Friday 25th British Sea Power at The Wedgewood Rooms

Saturday 26th Tinie Tempah at Southampton Guild-hall; Sarah Millican at New Theatre Royal

Monday 28th Jumping Ships at The Cellars

MarchTuesday 1st Flawless: Chase The Dream at Kings Thea-tre


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19

Flynn Massey

Southampton Guildhall06/02/2011

This year’s tour brought pop punk and hardcore rock back to Southampton Guildhall, with 1,700 fans making the place shake from start to finish. Cour-tesy of The Wonder Years, the gig begins with some good old fashioned rock. A band reminis-cent of early Set Your Goals and New Found Glory material, clap-ping spreads across the place like a rash, fast and quick around Guildhall, and by the time their small yet energising set ends the whole place is pumped up and ready to go.

As soon as they finish, Ameri-can pop punk’s newcomers Framing Hanley hit the ground running with their infamous and brilliant cover of Lil Wayne’s candy loving hit ‘Lollipop’, im-mediately setting the scene for a great night. Playing recent hits ‘You Stupid Girl’ and definite crowd pleaser ‘Hear Me Now’, audience screams for more tunes come from left, right and centre as they near the end of their set.

The penultimate act need no real introduction, captivating and kickstarting several mosh pits at both the front and the

back of the gig. Four Year Stong play a range

of hardcore rock melded with pop punk from the recent rip-roaring tunes ‘Wasting Time’ and ‘It Must Really Suck to be Four Year Strong Right Now’, to the old school favourites ‘Mani-ac’, ‘Bada Bing! Wit a Pipe’ and ‘Wrecked Em? Damn Near Killed Em!’ each one further whipping up the crowd in a frenzy, send-ing the audience into a spinning circle of whoops, beer and bril-

liant hardcore pop punk.Great new tunes such as ‘To-

night We Feel Alive (On a Satur-day)’ also get a play, with each one builds up and breaks down the whole place with an insane tempo. By the time their final song comes on, it seems as if it’s only been ten minutes since they began, but a whole hour of crazy and heart pounding pop punk has passed. As they kick into ‘Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die’, the inten-

sity and volume of the place has nearly hit the 11 dial.

Last but by absolutely no means least, the headliners and pop punk legends Good Char-lotte allow their music to speak for itself. With people respond-ing to GC as if church was in ses-sion, both classic hits and recent tunes are on the bill. Southamp-ton is enraptured in the great-est hits of Maryland’s finest, with everything known from their back catalogue played in

near two hours. Also unleash-ing some new material onto fans from their latest album Cardiol-ogy, everyone reciprocates with headbanging and smashing through the set.

Beginning with a timeless hit of theirs, chants began and car-ried on to the last note. ‘The An-them’ was truly that, with over 1500 people screaming their lungs out as the atmosphere reached dizzy heights. Although sounding at times quite ill, front-man Joel Madden still manages to give a rousing performance of his band’s best songs. Mosh pits surround all of the ground, and everyone dances.

Good Charlotte being a band which can only be described as a celebration of pop punk cur-rently at its peak, songs like ‘Lit-tle Things’, ‘Girls & Boys’, The River’, and ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Girl’ are all majorly em-braced like a free ticket. By the last song, a tour de force perfor-mance of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’, Southampton saw over 500 people causing the car-pet to tear off the ground with a lightning fast cyclonic mosh. No doubt, Kerrang!’s Relentless Tour shows that pop punk still lives and breathes, with both old and new guys giving this Guild-hall a night to remember.


Matt Borucki

Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms31 January 2011

After one EP, two full-length al-bums and five line-up changes, Attack Attack! from Westerville, Ohio have finally made it over to the UK for their debut tour. With the recent departure of guitarist/clean vocalist Johnny Franck, there is a strong sense of curiosity as to how well the four young men will perform with-out him. His unique singing and explosive stage-presence was a massive part of the band and his departure could arguably be comparable to the loss of a vital limb.

The band smash into their set with a brutal beatdown which does not feature in any of their-recorded songs. There is a brief pause for vocalist Caleb Shomo to shout ‘you think you can play God’ before the carnage of

‘AC-130’ detonates. It is almost surreal that an 18 year old kid is controlling the stage without looking intimidated whatso-ever. A man who can’t even buy a beer in his home country is flying all over the world, creat-ing havoc in every venue that is brave enough to lend them their sound systems.

Not a second is wasted when ‘A for Andrew’ begins, sending the crowd into a jumping frenzy without any need to be asked. Without any clean vocals in ‘AC-130’, the intriguing wait to see how well the fill-in guitarist/singer is finally over. Although sounding nothing like his prede-cessor,

Justin Hieser (the bass player in The Color Morale) completes the Attack Attack! puzzle per-fectly, appearing as if he could have been one of the founding members of the band.

More of Attack Attack!’s indi-vidual style becomes apparent

as they progress through the show. ‘Dr Zhivago Pt. 3’ sup-plies the crowd with the fero-cious metal characteristics of the band, while implementing the much loved dance sections into the song. It is impossible not to bounce around to these moments, and the smiles on the faces of the band show that they’re also having a great time. This is really what music should be about; I’m not at all suggest-ing that all bands must be like Attack Attack! musically, but in terms of their live show attitude, a few more smiles wouldn’t go amiss.

The first single ‘Sexual Man Chocolate’, from the 2010 self-titled album provides support act Bury Tomorrow with the chance to return the guest vocal appearance favour, with bassist Davyd Winter-Bates storming on to join the party.

After a standard ‘walk-off-stage’ encore, the band return

asking, ‘so what do you wanna hear?’.

The only response from the crowd is ‘Stick Stickly’, provid-ing the cue for the sound-tech to play the intro ‘Hot Grills, and High Tops’. The room erupts into a rave and then a mosh-pit as the intro and song are faultlessly merged together. A massive bass-boom, probably heard in Brighton thumps from the speakers, complementing the last breakdown as the band stamp their authority on Ports-mouth’s stage for the last time.

Before the gig, the thought of an 18 year old lead vocalist and a stand-in guitarist/singer didn’t

sound too promising. How-ever, Attack Attack! performed above all expectation. The youth of the band showed through their enthusiasm without any sign of inexperience or lack of power, and not a single fan left the venue disappointed. Expect a boost in UK ‘crabcore’ fans very soon.____________________________Want to write gig reviews? Email: [email protected]

Relentless tour rocks and punks up Southampton

Crab-core attacks south coast in jumping frenzy

Music

Joel Madden of Good Charlotte - Dan Chesterton

Pau

l H

arr

is



Milly Youngman

Architects - The Here And Now (Out Now)

Blowing up on the metalcore scene in the past couple of years, The Here and Now is the latest offering from Brighton-based Architects. The follow up to 2009’s Hol-low Crown (incidentally, one of my favourite albums of that year) seems to take quite a step away from its predecessor, nota-bly less heavy and leaning more towards the post-hardcore than metal sound. In fact, at times it

seems like a completely differ-ent band.

Tracks such as ‘Learn to Live’ showcase a more melodic sound that wouldn’t seem out of place on an Alexisonfire album, and as a whole the release is pep-

pered with more clean vocals than would perhaps be expected of the band. The frantic riffs and agressive vocals still show up, particularly in ‘Delete, Rewind’, but the overall sound of the al-bum seems lighter and much more polished than expected.

Not necessarily a bad thing, however - ‘An Open Letter to My-self’ is a slow-burner in the same vein as the title track to Hollow Crown, showcasing vocalist Sam Carter’s improved singing and has the perfect build-up to do so. ‘Heartburn’ is an anthemic ballad-esque track that strays even further into the softer side, and will divide opinion. ‘Stay

Young Forever’ features Come-back Kid’s Andrew Neufeld and injects a frantic dose of crunch and agression. On the subject of guest vocals, The Dillinger Es-cape Plan’s Greg Puciato pops up for closer ‘Year In, Year Out/Up and Away’, a seven and a half minute track which hits the nail on the head for mixing the heavy and melodic and throwing in all the elements of the album, and the band’s overall sound.

Fans of the heavier sound they’ve been accustomed to may be disappointed by the album, but at the same time, it has a more commercially accessible vibe which will undoubtedly

draw in some new listeners. It’ll definitely divide opinion - some will accuse the band of purpose-ly taking a more commercial direction, others applaud for blowing new life into the often-tired metalcore genre. With a few songs feeling slightly same-y, and a feel that there’s some-thing missing, it doesn’t quite stand up against the band’s pre-vious releases. However, taking it as a standalone, it’s a strong album that provides an enjoy-able and relatively diverse listen and a few outstanding tracks.Interested in reviews for Pug-wash News? Contact [email protected]

Architects build towards change in The Here And Now

Culture

Dan Whiteway Arts & Ents Editor

Putting on a theatre show for four nights and five performanc-es is hard enough on its own, probably anyway, having never undertaken the task, it’s difficult to tell.

If you take that pressure and then add the considerable bur-den of university work, it may well be something quite out-standing that a show can be put together.

But that is what the Dramatic and Musical Society is in the

process of putting together with their production of Gilbert & Sul-livan’s The Yeomen of the Guard that will be hitting the New The-atre Royal from Wednesday 2nd to Saturday 5th March, the 12th occasion of the society’s annual performance to take place at the theatre.

None more so most feel the burden of this pressure than director of the show Nathalie Gunn, a third year creative and performing arts student who juggles these pressures with also working up to 20 hours at week-ends.

Gunn, 22, said; “It’s getting to the stage where I wake up in the middle of the night, remem-bering something I have to do. I haven’t quite got to the stage of dreaming about it yet but we will see! I imagine I’ll be sleep-ing at the theatre once we start the productions.”

The choice of The Yeomen of the Guard was chosen back in May and Gunn has since spent the summer planning the pro-duction, with rehearsals for the 45-strong cast taking place since October and work will begin with the 41 orchestra members

in the two weeks before the show opens.

Musical Director Colin Jag-ger is confident that the show will run perfectly, with the show marking the 90th birthday of the

society, making it one of the old-est of its kind in the South.

Tickets for the show are avail-able on 023 9264 9000 and cost between £8 and £10.

Drama students know how to show off

Dra

mati

c an

d M

usi

cal

So

ciet

y


ScreenSuperhero film has hidden stingSam Fry

2011 is a great year for super hero fans with the likes of Thor, Green Lantern, X-Men and Cap-tain

America all set for big screen appearances, so what better way to start the year than with an action packed comedy with new found superhero The Green Hornet? Based on the 1930’s comic book and radio hero, Green Hornet has struggled to hit the limelight with television shows, short films and a reboot-ed comic book line all failing to make Green Hornet a household super hero name. Until now.

Seth Rogan plays Britt Reid, son of the owner of the Daily Sentinel newspaper James Reid. Britt is living the playboy life-style, living off of his father’s

success and wealth, but seen as a disappointment in his fa-thers eyes. Rogan fits the role brilliantly, immediately draw-ing a smile from the first word he speaks, combining his usual playful persona, albeit a persona that we’ve seen many times be-fore.

After the death of James, Britt is left as heir to the newspaper and befriends his father’s me-chanic, Kato (Jay Chou). After stopping a mugging, the pair pose as masked villains to get closer to real criminals, attract-ing attention from the most powerful gang leader in LA, Benjamin Chudnofsky, played by Christoph Waltz who’s per-formance is almost on par with his Inglorious Basterds form.

As the story progresses the action becomes more and more

impressive, particularly the lightning quick Kato, whose martial arts prowess is fantas-tic to watch. Introduce the love interest, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), Britt’s newspaper assis-tant, and the story begins to re-ally take shape. With the crimi-nal underworld of Los Angeles after Britt and Kato, the pair’s friendship is put to the test as well as their survival skills. Al-

though the story is highly en-tertaining, the plot can be quite predictable at times and Chou can be quite hard to understand in places.

The Green Hornet is not all ac-tion, Rogan’s humour and script writing style shine through and deliver

strong laugh out loud mo-ments throughout the films en-tire course. Rogan’s, Waltz’s and

Chou’sacting only intensify the al-

ready funny jokes which blend in perfectly with the fast paced car chases and gunfights. The Green Hornet is not in the same league as some of the films tipped for Oscars this February, but it is a film that can be easily watched and enjoyed, full of solid laughs and plenty of explosions.

Co

lum

bia

Pic

ture

s

Music


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19

Architects build towards change in The Here And Now

Dra

mati

c an

d M

usi

cal

So

ciet

y


Screen

Dan Whiteway, Sophie Worrell and Hannah WhitnallArts & Entertainment Team

Sunday the 27th of Febru-ary will mark the annual pat-on-the-back, cry-in-your-acceptance-speech, mutter-unpleasant-re-marks-into-your-drink-when-you-lose shingdig that is the Academy Awards, now into it’s 83rd year.With this in mind, we at Pugwash News have chosen our picks for some of the top gongs on offer.

Best PictureInceptionI am going to first of all admit that I did not enjoy Inception as much as I thought I would, however I believe that the visual effects in the film are worthy of

an Oscar. The storyline confused me in parts, but the effects kept me enthralled in the action. HW

Best DirectorTom HooperGraduating with honours from the world of TV (where he also truly excelled with shows such as the two part drama Elizabeth I), Hooper has hit the world of cinema hard in the last two years with first the Brian Clough biopic The Damned United and now The Kings Speech. A devel-oping master behind the cam-era. DW

Best ActorColin FirthStepping out of his rom-com comfort zone, the nation’s fa-vourite gentleman Firth bravely took on the role of George VI, with a performance that even

had the Queen’s corgis barking with excitement. With a Golden Globe and a star on Hollywood’s walk of fame safely under his belt, surely Mr Darcy has this in the bag. SW

Best ActressNatalie PortmanI believe Portman will win best actress for Black Swan. Her dra-matic portrayal of a ballerina who is going through psycho-logical torment was incredible. The range of emotions she had to portray throughout the film proved that she is a versatile actor that encapsulates an audi-ence. HW

Best Supporting ActorChristian BaleAs one of the worlds most rec-ognised method actors, Bale shows dedication to a role like

no other. Having nearly starved himself for his role in The Ma-chinist, to bulking up to play Batman, to slimming down yet again to play Mark Wahlberg’s druggie brother in The Fighter, it’s about time all his pain was worth it. SW

Best Supporting Actress

Helena Bonham CarterBonham Carter is usually recog-nised for her wacky roles in Tim Burton’s films, however in the Kings Speech she is completely different. Her portrayal of the Queen Mother supporting her husband is heart warming. The role shows her versatility com-pared to previous roles. HW

The Pugwash News Oscar Winners

Colin Firth in The King’s speech - Momentum Pictures

Maxine Mason Restaurant Critic

Albert Road is home to quite a few unspoken secrets in regards to restaurants, of which Sakura is definitely one.

Sakura is a cleverly hidden amongst popular student pubs and shops on Albert road, and I was rather shocked to stumble upon it, not aware of its exist-ence previously!

The restaurant specialises in Japanese cuisine cooked by ex-perienced Japanese chefs. It is well priced and great value for money, beating prices of well known commercial sushi bars. The atmosphere is authentic and portrays why Albert Road is thought to have such a multi-cultural ambiance.

At first glance you may feel as if the layout of the restaurant feels cramped and narrow, but the chilled atmosphere, friend-ly attitude of the staff and the amazing quality of the food will soon cancel this notion out. The choices of sushi and other dish-es are literally endless and you might spend more time decid-ing what to get, than eating the meal itself!

Feeling rather brave I chose to experience something new and opted for the Unagi Kabayaki meaning grilled eel with teriyaki

sauce. There was a stark differ-ence in taste between what I thought eel would taste like and what it surprisingly turned out to be like. I left the restaurant a changed woman in terms of my newly acquired taste for eel!

The meals range from pork, chicken, beef and fish with something for everyone, even those who are not as experimen-tal in the taste bud arena. The sushi is remarkably well priced ranging from £2.80 to £4.20 with a significant amount of su-shi provided for what you pay!

If sushi isn’t really your thing and you prefer to stick with a good old bowl of superbly cooked noodles there are a range to choose from, such as thick white wheat noodles and egg noodles. This restaurant will provide a great night out on the popular Albert Road, either for a group of mates or a chilled evening for a doting couple, the layout of the restaurant can be deceiving and not entirely con-vincing but the food is top qual-ity and a bargain for what you get in return.

If you are interested in review-ing restaurants please contact [email protected]

Hidden Oriental GemYoung people these days, what are they like?Jenny Hill

The end of January brought to us the eagerly anticipated arrival of Skins series 5, containing the much loved gripping storylines, quirky fashion, courageous and easily identifiable archetypal (even if exaggerated) characters and the deep, personal and pow-erful issues covered and high-lighted surrounding teen life. Does it represent an extreme version of reality for the average teen? Yes. However that’s what makes it exciting and relatable.

This series had a lot to live up to. Especially after the immense finale of the last series with the (assumed) murder of the much loved (and gorgeous) Freddie.The first episode focuses on Franky (Dakota Blue Richards) and straight away we know what sort of character she will

be; very individual and contro-versial, troubled and a bit of a loner.

Throughout the first episode, other key characters emerge such as the popular queen bitch Mini (Freya Mayor) and Liv (Laya Lewis) and Grace (Jessica Sula) the bezzy mates who look up to Mini. Ah, the stereotypi-cal female clique. There’s bound to be trouble, and sure enough there is.

However, it’s not all grim as Franky is befriended by the very funny Alo (Will Merrick) and his best mate, metal obsessed Rich (Alexander Arnold), who light-ens up the mood.

The second episode intro-duced us to ‘metal Rich’ who lives his life to the beat of ex-treme metal - which is obvious from his appearance. Like many teen guys he finds the idea of

girls rather daunting. So best mate Alo makes it his mission to fix Rich up with who he believes to be his perfect match. Grace also steps in to lend a helping hand. A potential unexpected emerging romance anyone?

Admittedly the first episodes were disappointing, but even so, the Skins producers have yet again successfully created new ‘different’ characters. Even though this is the fifth series it is still fresh, exciting and origi-nal as ever, but it just needs to up the ante a bit more to keep us hooked. After all, it will take a lot to surpass the brilliance of the first series and the adored original characters.

Catch up on the Skins series on 4OD.Interested in TV reviews for Pugwash News? Contact [email protected]

RestaurantSkin

s Ser

ies

5 C

ast



RetroRespect

Driver 2Matt Phil Carver

Disappointing sequel? Glitchy and frustrating? These were probably fair criticisms of Driver 2. But the reasons for the stilted gameplay were its most lovable quality; Reflections spent all of their time and money on the delicious cinematics.

The ominous footsteps of trench-coat hitmen, swaggering in sync to the seventies blues music of downtown Chicago. Suited and booted undercover cops, hustling for intel on the moonlit docks of Havana. This was before Max Payne 3, before Grand Theft Auto 4. This was the video game’s first proper date with film noir.

And the gameplay wasn’t all bad, was it? It allowed any simpleton with a PSone con-troller to master the complex art of drifting just by swinging

through a t-junction slightly too fast.

So many contemporary games are hugely conscious of storyline writing and cinemat-ics. The TV ad for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West saw fit to boast that it was co-written by the creator of 28 Days Later. Games are becoming just like interactive mini-movies, and so anyone who enjoyed Heavy Rain should also offer up thanks to Driver 2, even if they are still bitter about being unable to knock down those strangely im-mortal pedestrians.

Lewis Dowling Internet and Gaming Critic

There is no way to describe Mi-necraft. It barely qualifies as a game. The graphics are terrible, consisting of blocks of three-di-mensional pixels of varying col-ours. The mechanics are excep-tionally simple: destroy blocks, collect blocks, put down blocks. The storyline is hilariously lack-ing, involving only one objec-tive: don’t go into the dark, there be zombies there. And the price is insane, at £15 for a game still in beta testing.

Then why has my social life dissipated into nothingness, and my reality slowly resembling a Spectrum ZX loading screen?

Because it’s ridiculously ad-dictive. Set up a server, and have a few mates join, and you’ll soon

find that one of you is building a massive lighthouse, complete with water gushing out of the top, another is building a castle out of dirt, because he hasn’t learnt how to mine for stone, and another has built a lair in-side a mountain, and kindly signposted it with a gigantic phallic statue.

The joy of Minecraft is that it isn’t exactly a game, it’s a mas-sive toy. You don’t have any goal, except to avoid death, even though death has no real consequence, except returning you to your spawn point and losing whatever items you had. You just play around. You decide to build an almost indestructible house out of obsidian, and dis-cover that someone else has hol-lowed out an abyss underneath it, and is slowly filling it up with

explosives. There’s not many games where you get to shout at the screen:

“Why the f**k is there a cav-ern full of TNT underneath my house?! Which one of you put that there?”

If the beta is this addictive, im-agine what the completed game will be like. Entire countries will cease to operate, as their min-isters will be absorbed into a world where you can carve out a nuclear bunker into the side of a mountain, and have lava traps guarding the entrance.

Mine your life away, one day at a time in Minecraft

Internet & Gaming

Must WatchZero Punctuationhttp://tinyurl.com/3kdj4tA hate spewing, vile, vulgar, absolutely

hilarious, game critic.

Lewis Dowling Internet & Gaming Critic

Yes, this article is primarily writ-ten in an attempt to annoy as many people as possible in one glorious attack. However, it is also written to initiate the un-infected into playing this won-drous game, as is the entire point of The Game. Before we begin down this perilous road, however, we must learn the rules.

1 You are always playing

The Game

2 Whenever someone

thinks about The

Game, one loses

3 Losses must be

announced to at least

one person

Good, that’s settled. But what’s the appeal of this game? What is it that makes it so ad-dictive, so enthralling, so capti-vating? What is it that makes it fun?

Simple, it’s the primal act of ruining someone’s day. There are two types of players, you see. Well, actually three, but we’ll get to that later.

One plays it properly, avoid-ing ever thinking of The Game, rewarding themselves with a pat on their back if they manage to refrain from thinking of the dreaded concept. They try and beat their best record: a day, a week, a month, a year. They fight against the ironic process for as long as possible. They, of course, fail.

The second type play as the villain. They deliberately, when-ever they can, shout it proudly from rooftops, whisper it into friend’s ears, or carve it into toi-let walls. These people are bas-tards.

But that is what is appealing about The Game. The ability to play as hero, or villain. The con-flict, the inevitability of a fight, the addiction. It is perhaps one of the most simple, yet flawless games, with no AI, no storyline, no excruciatingly hard puzzles.

Everyone playing The Game is human, and if it were a video game it’d be the most ambitious MMORPG ever devised.

Of course there is a third class of player: the boring, old, killjoy farts, who know about it, but re-fuse to take part. But they, una-voidably, are playing. They can-not escape from it, even if they declare themselves out, and stop caring, they still eventually lose. They cannot truly leave, they cannot forget, they cannot stop playing. Usually these people end up becoming villains, and design stencils for spraying on billboards, ensuring everyone driving past loses The Game.

The Game is fun, it’s some-thing that everyone can enjoy, and is a lot deeper, complex, and exciting than any other. No oth-er game has so many mechanics, so many tricks from the villains, so many anguished cries of gen-uine frustration, so many people playing simultaneously, so many countries involved, and so much replay value.

And now, you’re playing too, and you’ve just lost. Sorry.

You’ve just lost ‘The Game’

Min

ecra

ft

Sports20-24

Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19

19Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011Pugwash News Wednesday 16th February 2011

explosives. There’s not many games where you get to shout at the screen:

“Why the f**k is there a cav-ern full of TNT underneath my house?! Which one of you put that there?”

If the beta is this addictive, im-agine what the completed game will be like. Entire countries will cease to operate, as their min-isters will be absorbed into a world where you can carve out a nuclear bunker into the side of a mountain, and have lava traps guarding the entrance.

Min

ecra

ft

Downtime

Crossword Photos by:Maartin Dirkse,

CLF, Pyramid Text, Disney Pixar, Larry

Page, Starbucks

CluesCOMPUTERCOURSEWORKELDONLECTURELIBRARYNEWSPAPERPARKPORTLANDPUGWASHRICHMONDSTUDENTUNIVERISTY

Fill the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 square includes all digits from 1 to 9

30 Second Number Cruncher

Anagram

Starting at the left, work your way across applying the instructions to your running total. No calculators allowed!

Across3. Clock face (4)7. New York (3,5)8. Sudden movement (4)10. Old fashion (7)13. Motivate and encourage (9)15. Prince Charles’ Eldest (7)16. Confused (15)18. American coffee shop (9)19. Egyptian writing (13)20. Earless artist (3,4)

Down1. Messy person (4)

2. Sicilian volcano (4)4. 2006 football world

cup winners (5)5. Extremely upset (10)6. Capital of Greece (6)

9. Well known American sitcom (7)

11. Conservative building destroyed (8)12. Pet rodent (7)

14. Toy Story’s “Evil Dr Porkchop” (4)

17. Extremely old (7)

Dates for the Diary

BEGINNER

Squared x2 +27 ÷5 -3 50% of this x9

ANSWER

7

Sudoku Comic Corner by xkcd.com

WordSearch

Student Volunteering WeekMonday 21st - Firday 25th February, Student Union

The Student Union are hosting a variety of events from career’s fairs and sports taster sessions to car boot sales, to find out more go to www.upsu.net/volunteeryingweek

The Big Clothes SwapTuesday 22nd FebruaryRoom 4, Student Union

The student run Theatre Company, Halogen Thea-tre is holding a fundraiser. Swap all your unwanted clothes and accessories between 1-4pm. Entry £2.

Crossword

Photo of the Fortnight - Krish Mistry London Eye


Sports

Feature

Ben Hyams interviews Konstanti-nos Giannakou, who is represent-ing English universities in boxing.

Deano, the first and last time I saw you boxing was at Portsmouth University’s home show in November last year. In your bout you displayed a monstrous power which I then wrote about in Pugwash News: When did you first realise you possessed such power?I was fourteen years old and lift-ing weights of 35kg in the gym. Already with a lot of muscle in my legs, it was my dad that took note of my strength and encour-aged me to do something with it.

When did you first start boxing?I was fourteen years old and training in Cyprus – I had three years training there until I had to enlist in the Cypriot army for two years where there is no box-ing training available at all.

Was there something that first inspired you to fight/box?Yes, it was the Rocky movies (laughter)! First at 14 and then I saw the second and then the

third and became a huge fan. It’s a classic!

Growing up, did you have any inspirations or heroes? Anyone that has stuck with you until today? We’ve al-ready got Balboa. Yes, in my teenage years my in-spiration was Mohammed Ali.

Can you pinpoint one area in which your experience with the University of Portsmouth Boxing Club has particularly helped your development so far? It is a huge difference between my old training in Cyprus and here. The opportunity to learn and educate yourself in boxing is far greater here by compari-son. Especially with my coaches Wayne, Colin and Chris – they are very good trainers that help you to improve yourself.

‘It ain’t about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward!’ Deano, what are some of the greatest obstacles you have had to face? For me, I think it is the transition involved in moving from Cyprus to England. And also my time in

the Cypriot army where it was not just physical, but mental strength I had to discover and sustain.

Ok Deano, if you could choose your own entrance music, what would it be?Motorhead – Time to Play the Game! I first heard it in WWE – its Triple H’s song.

Having watched you box, I know that is both a ter-rifying and fantastic song choice for you, mate – Con-gratulations! (Laughter) Thank you.

Finally Deano, how about a small sparring session with me for Pugwash News?

(Laughter) Yes, I would do that if it can be arranged – but I think

I will lower my power a little bit!

From Cyprus to England: Deano talks university boxing

Deano: the factsName: Konstantinos ‘Costas’ Giannakou aka ‘Deano’Club: University of Ports-mouth BoxingAge: 20 years oldNationality: Greek/CypriotUniversity course: Technol-ogy and Engineering (Founda-tion)Amateur record: 3-0 (repre-sentation for England Universi-ties in 3rd bout)

Joe WilkesSports Editor

The cricket club embarked on an eight mile walk in full whites in aid of charity, raising thousands of pounds for charity.

The club even wore full pad-ding and carried bats and hel-mets on the trek on 29 January between the Isle of Wight towns Ryde and Cowes, raising over £380 by mean of charity bucket donations along the way and over £1000 in sponsorship.

The event was designed to raise money for the charity Cricket 4 Change, an organisa-tion which aims to use cricket to change the lives of disadvan-taged young people with pro-jects in Africa as well as in the UK. The club also opted to do-nate half of the proceedings to the well-known Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity.

The walk went from the hov-erport at Ryde, to the nearest big town at East Cowes eight miles

away. The Club then bussed back to the hoverport, arriving home at around 6pm having set off around 10am, making it a

full day of walking for roughly 40 club members all laden with cricketing equipment.

Cricket Club Captain Jordan

Weller said: “It was a great day and we’d definitely do it again.

“I think it’s very good that the AU rewards the raising of mon-

ey for charity. It wasn’t any skin of our nose to do it, but when you’re competing against other sports clubs to see who can raise the most for RAG, (Raising and Giving) it’s nice to win one over. If we can win the trophy for the most raised it will be fantastic.

“Cricket 4 Change is a great way to give something back, but through cricket, and we think that Great Ormond Street stands out a lot form other charities.

“Our social secretary, Pat-rick Fullarton must take special credit for the walk as he put in a lot of time and effort organising it all.”

The club have increased their membership from around 80 to 125. Currently training, they start competing after the Easter break and have the potential to win three titles.

For Information on Cricket 4 change go to cricketforchange.org.uk

Cricket club raise cash in charity walk for Hospital

The cricket club geared up for the charity walk - Emily Jones

Deano shows his fighting pose - Dan Chesterton


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19Sports

Features

Laura CollinsSenior Sports Reporter

February looks set to be an im-portant month for sprint hurdler Lauren Thompson.

The first year Criminology and Forensics Studies student will be participating in several Championships throughout this month; the focal point however lies with the Aviva Indoor UK Trials and Championships.

The Aviva Indoor UK Trials and Championships provides the opportunity for fierce competi-tion to be displayed as it brings together the UK’s top athletes to compete in various world class events, including the 60m hur-dles, the event Thompson is in-volved in.

With a personal best time of 9.02 seconds and a season best of 9.04 Thompson received a letter in the post inviting her to participate in the Champion-ships, which took place on Sun-day 13 February at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

Thompson began her athlet-ics career at grassroots level and three years ago her talent was recognised by Aqua Pura who provided sponsorship which in-cluded paying for training for a year.

Although not a major sponsor-ship it still allowed Thompson to concentrate on her hurdling and strengthening her athletic abili-ty for a year; pushing her to con-tinue on as she has in becoming a top UK talent at hurdling.

When speaking to Thomp-son before the event the Aviva Championships was less about winning medals and more about the involvement: “I am just go-ing for the experience and run-ning with the top world class athletes,” she said, which in-cludes Jessica Ennis the current World and European heptathlon champion.

A scholarship from the Uni-versity would go a long way towards helping Thompson to continue to progress at the right speed which will allow her to

reach her full potential. She was unfortunate not to receive one for this academic year but is hoping that next year she can obtain one to help provide sup-port.

Thompson went on to say: “The main thing I want from the scholarship is physiotherapy because I can’t afford that as a student.”

The NHS is also unable to help as they say the injuries she obtains would be cured if Thompson stopped running.

Suffering from shin splints then means that Thompson needs the full support of a sports physiotherapist to ensure they are treated in the correct way and to spend minimal time out of action.

When asked about what she hoped to get from the Aviva In-door UK Trials and Champion-ships Thompson declared she didn’t think she had “peaked yet”.

She went on to say “as long as I keep training hopefully it

will pay off. I won’t be getting any medals for a good couple of years because obviously moving up an age group there’s going to be a lot of older people, like 22 year olds, but as long as I keep training and being consistent then hopefully it will pay off”.

The Aviva Championships therefore is an important event

for Thompson in helping her towards her aspirations for the Olympics. Thompson feels she is not quite ready for the 2012 Olympics but when asked about the future she said; “I hope one day maybe 2016, that’s definite-ly an aim.” And we wish her the best of luck for the future.

First year student hurdles towards Olympic dreams

Lauren Thompson makes the jump - Mark Thompson

ey for charity. It wasn’t any skin of our nose to do it, but when you’re competing against other sports clubs to see who can raise the most for RAG, (Raising and Giving) it’s nice to win one over. If we can win the trophy for the most raised it will be fantastic.

“Cricket 4 Change is a great way to give something back, but through cricket, and we think that Great Ormond Street stands out a lot form other charities.

“Our social secretary, Pat-rick Fullarton must take special credit for the walk as he put in a lot of time and effort organising it all.”

The club have increased their membership from around 80 to 125. Currently training, they start competing after the Easter break and have the potential to win three titles.

For Information on Cricket 4 change go to cricketforchange.org.uk

Cricket club raise cash in charity walk for HospitalSam Petherick

Men’s Football 3rdWednesday 2nd February2 – 0

Portsmouth men’s thirds played London Imperial College sec-onds in their first home game of the new year needing a win to leapfrog our own fourth team in the BUCS South Eastern Confer-

ence fourth division.Captain Matt Parry started

himself on the bench in order to oversee what was apparently going to be a tactical affair as the opening proved, with few real opportunities being created by either side. Portsmouth soon got into their stride and began to take control yet were aware of the threat posed by Imperial’s fast number ten.

Unfazed, Portsmouth took the lead through their own speed-machine centre-forward. The bustling Tom Resch fed Greg Walsh through the middle who raced through and finished to give Portsmouth the lead. The striker then nearly doubled his and Portsmouth’s tally when he honed in on goal again only to crack a bobbling ball high against the post.

After this the chances became few and far between and Impe-rial enjoyed a favourable period of play. Portsmouth managed to see out a tense final few mo-ments of the first-half to reach the break with a well deserved lead.

The second half began with Portsmouth on top and looking dangerous from the wings and they had an early chance from a corner nodded narrowly over by Rob Clare, who was eagerly pushing up from centre-half.

Imperial then had their best chance of the match to bag an equaliser as they forced Craig Weston in the Portsmouth goal into twice saving before seeing a third effort whistle past the post and to safety.

Portsmouth also had chances

to get what would be the crucial sec-ond goal. Goals-corer Walsh had a shot palmed away and later Zak Stafford fired wide after the ball had fallen kindly to him.

As the game neared its final stages, Ports-mouth made changes to pre-serve their nar-row lead. The combative Ed Mc-Cambridge gave way to Mason Gardener who had been recently drafted into the 3rds, and Parry came on for centre-forward Stafford to add some steel to help Pompey see out a tense finale.

Portsmouth almost man-aged to wrap the game up with minutes to go, however Resch fabulously skied his shot over despite being presented with an opportunity he would have ex-pected to finish.

At the other end of the field, Imperial had a chance to cause

heartbreak for Pompey which led an animated Ed McCam-bridge to cry from the sidelines “They’re going to score!” It was not to be for the visitors, how-ever, and Portsmouth continued to hold off their challenge.

Rather than sitting back and soaking up pres-

sure, Portsmouth saw the game out in their own attack-

ing fashion by pil-ing on the pressure

and in the last few moments of the game

sealed victory. Greg Walsh, again

causing trouble with his pace, was tripped whilst maraud-ing into the box by a tired challenge. Captain Matt Parry stepped up to slot a neat penalty to the goalie’s left in what was to be the last

kick of the game.The win sees Portsmouth thirds move

up to second in the league and marks a good run of form.

Match Reports

Thirds leapfrog fourth team in first game

Pompey tackle the game head on - Dan Chesterton

to get what would be the crucial sec-ond goal. Goals-corer Walsh had a shot palmed away and later Zak Stafford fired wide after the ball had fallen

As the game neared its final stages, Ports-mouth made changes to pre-

combative Ed Mc-Cambridge gave way to Mason Gardener who had been recently drafted into the 3rds, and Parry came on for centre-forward Stafford to add some steel to help Pompey see out a tense finale.

Portsmouth almost man-aged to wrap the game up with minutes to go, however Resch fabulously skied his shot over despite being presented with an opportunity he would have ex-

heartbreak for Pompey which led an animated Ed McCam-bridge to cry from the sidelines “They’re going to score!” It was not to be for the visitors, how-ever, and Portsmouth continued to hold off their challenge.

Rather than sitting back and soaking up pres-

sure, Portsmouth saw the game out in their own attack-

ing fashion by pil-ing on the pressure

and in the last few moments of the game

sealed victory. Greg Walsh, again

causing trouble with his pace, was tripped whilst maraud-ing into the box by a tired challenge. Captain Matt Parry stepped up to slot a neat penalty to the goalie’s left in what was to be the last

kick of the game.The win sees

thirds move


Sports

Banter Box Send us your banter and gossip to [email protected]

Rugby

Rugby men’s 5th team member came to watch the Women’ team humiliate Kent, stood on the sideline getting drunk. Well he did say that he was from “The social team”.

Boxing

Purple Wednesdays Senior Reporter Ben Hyams inviting, nay, request-ing a bit of sparring with England Universities boxer ‘Deano’ Gianna-kou. Getting bored of being alive are we Ben?

Surf

Team photos were shot upstairs in the Union, cricket club with bats, snow with their boards, oh and what’s this? Oh of course, it’s a surf club member half naked. Well if you’ve got it, flaunt it, but not while I’m trying to work.

Ski & Snow

Surrey snowboarders threw their boards on the floor in a hissy fit after being beaten by Portsmouth Ski and Snow, no handshakes after the com-

petition was over either. No one likes sore losers!

Rugby

Kent woman player’s nose got broke, sat on sidelines bleeding profusely, all the perpetrator did was non-chalantly request water from the sidelines. Crunching bones must be thirsty work.

Andrew OtteyDeputy Sports Editor

It was a case of one champion-ship one chance for the Ports-mouth ten pin bowling club as they headed to Nottingham to compete in the national cham-pionship.

This being the only BUCS as-sociated competition in the cal-ender for the club, ambition had to be high to grab as many BUCS points and titles as possible.

The tournament was held over the 5th and 6th of Febru-ary with around 13 Universities competing for the title of nation-al champions.

The clubs ambitions were clearly based on last years per-formance as president Haydn Moriarty explains: “Last year the guys came runner’s up and the Women came around 7th, we did lose a lot of people at the end of last year but we also gained two very good female bowlers this year, we do have a higher quality this year.”

The teams that went to Not-tingham included some impres-sive players; Simon Ashton, Anthony Lakey and women’s captain Jess Davidson just to name a few.

Lakey has been one of the most promising talents in a Portsmouth team with a good amount of experience. Lakey is ranked the number one student player in the country and has been for the past three years.

Along with this title he has also been ranked number three under 21 in the country and won medals in previous tourna-ments.With Lakey’s previous ac-colades his performance would be crucial to the Portsmouth ef-fort.

The tournament began on the Saturday with the matches com-prised of doubles. Lakey and Ashton made up the Portsmouth men’s pair during the session. They did not disappoint and gave Portsmouth a perfect start to the weekend as player Sam De'athe explains: “The very first set of doubles went incredibly well Ant and Simon bowled ex-tremely well and Ant got what’s called a 700 series which means he scored over 700 in just three games.” With this amazing start and other impressive perfor-mances Portsmouth lead the field by twenty pins.

Sunday was an early start for all the teams with play resuming at eight in the morning.

From the previous day and the history of the tournament it was clear that Portsmouth had only one main rival for this com-petition. Loughborough Univer-sity had won the competition the previous two years, they were always going to be a hard opposition to beat.

The day began with the men playing games of trios and the women playing singles games, later it would be concluded with five man team and individual games.

Portsmouth began in good fashion with Andrew Peek im-pressing in the trio matches and later being described by his fel-low players as ‘exceptional’. The women showed good form to but it could not stop Loughbor-ough closing in. It was the same case with the men's as De’athe explains: “Loughborough did have a very good player, one of the best in the country and dur-ing the singles match he really made sure that Loughborough caught up with us and give them an advantage.”

It all came down to the last games played for both men and women, with the tension rising for both sides the lanes soon be-came a pressure cooker. De’athe

said: “The 5 man team bowled very well we managed to beat Loughborough and others but we couldn't make up the defi-cit.”

Sadly Loughborough won the mens but Portsmouth still retained second place for two years running.

However it was a different story for the girls as they dramat-ically held on after being 80 pins ahead to hold off Loughborough and win by 3 pins. Tom Nurse praised the girls performance: “It was utterly deserved they played seriously well against a very good side.”

President Haydn Moriarty also reflects on the competition: “We were a little disappointed because we played really well and thought we could win but we can’t be too downbeat with second, we are all incredibly happy for the girls and the fact that overall we got more BUCS points than any other university at the event speaks a lot.”

If you want Pugwash News to come to your tournaments or games and get covered, contact [email protected]

Portsmouth come off strongest in Nottingham

Antony Lakey strikes for victory - James Larkin

Match ReportsMatch Reports

TEAM OF THE WEEKWomen’s Rugby31st Jan – 6th FebruaryAs reported in this issue, Women’s Rugby obliterated Kent’s Women 75-0. This is the second time that Kent have been humiliated by Portsmouth, as the Rugby Women beat them 53-0 in October.

Ten Pin Bowling7th – 13th FebruaryAs reported in this issue, bowling swept up many awards for in then national competition. They played with their balls exceptionally well, as always.

Chris Stone

With morale bolstered follow-ing Portsmouth’s stellar perfor-mance the week before, against London Veterinary College, the team set out in search of its first win of the season since achiev-ing promotion to BUCS league 5A.

Portsmouth began well, mov-ing the ball around fluently and pressing into the Imperial

half. The first goal of the game however went to Imperial, on the counter attack the ball was crossed into the D and following a defensive lapse Portsmouth’s opponents had the advantage.

The half ended with Ports-mouth feeling hard done by given their performance so far, however the team continued to pressure Imperial in the sec-ond half with some fast passing

moves down the wing. Some good stick skills from the team captain Chris Stone earned Portsmouth’s first short corner.

The resulting drag flick was well saved by the keeper, but a fine strike by Chris Palmer, on the half volley, earned the teams equaliser.

Team spirit evidently higher following the goal, Portsmouth continued to press forward, a

further attacking move ended in their second goal as James Robinson passed well into the D, Will Doward gained a vital touch to put the ball past the keeper. 2-1 Portsmouth.

The remaining 20 minutes were fraught, Imperial began gaining more possession and pressure was placed on the Portsmouth defense, however Portsmouth were able to weath-

er the storm and held on for their first win of the season.

Man of the match went to Frazer Woodhams for his versa-tile performance.Want Pugwash News to re-port on your team? Contact [email protected]

Portsmouth come off strongest in Nottingham


Letters10

Arts&Ents14-18

Opinion7-9

Features11-13

News1-6

Downtime19Sports

Andrew OtteyDeputy Sports Editor

Portsmouth men’s 1st held on to win against Sussex men’s 1st in a tense fixture last Wednesday. It as nearly lost in the final quar-ter but Pompey survived against a much improved Sussex.

Pompey lie mid table in the BUCS south eastern conference where the top four teams are all tied level on points. Any win or small advantage would boost Portsmouth's chance of win-ning the group. The result never seemed certain against a stub-born Sussex side.

The match began in cagey fashion with both sides failing to assert their authority on the game. It was Sussex though who had the better of the open-ing exchanges ending the first quarter 11-6 up.

After a disappointing start Pompey began to get into the game, with their defense sharp-ening up they kept Sussex at bay and began to score points regu-larly.

Taking advantage of Sussex penalties and scoring on the counter meant Pompey domi-nated the second quarter win-ning it 16-8. The score at half

time 22-19 in favour of Pompey.After a half time speech that

would motivate any team Ports-mouth came out fighting with more energy and composure than their opponents. Pompey stretched their lead to 40-27 the game now was Pompey’s to loose with a big margin separat-ing the two sides.

Pompey number eleven Mu-nya Madziya stood out in a very impressive quarter for Ports-mouth. However it was Sussex who had the last word in the third quarter giving themselves a life line with four unanswered points making the score 40-31 to Pompey going into the final quarter.

Even with Sussex scoring last in the previous quarter Pompey still had a substantial lead that should be enough to see them home. Indeed Pompey began the better team scoring 6 points to Sussex’s two, however this was to be the last time Pompey had any authority on the game.

Up till now the defense had been one of determination and composure, previously it was the combination of a good defense and quick counter attacking that had given Pompey the lead.

Pompey suddenly lost all their

playmaking skills and looked a shadow of the team who were once 40-27 up. As time ticked away so did Pompey’s lead but with some moments of brilliance from Madziya and no.14 Ghaith Derzi kept Sussex at bay with the score poised at 51-41 with only a few minutes left.

Stubborn Sussex though kept in the match and scored a three point shot and another score to

make it 51-47. Luckily for Ports-mouth Sussex could not muster up a final blow and the match ended 51-47.

A tight win for Portsmouth in a game that maybe should have to closed out long before the final few minutes. With the win though Portsmouth are well placed in their group.

President Yoshi Kayhani gave us his thoughts after the narrow

victory: “It was quite a scrappy game but a good win Sussex has improved a lot and it was all about just getting the victory, Munya had a really good game for us.”

Ghaith Derzi also added that their could be room for improve-ment: “We usually play better than that, we made a lot of mis-takes but our defense was amaz-ing tonight.”

Portsmouth see off stubborn Sussex side

Portsmouth reach for the net and keep Sussex down - Dan Chesterton

Match Reports


The Women’s Rugby team hu-miliated Kent Women in a clash which saw the two teams prop-ping up the table face off in the South Eastern Conference 1A.

On a cold and drizzly day, on a muddy pitch, Portsmouth women got back in to gear after a three month break from com-petitive play with a stroll in the Langstone Sports Park. Under-standably unsure to start with, they quickly got into their stride and began to batter Kent into submission.

Kent’s only attack of note came in the first five minutes, as they advanced with speed to-wards the Portsmouth by-line, but after good aggression from Lauren Ryan and a crunching take down from Jade Biskin-Barnes, it seemed Portsmouth had woken up and remembered that they make this look good.

Good play in the middle of the field, aggression and ball reten-

tion showed in the early stages a superiority in team spirit, col-lective aggression and organised effort.

If the defensive tone had been set with the crushing of Kent’s first and only attack, Holly My-ers set the offensive tone after a prolonged period of Portsmouth offence the tall, speedy My-ers broke suddenly through the weak Kent defence and carried the ball from the middle of the park, running the entire length of the opposing half dodging a flying tackle from the only Kent player who was in the least bit imposing, to cap off Ports-mouth’s immediate dominance.

The veteran Lauren Ryan failed to convert the try, but this was not a recurring theme of the day, she stuck away the majority of the conversions and with My-ers and others enjoying them-selves with ball in hand, she had many opportunities to beat the posts.

Even when Ryan did miss, the team didn’t seem perturbed;

there was a general swagger about Portsmouth’s play, and they knew they were the cat toy-ing with the mouse. Yet despite this they never let up on the pressure, mercy is not a concept they are familiar with.

Kent had poor concentra-tion and couldn’t match Ports-mouth’s determination if they all had guns to their heads, and tries like Myers’ occurred

with frequency, the slower but equally tenacious Biskin-Barnes’ quick thinking left her with only a hapless Kent full-back to con-tend with on many occasions. The fact that Portsmouth broke from so deep to score expressed the ease with which they were able to amass a huge lead.

Whilst Biskin-Barnes was a charger, making many adventur-ous runs, Sophie Boyle and Amy

Everitt were the dazzling trick-sters, many times they tricked their way down the wings and past up to four players, making rugby look like ballet.

Portsmouth never lost inter-est in the game despite the lack of any real challenge and they showed this with a series of good shows of ruthless aggres-sion, with the no. 8 and the no. 11 the major defensive forces for Portsmouth.

This report is in danger of ap-pearing biased, but this is solely due to the bare facts. Portsmouth won 75-0, and that says it all. Portsmouth could score when-ever they chose, Kent shouldn’t be in the same league, because they’re not.

Lissy Richards, team cap-tain said; “It was a great start to 2011, hopefully how we are gonna carry on this year. I’m so proud of the girls, they all really turned up today. I wouldn’t say it was a walk over, we really had something to work against.”

It’s a case of Kent can’t after Portsmouth put-down

Pompey dominate in easy win over Kent Dan Chesterton

pugwashnews.com

Portsmouth’s offi cial student newspaper


A young sailor from the Uni-versity of Portsmouth has been crowned the Musto Skiff world champion for 2011.

Dan Henderson, a second year Watersports Science student and member of the UPSU Sail-ing Club defeated sailors from 11 different nations, including Russia, Germany and Australia, in the six day tournament held in Melbourne, Australia in mid January.

A number of ex-Olympians are known to compete regularly in the championship.

With the exception of day three, the 20 year old led the championship from start to fin-ish with an impressive score some 11 points clear of second place.

Dan, who has also finished second in the UK nationals in the skiff class on two separate occasions, in 2007 and 2009, hopes to become a full time pro-fessional and has Olympic ambi-tions which are boosted by this result.

He said: “Only one of the two-man teams from the RYA (Royal Yachting Association) team go to the Olympics. Giving myself a name in the Musto Skiff class has given me a lot better chance of breaking into the RYA team for the two-man boat,” he said.

Dan has been sailing for 15

years, having started at the age of five and started competing age seven. His dad, who manag-es a company that makes sails, introduced him to the sport and got him onto a RYA Start Sailing scheme.

The scheme trains youngsters in stages, starting with the ba-sics and giving them a platform to grow to an elite level.

By age nine he was in the top 32 in the country at under age 15 level in the optimist class, a class designed for youngsters.

“My parents have put so much money and time into my sailing, and my dad’s involvement in the industry made it a lot easier, he knew everyone in the sport.”

Dan still sails regularly with the UPSU Sailing Club, and en-joys being by the coast: “The fact that the uni is on the south coast was a major factor in choosing to come here. This uni was the only place in the country that does my course as well.”

UPSC is one of the fastest growing clubs in the AU.

What is Musto Skiff?A Musto Skiff is a form of din-ghy. With a narrow hull, a flat bottom and two massive sails it is arguably the fastest form of dinghy.

For more info on the Musto Skiff World Championships go to tbyc.org.

BasketballMen’s Basketball 2nds beat St.Mary’s 1sts to go top of the league.

BadmintonMen’s Badminton 2nds beat Kingston University in an abso-lute whitewash, 8-0, they sit top of their league by one point.Women’s Rugby trouncing Kent 75-0. Nuff’ said.

Men’s Football

Men’s Football 1st won their quarter final in the BUCS Mars Football trophy, beating Bright-on Men’s 2nds 2-0. They now go into a daunting semi-final against the Men’s 2nds from the mighty Loughborough, a Uni-versity with numerous sports scholarships. This is a massive game for the team, but Purple Wednesdays has belief in them!

Women’s Football

Women’s Football 2nds beat Im-perial College London Women’s 1sts by a resounding score line of 6-1. The Women are now top of their league, and staying there.

RugbyMen’s 3rds lost 71-0 to Read-ing 2nds, and then attempted to emulate that but just failed, losing 76-12 to the same team; a bad case of Readingitis.

The worst, the best and all the rest: the sporting fortnight

Super skiff sailor wins world championship

Dan Henderson at the Musto Skiff World Championship in Melbourne - Shane Baker Photographs

Deano talks to Pugwash News about life as a university boxer and national ser-vice in Cyprus

Page 20

pugwash news issue 51

Documents

portsmouth student

local residents

central portsmouth

planning permission

council members

city centre

control hmos

positive image of students