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Women’s Week

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Culture

The Sun Boycott Set To Dominate Union Council

by Alex Thompkins

This week students on Union Council will debate an issue that has been growing on cam-pus steadily since the start of the year: whether or not the univer-sity should boycott selling The Sun in its retail outlets. The pro-posal, brought forward by Ella Abraham, seeks to “boycott The Sun from all retail outlets in the union until Page 3 is removed from the paper” as well as “to ask the University to back the national campaign” but crucial-ly it does not call for a campus wide referendum on the issue, which has been conducted in universities such as Exeter. The proposal has been seconded by 25 students from various socie-ties and associations including LGBTQA, Sexpression & Ac-tivista.

But there is a fierce opposition to the proposal which has been led by Council Member Katri-na King, who last week started a petition against the boycott,

arguing “It’s not a boycott, it’s a ban. A boycott is something in-dividuals can decide for them-selves; a ban is a restriction of choice”. Speaking to The Ripple , Katrina went on to say “This shouldn’t be a choice by the few made for the many” and that “The Union shouldn’t bubble wrap students from the outside world”. The Ripple contacted both Rachel Holland and Ella Abraham but they were una-vailable for comment. At the time of writing her petition has received 38 signatures whilst the No More Page 3 petition has received 737.

The petitions have sparked a huge debate on social media. Council Member Catherine La Fontaine says “Whilst the Union council want to do so, I think the banning of The Sun would only serve to further al-ienate the majority of the stu-dent body”. The proposal will be debated on Tuesday 18th March at 6:30pm in Ken Edwards Lec-ture Theatre 3.

In this Special Varsity issue...

News

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NEWS2

Alex Thompkins: You’ve been trustee for two years now, why did you decide to do it?

Tom “Jay” Grundy: So two years ago I was invited to con-sider the role after I had done my tenure as Speaker in Union Parliament. I felt at the time that I’d done everything I’d wanted to do in the student’s union. I’d been president of an association, I’d been Speaker of The House and I’d been in-volved in Union Parliament for a long time. There wasn’t real-ly anything new for me to do. And then I think it was one of the sabbatical officers who was leaving at the time who said “well why don’t you consider student trustee?”. At the time I didn’t know a great deal about it and I’m still even now, having done it for two years, learning new things about what exactly a student trustee is and what they do. But really it was another op-portunity for me to get involved in a different way. It’s been very different, compared to the other ways I have been involved with union activities.

AT: In what way?

TG: So the way they sell it to you is that you’re representing students at the highest possi-ble board of management and that is true. But what you find

is the issues students will come to you on a day to day basis to tell you about like “I’m not hap-py about how long the line is in Starbucks” or “There aren’t enough seats in The Square”, they’re often not the kind of problems the trustee board will necessarily address because the trustee is more about long-term strategy and how the union will be shaped in the next one to five years. So the operational problems like “We’re not em-ploying enough staff to keep the Starbucks queue moving” tends to not really come to us which can be a bit frustrating at times because you feel like those are the issues for the students now and the students now are the people I want to represent, not necessarily the students in five years’ time. So often I can find myself a bit frustrated in that sense but it is very interesting to sit with the other trustees and see what their vision of a union in two, three, four years’ time is and that’s something that wasn’t really on my radar and I quite enjoy that aspect of it actually.

AT: So what does a student trustee do on a day to day basis then?

TG: On a day to day basis it’s really up to the student trus-tee. I have the fortune, or mis-fortune, of studying medicine

which means I am off campus almost all of the time, in fact all the time really unless I make an effort to come here. So you can be involved in as many things as you want to be but the bare minimum you have to do is the six trustee board meetings a year and they actually take quite a lot of preparation them-selves. But then there are mul-tiple subcommittees within the trustee board that report to the trustee board at every meeting. So there’s the Finance & Audit Subcommittee, there’s the HR & Remuneration subcommit-tee and so the student trustee can be involved in as many of those boards as he or she wants to. I chose this year to not be in-volved with them on the count of it being my final year of my course but in previous years I’d been involved in strategy con-sultations. This is when you’d normally go out and find, say, thirty students from various dif-ferent walks of student life if you like, and you talk to them and gather opinions on what they think a Union should be, and you report back to the board. A lot of the time it’s about doing a piece of work between meet-ings and then presenting it back to the board. I quite enjoyed that really, you almost feel like you’ve got these mini projects that you’re doing and you can

be involved as much you want to be. No one shouts at you if you don’t do them.

AT: What have you enjoyed most about being in the role?

TG: I’ve actually really enjoyed, and this sounds really nerdy, learning about how a business runs. I mean that might not be of any use to me as a future surgeon, it’s not something I am necessarily going to need to know, but I found it interesting. I always saw the big problems in the Student’s Union, all the management problems and this, that and the other and I thought well this is rubbish, you can do something about this, it shouldn’t be this difficult. And then when you actually see how a big business runs and how they turnover millions and mil-lions of pounds, you realise just how complicated it is. It’s given me a real appreciation for how big enterprises run and how sometimes they can forget the little man who is at the bottom. But at the same time the peo-ple at the top aren’t the kind of power hungry, mad sociopaths you think they are. So I really enjoyed that aspect. I also real-ly enjoyed working with – how can I say this properly? – “real people”. So the Board of Trus-tees is made up of the four of-

ficer trustees who are the four sabbs plus five external trustees, one of them is a teacher, one of them is an ex-registrar of the University, it’s made up of a lot of different professionals and it’s actually very interesting to hear their points of view on things. They often have a very different point of view from say, myself or to the officer trustees and I find that quite refreshing.

AT: What advice would you have for any of our readers who might consider applying for the role?

TG: It can be very challeng-ing at times. The trustee board is made up some quite robust character types and you have to be, well you have to learn to be confident in what you’re say-ing and succinct in what you’re saying. Sometimes you can feel like you’re shouted down, espe-cially as the student trustee, you probably wield less power than the sabbatical officers although they would argue that’s not the case and the external trustees tend to look at you sometimes as if you are a bit of a child. So I’d say my biggest piece of advice would be to find within yourself the confidence to speak your mind because your opinion is definitely one of the most valid there on account of you being on the floor with the students most of the time. And try your best to enjoy all the aspects of it as much as you can.

AT: Did the role give you per-sonally much of a benefit?

TG: I think it gave me a benefit in that I was able to contribute to my student union more with kind of, maybe less reward than some of the other things that I’ve done in terms of, if you’re a President or The Speaker peo-ple will come up to you and say nice things to you. The Student Trustee is a bit more behind the scenes and so in that respect I did enjoy it and I think it’s something that students should do because they really actually get to see how it is that the stu-dent union runs. But the reason

why I really implore students to get involved is because right now we are planning the next five, six years of this student union and there are dramat-ic changes that are going to be happening. We’ve got a new VC who is coming in who seems like a very reasonable gentle-man but things in the university are going to be shook up as well by that. Inevitably a change in management will do that so it’s now more than ever that I feel we really need a strong student voice on that board.

AT: Finally then what’s next for you?

TG: Well I have a job in Man-chester doing brain and spine surgery so I’m very excited to be doing that. When I went for my interview at Salford Roy-al they said “what makes you stand out from the other can-didates who want to be a brain surgeon?” and I said “well ac-tually I think, but I’m not sure, most of your candidates won’t have been a trustee in a mul-ti-million pound charity” and I don’t know for definite but I think that might have made me stand out a little bit. I think I am going to try my hardest to be involved as much as I can with the student union as an Alumni. Someone even joked the other day that I should apply for one of the external trustee positions but I feel I might have some time off before I do that.

If you would like to find out more information about the role and the application process then please go to... http://leicesterunion.com/about/trustees/seeking-a-stu-dent-trustee

This Week’s Team

Co-Editors & Designers: Emily Gussineg155@le.ac.uk

Jamie Burton jb497@le.ac.uk

News Editor:Alex Thompkinsact16@le.ac.uk

Opinion Editor: Megan Cadwaladrmgc15@le.ac.uk

Features Editor: Karina Maduroakm38@le.ac.uk

What’s On Editor:Nikki Skinnerns317@le.ac.uk

Culture Editor: Patrick Reckittpgr8@le.ac.uk

Lifestyle Editor:Katie Masterskmm36@le.ac.uk

Sport Editor:Samantha Blundellsb555@le.ac.uk

Editor- in-Chief

Samuel Osborneso104@le.ac.uk

President

Christopher Everettce70@le.ac.uk

Operations Team

Secretary: Mel Agnew

Advertising and Marketing: Lauren Swain

Print and Distribution: Hollie Brookes

Online Development: Vicki Clarke

Events: Olivia Milizia

We would like to thank the Uni-versity of Leicester Alumni for their funding towards this issue.

Student Trustee Gives Final WordTom ‘Jay’ Grundy speaks to The Ripple about his time on the “highest possible board” and why you should consider applying for the role.

Edited by Alex Thompkins

by Emily Bird

In little under a week, Mr Uni-versity; a competition seeking out the most muscular males and fittest females that the uni-versities of England have to of-fer is coming to the University of Leicester. Not solely a compe-tition that focuses on the aese-thetic appearance of your body, ‘Mr and Ms University’ are also required to includ their interests in and outside of the gym.

Fitness and aesthetics undoubt-edly go hand in hand. Their relationship often consists of using one to improve the other and it is no foreign concept to many that fitness equals good health which equals ‘attractive-ness’. The art of body-building is less about appearance than one would imagine though.

My own experience of muscle cultivation is nothing more than overhearing friends talk about their respective bulking and cutting seasons, body-building concerns and the strength and talent of other self-professed athletes. Therefore, when read-ing the criteria for Mr Univer-

sity, I was disappointed to note that athleticism had been some-what placed on the back burner.

When hearing the words ‘body-building’ the image that inevitably comes to mind is a mud-brown tan, taut lycra suit and a variety of poses as to best display ones muscles. Obvious-ly, the likes of Dwayne Johnson are leagues above anything that will be seen in the nationwide Mr University, yet the focus on muscles mass remains. To quote their Facebook event, those par-taking will be judged on their “muscularity, condition, sym-metry and proportion”. This fo-cus differs greatly within the cri-teria for the female competitors.

To the organiser’s credit the Women’s Athletic round fea-tures, yet their equivalent round to Men’s Physique is Women’s Bikini: shifting the focal point of it entirely. As a gender neu-tral term, ‘physique’ is arguably applicable to both sexes, fur-thermore allowing women to be judged under the same criteria as men. It is therefore likely that the competitors within Wom-en’s Bikini will be criticised spe-

cifically for how they look in a two piece rather than for their muscle mass, gain, or definition.

The WBFF (World Bodybuild-ing and Fitness Federation), a renowned US bodybuilding company, claims to be created by athletes, for athletes. As top competitive bodybuilding firms regard their competitors as ath-letes, should Mr University not too? Any element of athleticism is completely lost in the wom-en’s sector as all female com-petitors are required to wear

heels; a ridiculous expectation as whom but the DMU Wom-en’s Rugby Varsity team of 2013 would wear heels to a sporting event? Though a common fea-ture of women’s competitive bodybuilding, the wearing of heels detracts completely from the persona of a sportswoman and instead is more recognis-able within the leagues of Miss World. In no sense do stilettoes and squats correspond. One has to question why heels par-take in a competition that is so centralised around physical

fitness. How are women within sport supposed to be judged for the strong, powerful role mod-els that they are when tottering around a stage in five inch heels? This article has not been writ-ten with the intention of being outwardly and overbearingly feminist; rather, it is trying to challenge the idea of women’s bodybuilding competitions. It is not the lack of clothing that offends, for the men will be wearing equally as little, but the degrading perception of sports orientated women that this competition is promoting. Any woman who enters into ‘Mr and Mrs University’ is one seeking appreciation for their hard graft, the hours that they have spent in the gym refining their bodies. Such appreciation of a healthy lifestyle is a far cry from the potential objectifica-tion women consequently face for engaging with the world of body cultivation.

Nevertheless, one must also consider the capacity of men to be objectified through such a process. It is therefore en-couraging that Mr University

is widening such perceptions on a contest of this nature by allowing the audience to engage with the competitors as people, rather than lumps of muscle. However, unlike women, male competitors will undoubtedly be judged for their muscle gain as opposed to their general ap-pearance in swimwear.

I don’t doubt that Mr Universi-ty will be a hugely entertaining event, that will do a lot to revoke the archetypal stereotype of the student that lazes around and feasts on Dominos. However, the allusion of double stand-ards can be contended for the awarding of merit between the two genders. In comparison to the men who will be praised for their advancements within bulking and cutting, I expect that the women will be subject-ed to ratings barely beyond that of a beauty pageant for their ability to pull off a bikini. Oh, and let’s not forget those heels that will carry them to victory.

Mr University: A Measure Of Physical Vigour or Your Typical Beauty Pageant?

by Will Coles

Pride is an intrinsic part of sport. As I sit in the Stoughton Drive changing room, with a Leicester Rugby League jersey on my back, the words we bark at one another always relate back to the pride we have as sporting representatives of our institution. It does not matter who our opponents are, we are united in our pride of Leicester University, our pride in Rugby League and a universal pride in our hallowed turf. Pride is what motivates us.

Without pride a competitive sporting outlet could never exist. Without the pride that comes from seeing an improve-ment in my abilities after a cold, wet, muddy training session (and God knows there have been a lot of them), I wouldn’t want to improve. Without the pride that comes from earning my position in the first team, by bettering my own rivals, as well as my team mates, I wouldn’t have anything to earn. With-

out the pride that comes from beating the opposition as part of Leicester Rugby League, I wouldn’t mind losing every once in a while. However, the hours committed, the blood shed and the bones broken are all worth it, simply because pride augments competition. Unfortunately, Leicester Rug-by League - for one reason or another - does not have a Var-sity competition (unlike Rugby Union), so I am writing with an element of bias.

The sense of pride that runs through every sportsman is pretty much always intensified by the rivalry that originates from a geographical proxim-ity. For months, teams across a range of sports, across the country, will have been training harder than they have all sea-son. Incensed by the prospect of beating the local university – and thereby proving themselves to be the strongest, most able, in the city – inspiring levels of dedication and personal sacri-

fice will have been reached, sim-ply because they wish to beat their local rivals.

In every team talk, in every sporting event in the coming weeks, the new focus is on the importance of us not losing to them and I daresay that this will be the constant source of moti-vation throughout the match. Inter-city University sporting rivalry makes for one of the more exciting spectacles of the year, and this is why Varsity ex-ists.

As a student of the University of Leicester, who plays a sport that does not partake in a Var-sity match, I feel I have a unique perspective on how appealing Varsity is for the wider student body. It seems a very trite point to make, but for those who do not regularly watch sport, or in-deed those who scoff at the no-tion of people running around a field chasing various sorts of balls, the week of Varsity fix-tures may pass them by.

It should be noted that if we look to other inter-university competitors, Cambridge and Oxford for example, the rivalry is so intense, so profoundly im-bedded in people’s conscious-ness, so steeped in tradition, that when it comes to a sporting fixture everyone is present at events, even those supposedly uninterested in sport. There’s a sense of one-upmanship found in the rivalry of those two great powers of learning that is em-braced by the majority of the individual student bodies.

In Leicester, no such rivalry ex-ists between the two universi-ties. Putting on my student cap and taking off my rugby jersey, I feel absolutely no sense of animosity between myself and those students at De Montfort University. Outside the realm of sport, there is minimal rivalry between the two.

So why should anyone who claims to dislike Varsity week take any sort of interest seeing as there is no such intensity?

An element of sport that is often under-represented within the media is the level of dedication and commitment that these sportsmen and women focus towards one individual event. It must be remembered that hun-dreds of hours have been spent on training pitches purely to better themselves. People might scoff at this, but sportsmen like Cristiano Ronaldo, Brian O’Driscoll or Sir Steve Redgrave are generally considered schol-ars of their respective areas.

They have dedicated themselves to one thing; they have picked themselves up when all their confidence has been under-mined; they have proven others wrong and they chase greatness all in the aid of pride. For all those who don’t like sport who are reading this and are dismissing the coming weeks, substitute the ‘one thing’ present in the last paragraph, for any word or phrase you like, and then bring it back to a frame

of reference that is applicable to yourself and your interests: ‘dra-ma’, ‘music’, ‘academia’. You can even try ‘peace’ or ‘equality’…

There is a mentality held and maintained by athletes that is totally applicable to the lives of anyone who aspires to bet-ter themselves. Varsity is a demonstration of commitment. It shows what can be achieved when your peers, who want to be the best they can be, apply themselves to something they enjoy. There is a great deal of inspiration that can be gleaned from that, even outside the realm of sport.

Image by Ingrid Barrentine on Flickr User JBLM PAO’s Profile.

Does Varsity Appeal to All?An ‘inside’ view into the wider appeal of the event

3OPINIONEdited by Megan Cadwaladr

by Amy Reeves

International Women’s Day pushes for awareness of wom-en being poorly treated all across the globe; raising funds for charities, protesting against violence against women, and attempting to cross the bound-aries and drop the stigmas relat-ed to women in today’s society. This year, different societies from the University have or-ganised International Women’s Week in which events will fo-cus on different aspect of what Women’s Day represents. From film screenings to body-posi-tivity drop in sessions, the Uni-versity is campaigning to truly bring about equality as a state of mind. The four main socie-ties that have collaborated are Oxfam, Amnesty International, Feminist Society and Activista.

Oxfam - Women in Poverty

Oxfam are really embracing the international aspect of the week and are raising awareness for women in poverty. Improving

the techniques and technologies of women farmers in different countries, along with their civ-il rights to get proper payment from their governments is ex-actly what the spirit of women’s week is all about.

They’re promoting the use of efficient stove, solar heating and simple irrigation systems to combat the harsh seasons that female farmers in Tajikistan are forced to deal with. Training farmers to become equipped for the possibilities of natural disas-ters and climate change through techniques such as crop diversi-fication and soil and water con-servation will support farmers in Zambia beat starvation and

poverty through the toughest months in their lives.

President of the Oxfam Society, Simon Phillips commented that “Build Collection… enables farmers to… get vital support, such as training in cattle rear-ing, feed cultivation and litera-cy”.

Amnesty International - Women’s Rights

Amnesty are staying close to home and campaigning for everyone’s right to make deci-sions about their own health,

body, sexuality and reproduc-tive life without fear, coercion or discrimination. They are pro-moting the petition to call upon world leaders to fight for our fundamental rights to our own bodies.

The Amnesty website quotes that “universal access to qual-ity, comprehensive, integrated sexual and reproductive health services, counselling and infor-mation, with respect for human rights, and with emphasis on equality and diversity”, making it clear that although this is a week dedicated to women, our basic and human rights should always be equal, regardless of gender. The society are plan-ning to engage students by get-ting them to name at least one part of their body that they truly value.

President of the society, Mel Agnew, stated that “all over the world, people are punished – by the state, medical professionals, their own families – for making these decisions, or prevented

from making them at all” and that we should fight for our right to our bodies. Basic sexual education and a right to choose is possibly an aspect of life that we all take for granted so we should combat this ignorance for the millions of people across the globe that do not have the same advantages as we do. It needs to be clear that this does not only concern women, but all young people in today’s society that are neglected the proper information to make informed decisions.

Feminist Society – Women’s Right to be Themselves

The Feminist Society is promot-ing a woman’s right to be them-selves. Be it their physique, or their basic rights, or their com-fort in their sexuality. Drop-in sessions on body positivity will be held to target the constant comparisons women are condi-tioned make against unrealistic paradigms. Although men also suffer from eating disorders, 1 in 100 women in the UK suffer from the disease and this stag-gering statistic is only rising. If events like the drop-in session can help even just one person, then the cause is most definitely worth it.

Furthermore, they are attack-ing the outdated stigmas that have clung to women and their sexuality. The innovative act ‘Women Who Wank’ has toured across the country combating derogatory attitudes towards women who are open with their sexual desires and needs.

Continued on page 5...

With International Women’s Day having taken place on the 8th March, the University of Leicester

are holding their own Women’s Week. Get to know the four societies lead-ing it, and why they think raising awareness for women is so important.

Women’s WeekFEATURES

Edited by Karina Maduro

4

by Marie-Claire Hynes

It’s that time of year again! Var-sity is fast approaching and is a fantastic way to end the term before breaking up for Easter! It is certainly the highlight of the sporting teams’ calendar and one of which the teams train hard for all year round. This is where the biggest rivalry comes into play, seeing Team Leicester face De Montfort University (DMU) in a fight to decide which University comes out on top!

Each year Leicester University teams never fail to do us proud, whether they win or lose, but recent scores suggest that Team Leicester are in good stead for another big win this year! Last year Leicester scored a tre-mendous 88 points, doubling DMU’s 44. The year before that, in 2012, Leicester more than doubled DMU’s points, scoring 77 against DMU’s 32. But as always, this years Varsity is set to be the biggest yet, with 48 matches across the 10 days that the teams compete against each other, putting in every effort and making those grueling training hours all worth it in the end!

The two rivals compete against each other in a range of sports and activities, including bad-minton, swimming and fenc-ing. There’s a sport for every-one to support and get behind the team in Varsity 2014. But arguably, the two most antic-

ipated games are the women and men’s football and rugby.

Thousands of people every year gather to watch the annual Var-sity Rugby Match at the Leicester Tigers ground, which has been held there for the past 11 years. The Welford Road stadium each

year takes in over 5,000 specta-tors for the match of the season. With the women’s game kicking off first, tension rises through-out the evening until the men have played and winners are announced! Last year, the wom-en’s team set a historic mile-stone by beating DMU for the tenth consecutive year, through a tremendous score of 27-0.

Member of the men’s rugby team, Conor Wickham, com-mented that “the atmosphere in

the stadium is always electric. For many of the players, it is the biggest crowd they will ever play in front off. The famous chants always come out and there is plenty of banter between rival university supporters. On the pitch, the rugby is of extremely high quality and Leicester will

seriously fancy their chances of winning both games. The rugby club is extremely grateful that so many people turn out to support every year and we, as a club, look forward to cel-ebrating with you afterwards.”

One change this year that has sent a huge wave of anticipation is that one tradition has been broken this year, with regards to Varsity football. It was an-nounced back in February that the Varsity football match will

not be held this year at the King Power stadium, as is tradition, where again crowds of people gather in the stadiums to watch the match against DMU of both women and men’s teams. The new location has been hotly debated, but will now be held at Oadby Town Football club. The

match will take place on Monday 17th March and although there has been a change of venue, the entrance is now free and trans-port is being provided from the Union and John Foster Halls.

Club captain, Seb Betton, com-mented that “Obviously it is a huge loss, for the club, as well as the University, moving from the King Power to Oadby Town Fc, but the decision has been in the pipeline for a few years now, with Leicester city not wanting

their pitch to not be used due to the promotion push. However, even though Oadby town is a lot smaller, it is more likely to drum up an even better atmosphere as well as making the varsity game as intimate as possible.”

To get the atmosphere going,

way before any of the games have started, teams at both Uni-versities do everything they can to drum up support from their fellow students. Each year, both Universities create promotion-al videos to show a quick pre-view of their talent, with the main aims of gathering support, building hype for the games and challenging the opposing team. On the 3rd March, Team Leicester’s 2014 promotional video was released, featuring a range of teams such as lacrosse,

cheerleading and basketball. There is lots of preparation to be done, including making sure all team kit and equipment are ready for use, ensuring that everyone is prepared mentally as well as physically and, final-ly to gather those all important supporters for the actual games.

The rivalry between the two Universities has been continued and built upon throughout the 11 years of Varsity games and has seen a divide in terms of stu-dents in Leicester. Both Leices-ter and DMU are very different in terms of subjects being stud-ied and the way the Universities are ran, but one thing stays the same and that is the elite com-petition between the two, where for a matter of 10 days, 48 match-es will determine the winner. Team Leicester or DMU, who is it to be this year? Who is to be crowned the winner? Will Leicester be triumphant once again? With such an in-tense atmosphere across all the games, there will be only one winner! Games official-ly start on the 17th March, so may the best team win!

With Varsity kicking off on Monday 17th March, Marie-Claire Hynes looks into the history of Varsity, the rivalry and talks to some of the team members.

Women’s Week Cont.

Activista - Education and Violence

Activista are fundraising with a ‘Varied Acts Night’ including live music, spoken word and stand up. This cultural celebra-tion is to promote female em-powerment through education and in particular to end Vio-lence Against Women once and for all. Society member Isabelle Habib commented “the more awareness around this issue, the more chance we have at getting

the UK government to make vi-olence against women a foreign policy priority!”

Fighting for those who still struggle for basic equality across the globe is a trademark for In-ternational Women’s Day and is one of the main reasons why the cause is still relevant; although the society has changed drasti-cally in the last century, many countries still need someone to fight when they can’t. As a continuation of their previous work with the prevention of Female Genital Mutilation, all

money donated will go towards ActionAid’s Women’s Right’s Campaign. ActionAid quote “Women’s rights are at the heart of our work in 45 countries, be-cause the underlying causes of poverty are inextricably linked to the denial of women’s rights”.

Varsity: What’s It All About?

5

by Vanessa Scott

On Campus

The publicity surrounding the Union Elections of the last few weeks has been huge, so it wouldn’t be surprising if some of you now feel you want to be more proactive and involved when it comes to Union poli-tics. If this is the case consider attending the Union Coun-cil Meeting on Tuesday 18th March at 6.30pm in Ken Ed-wards Lecture Theatre 3. As a student at the University of Leicester you have the right to attend Union Council Meetings. Only elected representatives are able to vote, but anyone can go along to listen, share their views and play a role in the creation of new proposals.

Saturday is a huge day for Var-sity matches on campus, but if sport is not your thing then don’t despair, LU Music Asso-ciation has a range of events to entertain you. Saturday 22nd March sees the Orchestra Spring Concert taking place at Fraser Noble Hall, 2 Uni-versity Road at 7pm. Student tickets are priced at only £3 and the programme includes Lord of the Rings, movements from Holst’s Planets as well as pieces by Bellini and Mozart.

Sunday 23rd March sees

Leicester University Chorus showcasing their talents in their Spring Concert in Fraser Noble Hall at 3.30pm. This term, Chorus have been work-ing very hard on a variety of music.   Chorus will be accom-panied by the University of Leicester Orchestral Society in some iconic pieces. The concert will include performances from solo artists, small group num-bers and acapella group, Minor Details. It is set to be a wonder-ful afternoon, catering for all musical tastes as genres range from Mozart to Adele to West Side Story. Tickets are available on the door for £6, students and concessions are £4 and £3 for Music Association members.

On Tuesday 25th March, in the O2 Academy, UOL Modern Dance Society presents ‘I BET THAT YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR’. The event begins at 7.30pm (doors

open at 7pm), and will show-case the vast talents of the var-ious performance societies at the University. Acts include the Modern Dance Society’s com-petition dances that have been performed at the prestigious University Dance Competition, as well as performances from Street Dance, Asian Dance, Pole Dance and Fitness, Burlesque and Dance Sport. LU Chorus will also be performing and fur-ther acts are to be confirmed. The event is a wonderful op-portunity to appreciate the hard work of these societies through-out the year. In previous years this evening has been very pop-ular and a wonderful success. Tickets are £4 and are on sale in The Square, or can be purchased from members of the Modern Dance Society, everyone is en-couraged to come along to see the brilliance of Leicester’s per-formance societies.

Miles Kane will be performing at the O2 Academy 1 on Friday 28th March as part of a 15 date tour of the UK and Ireland. His latest album, Don’t Forget Who You Are (2013), is bursting with energy and vitality, and since the Merseyside boy has de-scribed performing live as cre-ating the same level of excite-ment as a child on Christmas morning, this event looks set to be a great night.

Off Campus

A number of Varsity fixtures will be taking place off campus. Do not miss Boat Club Varsi-ty on Saturday 22nd March at Grand Union Canal, less than 20 minutes walk from campus. Head down and support the crews in their effort to contin-ue their 4 year winning streak. The event is completely free to attend and there will be a bar, BBQ and cake stall on of-fer throughout the afternoon. Months of gruelling training have led up to the afternoon’s nine races, so join ULBC on the river from 1pm and cheer on your rowers!

For one night only on Saturday 22nd March at 7.30pm Blue Orange Theatre, an independ-ent theatre company from Bir-mingham, presents Macbeth at The Guildhall as part of a national tour. Arguably one of Shakespeare’s most famous

plays, Macbeth is a dramatic tale of witchcraft, murder and insanity with tragic conse-quences, a performance not to be missed.

If all of the Varsity excitement has left you wanting more, why not watch Leicester Tigers take on Exeter Chiefs at Wel-ford Road Stadium on Sunday 23rd March. Kick-off is at 2pm. Tickets start from only £22, but if you really can’t stretch your budget this far then why not gather some friends, get out of the house and watch the match in one of Leicester’s fine drink-ing establishments.

Bolshoi Ballet: The Gold-en Age will be screened live at the Phoenix via satellite from Moscow on Sunday 30th March at 4pm. 1923, a seaside town in the south of the Soviet Union, Boris falls in love with

Rita, a cabaret dancer at The Golden Age, and the girlfriend of a gangster, audiences will be whisked away on a journey through the couples whirlwind romance. Choreographed by Yuri Grigorovich with music composed by Dmitri Shostak-ovich, the ballet moves through various styles from jazz to caba-ret, classical dance to acrobatics ensuring there is something to suit everyone’s taste.

Best of the Rest…

In Cinemas this Fortnight:

Labour Day, Dir. Jason Reitman (From 21st March)Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dir. Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (From 28th March)Muppets Most Wanted, Dir. James Bobin (From 28th March)

Album Releases this Fortnight:

17th March – Kian Egan, ‘Home’24th March – Foster the People, ‘Supermodel’

And Don’t Miss…

TV Connect Awards (19th March)Rowing World Cup (28-31st March)F1: Malaysia Grand Prix (30th March)

by Rohini Jhally

After a winter spent confront-ing raindrops bigger than your chunkiest textbooks, high speed umbrella breaking winds and a blankety frost engulfing Vicky Park, it’s been long overdue but the sun has finally descended upon us once again and we all know what that means! That’s right, for those of you who dream of water logged tents, mud up to your knees, flo-rescent coloured wellies, 3am

showers and music invading your ears from every which way, then this is the time to let your inner hippie run free and give way to the flower power child in you, because it’s festival season! So, whether you’re a hard core rocker, peppy pop lover, current hits reveller or just a fan of the sweet sound of chords and keys clanging together, there’s some-thing here for every one of you. Starting off the list and close to home is this towns very own

Leicester Music Festival (LMF). On Friday 25th July and Satur-day 26th July, artists such as Labrinth, Professor Green, Katy B, Union J and many more will be gracing the stage of Welford Road Stadium with their chart topping hits, and performing on both days will be the gravity defying dance group, Diversity. With that much talent in one weekend, it’s definitely not to be missed. Ticket prices start at £49.50. More information is available online at leicestermu-

sicfestival.co.uk.

Keeping it local, the “totally awesome music and arts festi-val” that is Handmade Festival, will be exploring the mediums of art and music to bring you performances from bands like Dry The River, Three Trapped Tigers, and Dark Dark Horse, as well as exhibitions from Sarah Gray, Alex Forknell and many more. Straight from the organ-isers mouths: “For one weekend a year we take over venues and more ‘unusual’ spaces across the city and fill them with awe-some things. Music, comedy, art, photography – you name it. We endeavour to bring the best national and international performers... alongside the awe-some local talent we have to of-fer”. All taking place at venues across Leicester over the week-end of 2nd - 4th May, this over-flow of collaborative arts unde-niably deserves a spot on the calendar. Tickets on sale now, prices start at £16.50, for more information, visit the website at handmadefestival.co.uk.

Branching further afield, from the 4th - 6th July, is the always incredible Wireless Festival, taking over venues in both London and Birmingham. This guaranteed sell out event boasts a line up consisting of Kanye

West, Drake, Pharrell Williams and Iggy Azalea along with a plethora of other superstars all ready to unleash a flood of talent over three stages in two cities. With an all star cast like that, Wireless 2014 is sure to continue the success of previous years and is absolutely not to be missed.

No festival list worthy of the paper it’s written on would be complete without the mother of all festivals, that’s right, you guessed it, Glastonbury. Pitch-ing its tent-stage at its regular location of Somerset, Glaston-bury 2014 will no doubt live up to its success of previous years when it played home to bands such as The Rolling Stones, Arctic Monkeys, Mumford and Sons and Example. With 2014 announcing an introductory line up of acts such as Lily Allen and Disclosure, and not reveal-ing bigger artists until closer to the time, it definitely won’t dis-appoint. This five day eruption of internationally renowned musical talent takes place from Wednesday 25th June - Sunday 29th June and needs no acclaim whatsoever. It’s going to be sim-ply epic. All information can be found at glastonburyfestivals.co.uk.

Finally, at last but in no way

least, it’s Download Festival. Sweeping the stages at Doning-ton Park will be Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park, Avenged Seven-fold, The Pretty Reckless and many more head banging and ear destroying sounds. Starting on Friday 13th June - Sunday 15th June, Download is up there with the festival greats so it’s sure to be immense. More information is available at downloadfestival.co.uk.

So for lovers of all things out-doors and those of you rarely spotted without your head-phones, this is the time for you to let loose from the stress of academic life, and indulge in the great outdoors.

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17th - 30th MarchPick of the Week

Summer 2014: Local Festivals to Suit Every Student Budget

Image by jaswooduk

WHAT’S ONEdited by Nicky Skinner

6

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7

Go Team Leicester

Go Team Leicester

by Richard Fallon

Every Wes Anderson film can be spotted a mile off. With chapter title cards, frequent Bill Murray, paper theatre dimensions, a ban on text not written in either cur-sive or Futura, generous Owen Wilson and the colour scheme of a Paris sweet store, The Grand Budapest Hotel is the most Wes Anderson film ever made, or perhaps that could ever be con-ceived.

Three framing stories deep, the narrative follows the titular hotel’s omnipresent concierge Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and lobby boy Zero (amiable new-comer Tony Revolori). After the death of the particularly prom-inent hotel guest Madame D (Tilda Swinton), Gustave is left an extremely valuable painting that all of D’s family want to get their hands on. Her son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) sends a grizzled assassin (Willem Dafoe) after Gustave, and the Hitchcockian chase is on. Anderson has clear-ly had little trouble acquiring an all-star cast of titanic propor-tions and this is only the tip.

It’s extremely Wes Anderson, but is it good? It’s not just good – it’s delicious. A huge celebra-tion of Art Nouveau, the film is as artificial as possible and utterly unashamed of it. This is reflected in Fiennes’s bombasti-cally subtle performance as the camp, womanising, endlessly optimistic Gustave, a role that

should leave him breathless but he doesn’t even break a bead of sweat.

Everyone turns their acting up to fit the piece, except for Jeff Goldblum as the unlucky Dep-uty Kovacs who is perhaps more subdued than usual. Extremely dark comedy is frequently inter-spersed, and those worried by the film’s adverts that it’s as sac-charine as a cake from Mendl’s can rest easy. It is beautiful, but it is not gentle.

The directorial precision is clear in every postcard frame, but aggressive artificiality does not stop The Grand Budapest Hotel from being both funny and poignant, the both all the more for the contrast. There is no doubt that it dances over an abyss of style-over-substance, but it is an art and Anderson has got it right this time by casting his spell over a plot that’s worth the investment.

Grand Budapest Hotel is out now

Reviewed thanks to the Phoe-nix Cinema (www.phoenix.org.uk)

by Dan Jordan

When it comes to films chang-ing relationship to modern technology, ‘it’s complicated’ is an understatement. At the turn of the century, we’ve seen machines be treated as a way to curtail emotion, removing pain as well as pleasure in Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. More recently in Don Jon, tech-nologies’ omnipresence serves to reassuringly reflect un-healthy attitudes and unattain-able ideals back at those who hold them.

Her, however, accepts the smart-phone revolution with open arms, instead focusing on if or how the feelings we hold to our devices could come to rival those we feel for each other. With a soft, stylish touch and a genuine humbleness, Her

passionately convinces us of the practical and personal connec-tions we now share with the ma-chines that make up our world.

Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is really in touch with his emo-tions, so much so he can express other people’s feelings better than they can. Outside of his job of ghost writing ‘personal’ let-ters for every occasion, though, he’s weighed down by his grow-ing loneliness.

As unable to commit to a new relationship as he is to finally sign his divorce papers, much of his life takes place at his work computer and his virtual reality gaming system at home. The solution? Simply download the woman of his dreams into his phone. Even as Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansen) is programmed to exactly suit Theodore’s specifications, her developing consciousness might bring him more than just a quick fix.

The delicate style of Her gives it an empathic flair. The non-chalance with which Theodore and Samantha’s relationship is treated is far more endearing

than if it were framed as fully surreal as the premise suggests. The delicate, soothing direction and minimal yet enlightened scripting leave the film func-tioning as existential pillow talk that doesn’t end up smother-ing the romance with bizarre, avant-garde distractions.

This feather light style touches on not only the fundaments of relationships but also of film-making, even questioning the meanings created by the pairing of words and images. Even with this profundity, the subtlety of the lead actors finds a safe spot in the broad, dream-like pac-ing to allow both emotion and intelligence to drift through the screen and settle in every heart and mind present.

Whether you feel like you’re missing a piece or you need to recharge your romance with hope and good spirits, this master class of romance and in-timacy is for you. You’ll be left standing on the roof of the the-atre proclaiming to the world ‘I love Her!’

Her is out now

by Beth Steele

Eden is set in Portugal in the 1950s, during a time of politi-cal strife and dictatorship. This interesting setting was inspired by writer Ivo de Jager’s Portu-guese roots; he both wrote and directed the play. The catalyst of the story is the arrival of a young priest to a small town, who becomes entangled in the shady affairs of a local aristo-cratic family.

The results of the secrets that are revealed prove to be cata-strophic. Eden depicts a series of complicated relationships and traumatic events artfully, and explores the psychology be-hind the characters.

There were a few sticky mo-ments, mostly during the tran-sitional moments between

scenes, but that was completely understandable for the dress rehearsals that The Ripple was able to see.

The script was fantastic, rich with narrative and clearly well thought through; the pace of the story was perfect, and the dialogue brilliant, at times witty and sharp.

The cast and crew made good use of the space in Queen’s Hall, both on the stage and on the ground floor in front of it, mak-ing the scene changes and dif-ferent locations really apparent. The use of the stage created a real sense of scale and journey, which was much more involv-ing as an audience member.

One of the true highlights was the marvellous cast the pro-duction team assembled. Chris

McCann shone in his lead role as the priest, Abel Vieira, beau-tifully depicting his personal struggles, and worked bril-liantly alongside Scarlet For-rest, whose character’s journey was one of my favourite things about the play.

Alex Aneychik was great as Cesar, and really hit his stride during the play’s climactic final scenes. Emily Dilworth, Amelia Oliver and Will Bowers pro-vided wonderful and at times scene-stealing supporting char-acters.

Eden truly demonstrates the range of talented students here at Leicester, in writing, acting and providing wonderful sets and costumes.

LUTheatre are also producing a production of Richard III in Queen’s Hall 20-22nd March and Leicester Cathedral 2-4th April

Delicate and Empathetic - Her

Bombastic, Artificial and Utterly Delicious

An Artful Exploration of Traumatic Events:Eden Review

10 CULTUREEdited by Patrick Reckitt

The Facebook Conundrum

You see her in school You don’t say hi You don’t look up When she passes by

But still…

You know she broke up With her boyfriend last night, After they had A horrible fight. You know exactly what hap-pened, What led to it all Because she poured it out On her best friend’s wall.

You know she’s torn up And that she misses her lover, Because she updated Her status, every hour

She has so many friends A lot of them, she doesn’t really know, But they all noticed that she’s not ‘In a relationship’ anymore.

You still don’t talk to her Say hi or discuss the weather But last night you found out They just got back together.

by Nida Admani

by Peter Sayce

In this new column The Rip-ple’s writers argue for the re-turn of classic institutions. This week, could Robot Wars solve all our problems? (Yes. Yes it can.)

Aside from the usual nostalgic pangs about early Simpsons ep-isodes, one of the few TV shows I miss from my childhood is Ro-bot Wars. Hosted predominant-ly by Craig Charles, it was once an important part of my TV diet, and so it should be again.

What better way to get a new generation of people interested in electronics, mechanics and programming than by letting them watch as several robots pierce, shear, grind, cut, flip and smash the circuits out of each other for half an hour every week? There is none.

As well as the entertainment benefits, bringing the show back today would open up a world of

opportunity. One champion-ship could be for autonomous robots; a fast expanding area within robotics for both civilian and military projects. What bet-ter PR boost could there be for drone warfare than trivialising it in a computer controlled ro-bot death match?

The resulting technologies would surely filter down to the public, while improving our defence and national security. I’m not going to go as far as to say that renewing Robot Wars would solve all of Britain’s so-cial, economic and political problems, but what’s the harm in trying?

by Theo Beecroft

Back in 1994, whilst we were all still wearing toddlers clothes and just about learning how to walk properly, Portishead re-leased Dummy: a dark, mash up of Geoff Barrows meticulous film noir, hip hop production and Beth Gibbons’ fragile, sen-suous voice that popularised the trip hop genre in Britain.

Trip hop itself evolved, primar-ily, in Bristol in the early 1990’s with bands like Massive Attack, DJ Shadow, and The Herbaliser who had been working away at trip hop with a strong rooting in acid jazz and dub. Portishead’s use of film soundtrack LP’s from the 60’s and 70’s, coupled with jazz and soul samples marked it out from others as a distinctive band with a stylish, definitive aesthetic of it’s own.

The three subsequent Portis-head albums, Portishead, Rose-

land NYC Live and Third, as well as the separate projects of Geoff Barrows in BEAK> and Beth Gibbons in her album with Rustin’ man, have only cement-ed the band as both consistently innovative and technically bril-liant.

Now, as we near the 20th an-niversary of Dummy, the hope is that Portishead will finally release a fourth album. Ten-tative confirmations by Bar-row suggest that the band will start work on a new album this summer but until then, all that we can do is enjoy the existing work and maybe go and see the 2014 European tour.

by Conor Heslin

Nobody could have been more surprised by the runaway suc-cess of The English Riviera than the people who actually made it. 2011’s mercury nominated album brought Metronomy’s synth-driven, chorus heavy in-die into the limelight, leading to Mercury nominations, tri-umphant festival performances, and, surreally, Girls Aloud col-laborations.

That being said, anyone who expected them to follow up on the wall to wall bangers of The English Riviera with more wall to wall bangers will be disap-pointed - but not for long.

If 2011’s offering was the album equivalent of a messy bank hol-iday weekend, then on Love Letters, Joseph Mount seems to be channelling the energies of someone who’s back at work on the Tuesday morning, and feel-ing much more in the mood for reflection-particularly on the subject of relationships.

On album opener The Upsetter,

a steady synth beat gives way to acoustic guitars and Johnny Marr-esque twangs, with Jo-seph playing the role of, funnily enough, the Upsetter, pleading to get a word in edgeways, and apparently, failing.

The album carries on in much this vein, switching easily from the bass heavy, atmospheric pop of Call me to the much more straightforward (but no less im-pressive) guitar compositions of Month of Sundays, which sounds like The Shins at their best. Don’t be fooled by this plethora of sounds however; the album still sounds like a Met-

ronomy album, retaining their distinctive sound and quintes-sentially English character.

Fear not, also, those who were hoping for Metronomy to burst back onto the scene all guns blazing, and may initially be surprised by the reflective, ul-timately reserved nature of the album. Anyone who has seen Metronomy live knows they’re an incredibly creative live band, and while this is in no way a ‘party’ album, the pounding beats on songs like current sin-gle, and album highlight ‘I’m Aquarius’, still provide the boys with ample opportunity to lay waste to any festival tents which stand in their way this summer. While Love Letters may be more an exploration of relationships then a messy Bank holiday weekend, the party is far from over for Metronomy.

Love Letters is out now on Be-cause Music

Let’s Reboot: Robot Wars

Featured Poem

We take a journey in the company of Dallas Buyers Clubby Dan Jordan

While some of the Oscar Best Picture nominees bravely set about examining the acute suf-fering experienced during slav-ery and in being marooned at sea at the mercy of pirates, the crooks have managed to get in on the action.

The Wolf of Wall Street glows with self-satisfaction as it orders Solomon Northup to bring it more wine as it relaxes on the deck of the captured ship, obliv-ious to the crews’ struggle.

The American Hustle gang are holed up in the radio room, trying to keep it together before they can find a way to get the pirates on side before snaking control of the boat away from them to get everyone home

safe. Dallas Buyers Club darts between the two.

It shares in WoWS origins of an everyman turned slime ball for self-benefit but has too much of a conscience to ignore the suf-fering of others.

Even with its good heart, it is too ragged and wild eyed to shelter with the light weight, well coifed American Hustle con artists. Defeated, it settles in with the captured crew and shares its story of alienation and entrapment between the rock of mortality and the hard place of corrupt institutions. With time running out and chances look-ing bleak, everyone opens up to DBC, intuitively feeling it’s folksy, Western inflected charm and sympathising with it in a way not attempted by the other

two crime films in a way that puts them just enough at ease to keep going in their dire circum-stances.

Ron Woodrup (Matthew Mc-Conaughey) runs cons. Living fast with all the money, drugs and casual sex he can get his hands on takes a considerable stall when he’s diagnosed with HIV. Ostracised from the bigot-ed community of trailer dwell-ing industry workers he called home, Ron desperately searches for the fastest fix for his illness he can from his local hospital. When it turns out the cure is worse than the disease, Ron sets up his own black market phar-maceutical business, selling HIV medicine to those denied it by the FDA. Alongside Ray-on (Jared Leto), a transgender AIDs sufferer, Ron attempts to build a community living on stolen time.

What sets Dallas Buyers Club apart from the other crime films up for best picture is its finite tone pushed by the repeated count downs of how much time has passed since Ron’s diagno-sis. Replacing lengthy Scorse-seian pacing with dizzying shifts between the filth of his home

surroundings to clinical hospi-tal rooms make Ron’s decay all the more profound.

As Ron’s decisions are siphoned down to where he dies instead of how, the range of his devel-opment spans as many miles as he travels to set up his network of drug suppliers. Beginning as revoltingly prejudiced, rodent like trailer trash too disgusting to ignore and ending up as a lone cowboy in a sea of Japanese businessmen with the fate of hundreds on his shoulders, his evolution from parasite to sav-iour delivers a level of compas-sion that elevates Dallas Buyers Club above its shady dealings and into a mesmerisingly grace-ful piece of cinema. Dallas Buyers Club is out now

Ragged, Wild-Eyed and Mesmerisingly Graceful

Metronomy Return With a Mature and Reflective Offering

Retrospective: Portishead

Love Letters Album Review

11

by Will Bateman

It was about quarter past eight last Tuesday evening when I was pleasantly surprised... but just about fifteen minutes be-fore, I was feeling just a little bit scared. In fact, I defy any man not to be even a little terrified of an O2 academy full of girls – though One Direction may be a small exception. Nevertheless, this fear soon subsided.

Over the booming music I could hear vague murmurs coming from the girls. They all ran in different directions weaving around each other, ‘5,6,7,8’ was the murmur that could be heard, each girl look-ing straight on- not really look-ing where they were going but more so thinking about where they needed to be. Each pair of eyes fixed ahead almost look-ing into a void, huge smiles on every face but still eyes fixed in place. ‘We’ve only started prac-tising this new routine today’ said Beth Henderson, the Cheer and Stunt Captain, standing to my left. With that final syllable the girls formed two groups on the right and the left, then out of nowhere up came a girl from each group, suspended in the air, again sporting huge smiles. The girls dropped and were caught by their fellow cheer-leaders below, the thumping music stopped and everyone laughed. ‘Right girls, again, again’, Beth shouted as she went over to the speaker. This was a Leicester Panthers practice - the University of Leicester Cheer and Stunt team - and I was now amazed.

I’m not sure about anyone else, or maybe it’s just from my watching the ‘Bring it On’ films far too much growing up – something I will never admit to ever again – but my idea, or

my pre-conceived idea, about cheerleaders was that they sort of danced around on the side lines, pom-poms in hand, shouting acronyms. I couldn’t have been more wrong. ‘There’s a massive difference between the cheerleading you see on the NFL. This is competitive cheer, competitive cheer is completely different’, Events Manager Ol-ivia Hay was quick to tell me. The difference was clear to see, the Panthers aren’t too both-ered about shaking pom-poms, as this cheerleading is centred around immense strategy, im-mense planning and most of all, immense dedication. Competi-tive cheer is growing as a sport in its own right with both spec-tators cramming in to watch and girls queuing up to join. The Panthers held ‘come and try’ sessions at the start of the year, almost being overwhelmed by the 200-odd newcomers who came to give cheer a try. In terms of spectators, we perhaps needn’t look any further due to the 16,000 people that came to see the Panthers and 66 other teams in Bath at the Nationals a couple of weekends ago.

With competitive cheer grow-ing, this means we should pay special attention to our Pan-thers, who at the aforemen-tioned Nationals achieved new heights (sorry!) finishing 7th out of 17 (high above DMU, of course) and only 2 points from 3rd place, I might add. Yet what is perhaps more encouraging is their huge improvement on last year: achieving 72% this year compared to 56% from last. The girls can take even more en-couragement from the upcom-ing Cheer Varsity in a couple of weeks, the first in the University of Leicester’s long history: they won’t be standing supporting the battling sports teams, but instead they’ll be battling DMU

themselves.

The first ever Cheer Varsity will be held at New College, Leicester on the 25th March with tickets an incredible £2.50 and buses even being arranged to take people from the Union, thus giving undecided would-be spectators little excuse to not come along. However, the real importance here, the girls tell me, is that the Varsity is held indoors, which is much more important than it might seem. I was told a story from last year’s Rugby Varsity in which tem-peratures plummeted and the Panthers’ ‘flyers’ – the airborne cheerleaders – were finding ice on the bottom of their shoes. As if being delicately thrown into the icy air wasn’t enough, they also had to worry about the icy, hard ground below. The Panthers are understandably excited about the prospect of their upcoming Varsity, but be-hind this you can almost sense an earnest tone from the girls, a desire even, that this is their opportunity to showcase their sport and their passion. Katy Lee, the Competition Secretary, talked of this desire: ‘We real-ly hope that Cheer Varsity will show people that what we do is not standing on the side lines - people can see what we do, we do at Nationals’.

The Panthers have come a long way in the past couple of years, and to many, this year’s Cheer Varsity is a culmination of those efforts. The girls talked of the disorganisation of the socie-ty a couple of years ago when many of the committee mem-bers first joined, however their sustained efforts of adding a more strategic element, as well as longer practices, have been integral to the Panthers’ huge improvements since that time. Also, their not being a sport,

but rather a sporting-society has meant past funding issues, but a concerted effort by the girls has meant that this year they were able to acquire special crash-mats for practice, allow-ing them to ‘take flight’ more often, and more safely. This so-ciety aspect also has a sweeter edge for would-be cheerleaders, with the acquisition of a costly sports card not being a require-ment: instead, just a modest £25 membership fee, and the Pan-thers also take on new members all year round.

My last question for the girls, horrendously clichéd I know, was: ‘What does cheerleading mean to you?’ – cue laughter, though they were laughing with me, right? This question was perhaps given a better answer than that for which I could have hoped, thanks to Cynthia Ony-ilimba, Panthers Vice Captain: ‘It’s the perfect mixture of sport and performance, everything I love, the cheeriness and the hard work and dedication you need to get things done’. If an-yone needed any more reason to join the Panthers or go and watch the Panthers at Cheer Varsity, there it is, and still not a pom-pom in sight.

Cheer Varsity will be held on the 25th March at New College, Leicester. Tickets are priced at £2.50; posters will be up soon with details on where purchases can be made.

Special thanks to Leicester Pan-thers Cheer & Stunt team com-mittee members – Beth Hen-derson, Katy Lee, Olivia Hay, Cynthia Onyilimba and Jenny Kwon.

Cheer Up for Varsity! Quinoa and Chorizo Stuffed Peppersby Rhiannon Gallacher

This meal is great not just be-cause it’s incredibly tasty but also because it’s simple and ver-satile. You could replace quinoa with rice, the chorizo with ba-con or the spring onion with any old onion you have leftover! You could also easily adapt this recipe for vegetarians and it is a meal which lends itself to lefto-vers, which is brilliant for those of us who are, in typical student fashion, watching our pennies. To serve one, you’ll need: 2 bell peppers- any colour 50g of quinoa Olive oilSalt and pepper1 clove of garlicTwo or three spring onions A handful of peas A thumb size piece of chorizo sausage- but if you want more, add more!

What to do: Pre heat oven to 200°C.

Cook your quinoa- there should be instructions on the packet. Strain and leave in a sieve or bowl for later.

Boil the peas and put to the side.

Line a baking tray with baking paper.

Prepare the peppers: slice the tops off and put to one side. Re-move the heart and seeds of the pepper and throw them away.

Place the tops and bodies of the peppers on the baking tray.

Drizzle with olive oil and sea-son with salt and pepper.

Slice the spring onions horizon-tally- not too thin but not too thick, you want them to be in about 1cm pieces.

Peel the garlic and crush.

Remove the skin from the chori-zo and slice in half vertically. Slice in half again and chop into small pieces, about 3cm long.

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a sauce pan at a medium heat and gently fry the spring on-ion and garlic until soft. Once cooked, keep to one side.

Place pan back on heat and fry the chorizo. You can add a little olive oil to the pan although I usually find that it isn’t neces-sary, having previously fried the onions in there.

Place the peppers in the oven to cook for about 15 minutes. They should have softened when you remove them. While the peppers are cooking, add the quinoa, spring onion and peas to the chorizo in the sauce pan

and mix until properly com-bined.

Once the peppers are cooked, switch the oven setting to grill. Stuff the peppers, place the lids on top and place under the grill for about 3-5 minutes and then serve

You may find that you enjoy yours with a little chilli, or per-haps with some goats’ cheese or mozzarella in the mix. To make it more substantial, courgette, extra pepper or mushrooms could be added. Experiment and enjoy!

Image by Wikipedi auser

Edited by Katie MastersLIFESTYLE12

Perhaps one of the most excit-ing and self-expressive trends to emerge for Spring/Summer 2014 is ‘Wanderlust,’ described by Vogue’s style editor Emma Elwick-Bates as “a veritable United Nations of textures and nomadic finds exuding a global charisma.” It is your chance to exhibit both your travels and tastes across one outfit, and there is no limit to how wacky you can be. Taking inspiration from all four corners of the globe, the staple trends to look for are printed pyjama bottoms and intricately crafted tops whilst the world is quite liter-ally your oyster when it comes to accessorising. In my opinion this is one of the easiest trends to adopt as a student as its ori-gins are all in the ‘gap yah’ vein: hemp, tie-dye and funky pat-terns, but all having been given a high fashion makeover.

Just take a moment to think about the meaning of ‘world fashion.’ The name itself should give you an idea of the complete flexibility of this trend. Think Orient: kimono sleeves, cherry blossom silks and metallic jew-ellery. Think African: exuberant colours, wooden jewellery and

beads. Think India: swathing fabrics, intricate patterns and exotic jewels. Think of any-where in the world and they will have inspired a trend. If you were lucky enough to take a gap year and go travelling, then undoubtedly you will have picked up some worldly gems and now is the season to show them off! It would be pretty closed-minded of me to assume that only on a gap year does one pick up treasures from around the globe, as holidays are also always a fabulous time to shop. Personally, I cannot resist ex-ploring markets and quirky lit-tle shops when abroad and most of my holiday mementos come in the form of jewellery. What this means to me as a student is that the jewellery which I have left to collect dust in a box be-cause it is slightly ‘out-there’ can now all be recycled as part of the ‘Wanderlust’ trend.

To break it down, here’s what you want to look out for when shopping for ‘Wanderlust:’ bright colours, baggy fits, loose fabrics, crocheted tops, and fringing. It is fair to say that the high street have jumped onto this trend pretty quickly with

Topshop creating the most envi-able collection of patterned de-lights - I almost parted with the remainder of my student loan. Tip: don’t shop in Topshop, but allow yourself to be inspired. At pretty much an average price of £40 for anything, we all know the Utopia of shopping is no-where near compatible with a student budget but it is the per-fect place to collect ideas before going on the hunt elsewhere.

H&M has also caught onto the ‘Wanderlust’ trend with a much more affordable price range. Whilst their patterns were a little conventional for me, their range of jewellery was fantastic. As a huge part of this trend is the focus on accessories, with a mix of metals with exotic jew-els and artisan beading all sig-nifying the clash of cultures, I would recommend H&M for their eclectic range. Annoying-ly, most of the vintage shops in Cank Street and Silver Street were also selling some fantastic worldly pieces but again pric-es started from about £25-30, hardly permitting multiple pur-chases.

That said, with all items priced between £3-£10, Leicester’s sav-ing grace comes in the form of Sue Ryder Vintage & Retro on Loseby Lane. I was personal-ly astounded by the prices in there and would highly recom-mend it for any student look-ing to explore vintage clothing on a small budget. I managed to acquire both a funky pat-terned midi-skirt and a bold aztec necklace for less than ten pounds: incredible!

‘Wanderlust’ is all about trans-porting yourself to a mystical, far away land through a mish-mash of colours and materi-als, yet it almost personifies the freedom of Spring/Sum-mer 2014. The message here is choose something colourful but clashing, decorate it with intri-cate jewellery and revel in the beauty of the world in which we live!

by Jess Buckley

Here at The Ripple we are all about student saving – especial-ly when it comes to food! It is the easiest thing in the world to just pop to your nearest super-market by yourself and stock

up on food that ends up hiding at the back of your cupboard for six months, especially you Freshers who have ASDA only a short walk away. However, by getting together as a house, or flat, and organising a meal plan for the week and group shop-

ping, you will save yourself a lot of money and time. In this issue of The Ripple you will learn how dinner can cost less than £10 for five of you by ditching the su-permarket and shopping locally.

This is easy to achieve with hundreds of recipes but, this particular recipe of sausage and bean casserole is incredibly easy to make and all of the ingredi-ents for it were bought from the independent shops on Queens Road.

You will need:2 peppers, 1 onion, 1 courgette, 1 potato, 1 carrot, 1 clove of gar-lic, 3 vine tomatoes - £3.40 from

Green & Pleasant5 Traditional Pork sausages - £3 from W Archer & Son Butchers1 tin of mixed beans – 30p from Pricebu$ters (however, we had one of these already lying around!)1 loaf of wholemeal, crusty bread - £1.70 from Barrow’s Bakery

This week, as a house, we had money left from our previ-ous week’s food budget, so we splashed out and bought a bot-tle of Merlot from Queens Road Off Licence for £3.49 (but this isn’t essential for the recipe)

Begin by roughly chopping all

your vegetables and preheating the oven to 200C.

Part boil your potatoes in a saucepan whilst you cook the peppers, onion, garlic, courgette and carrot in a separate pan.

After 10 minutes, drain the po-tatoes and mix in with the rest of the vegetables, then also add-ing the tomatoes and beans.

Mix thoroughly on a low heat and add beef stock, leaving to simmer for 5 minutes.

Place all your vegetables and beans in a large casserole dish, along with the sausages (and a

splash of Merlot if you, like us, were feeling a bit rich while shopping!)

Cook in the oven for 40-50 min-utes.

The freshness of the vegetables leaves them super succulent and the sausages are, quite possibly, the tastiest I have ever eaten. Shopping locally really does pay off, and with Tesco threatening the business of our local Claren-don Park shops it is becoming more and more important that, as students, we learn to appreci-ate and help our local commu-nity.

Fashion from Far and Wide

Just as it seemed that post-Christmas exams were over and deadlines had passed, the new semester is drawing to a close it’s all started again! It can feel like you’ve not had a moment to rest or even breathe before being thrown straight back into that snake pit. This can make staying motivated hard, but there are a few things you can do to make this time of term a little easier.

First off, before you even think about the work you’ve got to do, be sure to make time for yourself: go to the gym, see friends, do something that you enjoy. This alone can make the rest of term a lot more bearable and doing something active will help to keep your energy levels up.

Next, make yourself a timetable to follow each day, or a daily list, so you know what you’ve got to do and how much time you have to do it. Be realistic, however: if you know you’re not going to get up at 6am every morning, don’t set yourself work to do really early. Most importantly, don’t overload your day: make sure you take regular breaks and make time for food!

Be sure to factor in some of the fun stuff too - have some time just to laze around or go down to the pub with your mates. Re-ward yourself when you com-plete work too. This could be anything: seeing your friends, watching a film, eating some-thing yummy, anything that will be an incentive for you.

However, try not to be too harsh on yourself if you don’t do quite as much as you’d in-tended: you’re only human, after all! For those of you who, like myself, have very few con-tact hours, try to treat Monday to Friday like a full-time job, so you get up at roughly the same time every day and make yourself set working hours. It’ll help to avoid the temptation to lie in bed all day until that lec-ture in the afternoon, and you’ll be surprised at how much you get done. After all, this means you’ll have more time to do the fun and, let’s face it, more im-portant things, in life.

If you do find that your motiva-tion has gone with no apparent hope of returning or you are really struggling, don’t forget the many helpful resources at your disposal at the university. Firstly, your tutors. This may

be your seminar tutors or your personal tutor - either way, ar-range an appointment to see them to discuss your worries. Not only might they be able to offer some advice and help, but merely talking to them and making them aware that you are struggling can be a great relief.

Student services can also help with all sorts of problems in-cluding stress and time man-agement. Get in touch with them through their page on the university website and they can point you in the right direction and offer some great advice and motivational techniques.

Hopefully if you try out these tips, the rest of this semester will fly by and it will be that lovely long summer... Before, in no time at all, September rolls around when it all starts again...

Ms Motivator!

Dinner for a Tenner, Clarendon-Style

Hannah Philips takes us on a tour of Spring/Summer style

Kirstyn McAllister shares some simple ways to stay focused, energised and on-topic.

Image by Wikipedia user Fir0002

13

When and where? 2pm Wednesday 26th March, Stoughton Road Playing fields

Last year’s score: Leicester 26 – DMU 0

What training have you been doing? We’ve been focussing a lot on hitting the body and taking away our opponents strong side. We have a few plays up our sleeves and will be hoping to surprise DMU with them. Currently we do not have a drinking ban and I can’t see one being in place before the game, we plan to stay relaxed and play our game.

Predictions? Leicester will go out strong and hard, getting some solid early goals to give us a nice lead. We’ll have some fun in the process and ultimately come out on top. If DMU score, as a team we will be disappointed but the final result will not change. Leicester will win the game comfortably. Hopefully by a margin just as big as last years.

Score prediction: UoL win.

Anything else? As much support as possible will be great. If you’d like to see big hits and DMU get crushed then this is the game to watch.

Men’s Lacrosse

When and where? 10am-2pm 26th March, Leices-tershire Golf Course

Last year’s score: New fixture

What training have you been doing? The matches played in the league have been good prepara-tion so far.

Predictions? The team had a bit of an up and down season but secured some really good wins. We beat DMU at our home game 6-0 so we are confident the team will secure a solid win in the varsity match.

Score prediction: UoL win.

Mixed Golf

When and where? 8pm Monday 17th March, Oad-by Town FC, LE2 5QG

Last year’s score: 2 – 1 DMU win.

What training have you been doing? We been doing extra training sessions alongside standard training in order to prepare ourselves. A drinking ban is in place, and has been for two weeks before the varsity game.

Predictions? A University of Leicester vic-tory! The first team have met DMU first team twice in their BUCS league matches, winning both games, 3-1 away and 3-0 at home.

Score prediction:2-0 UoL win

Anything else? Free entrance!£1 buses will be provided from the Union and John Foster Halls.

Men’s Football 1st Team

When and where? 3:30pm Wednesday 26th March, Manor Road Pitches

Last year’s score: 11-1 UoL win.

What training have you been doing? We’ve been training really hard this season as we’ve been aim-ing for BUCS promotion (which we’ve achieved), so now the fo-cus is definitely back on varsity. We’re training twice a week and have gelled brilliantly as a team this year, so our positioning and ability to work well together on the pitch isn’t a worry! The cur-rent focus of our training is to just brush up on our stick-skills and shooting, and by our penul-timate training session we’ll be working more on game-play. We do have a drinking ban, starting Thursday 13th March.

Predictions? It’s tough to make a prediction for the match as we haven’t seen DMU play at all this season, and we don’t want to be unrealistic! They could have gained some freshers this year which have significantly strengthened their team. However, I’ve got faith in my team and we’ve performed re-ally well so far this season in BUCS. We’ve been training hard all season, and I reckon this year is our strongest yet.

Score prediction: 10-0 UoL win.

Anything else? Come along to give us some support, it’ll be a prequel to the rugby that’s well worth watch-ing. Smash the poly!

Ladies Hockey

When and where? 5pm Monday 17th March, Oad-by Town FC, LE2 5QG

Last year’s score: 1-1 full-time (UoL won on penalties).

What training have you been doing? Thanks to coach Andy Creed, the whole squad are being put through their paces this year, as competition for places in the Varsity squad is at an all-time high. The number of girls at-tending regular bi-weekly ses-sions has sky-rocketed; shuttles, laps, road-running and push-up forfeits have become common-place, as each position on the squad is up for grabs. We’ve also seen some of our players take the initiative and run parts of our weekly sessions, particular highlights have come from our 1st years, who have integrat-ed well into the team and are a

force to be reckoned with.

As tradition dictates, Women’s football have a two week drink-ing ban – however, with a num-ber of ‘sober socials’ planned, team spirit will be kept high.

Predictions? After recording a convincing 8-2 win in a friendly against DMU Ladies at the beginning of the year, the 1st team has seen a number of changes in the squad since. The competition for plac-es is unprecedented, and we’ve seen a number of our women step-up into the squad for our Away games. We’ve faced some tough fights this year after mov-ing to a higher calibre league, and DMU should expect a UoL team that is battle-hardened, and ready to show them what we have learnt on the road.

Score prediction: 3-1 UoL win.

Women’s Football

When and where? 2pm Wednesday 26th March, Manor Road Pitches

Last year’s score: 6-0 UoL win.

What training have you been doing? Training hasn’t really changed too much. We have cut down to 1 session a week now as BUCS has finished. Nothing really out of the ordinary happens during Varsity season, it’s just another game where we want to win with by highest possible margin! The main preparation is tradition where the chosen squad go out for a meal on the evening before the game. Men’s Hockey has never really enforced a drinking ban. The players know not to go out the night before a BUCS games and the same rule applies for Varsity.

Predictions? A win of course. We are going in as favourites, as usual, but even more so this year after securing BUCS promotion with 3 games still to play! We are confident going into the game! The team all know each other well enough now and I feel we have a solid unit! Ideally a clean sheet and double figures!

Score prediction: 9-1 UoL win.

Anything else? We are looking forward to the game! Sadly for some it will be our last varsity but then on the other hand there is a great bunch of 1st years jumping into their first varsity experience. We have home advantage this year so it would be great to get a good crowd down to show their support!

Men’s Hockey 1st Team

When and where? 12pm Wednesday 26th March Stoughton Road

Last year’s score: New fixture.

What training have you been doing? We are training twice a week on the astro and the pitches. We have stepped up training, con-centrating mainly on fitness, and using the weaker wrist. We still have multiple games left in the season, so to help with these and varsity we have been working on set plays and settled attack.

Predictions? This is the 1st year DMU will have a Women’s lacrosse team whereas the Leicester team has been around for a while. The Leicester team have the fitness and the stick skills to dominate throughout the full 60minutes. After coming a close second in

the league with the highest goal difference the team has ever achieved, we are bound to take out our frustration on DMU. There will be no stopping us. Playing with this fresh young team will be thrilling and we expect to win by a sizeable goal difference…. I’m talking at least 10 goals after the example the men set last year. So if people want to watch a high scoring game, this is the one.

Score prediction: UoL win. Anything else? This varsity has been a long time coming, the Men’s had their 1st varisty last year, and we were eager to have one too. Having started the year with predomi-nantly a fresher squad, the team has come together to play some outstanding lacrosse and are sure to show DMU what we are made of.

Women’s Lacrosse

Continued from back page...

When and where? 2pm Sunday 23rd March, Man-or Road Pitches

Last year’s score: 0-0, (DMU win 2-0 in extra time).

What training have you been doing? Mixed Hockey have been pre-paring for varsity since Janu-ary, when we started attending circuit trainings on Thursday nights to get our fitness up. There will also be a one week drinking ban for the match team.

Predictions? This season has been an ex-cellent season for UoL Mixed Hockey club with the first team on the brink of promotion and

possibly a league title, despite being promoted through league restructuring last season, and have just 2 losses to their name this season, as such I believe that this season’s team is bet-ter than our side last year, who managed to take the game to extra time. We have a solid de-fence and with star player Harry Carr up front, we always have a goal threat. As a result I am op-timistic for a Uni win.

Score prediction: 2-1 UoL win.

Anything else? Once again, in a classic poly move, DMU are still electing to select a side comprised of their best mens and ladies players rather than their actual mixed team.

Mixed Hockey 1st Team

14

sponsored by

SPORTEdited by Samantha Blundell

When and where? 6pm Sunday 23rd March, Dan-ielle Brown Sports Hall (TBC)

Last year’s score: 39-33

What training have you been doing? We have been training at a high intensity at least twice a week, with girls putting in at least two additional gym sessions (one cardio, one weights) per week. We have also added another compulsory fitness training session, so that during the nor-mal training sessions, we can concentrate on particular skills. We will have a drinking ban for about two weeks prior to our varsity match.

Predictions? We expect the match to be a close one, similar to last year’s match. DMU are currently top of their league, as are we; how-ever they are a league below, so we are still expecting to come out with a win. We think it will be a fast paced and intense match from start to finish.

Score prediction: 32-26 UoL win.

Anything else? We’re coming out with a very strong squad this year and we have a lot of talented girls play-ing. It will be an exciting match and a great one to watch!

Netball 1st TeamWhen and where? 12pm Wednesday 26th March, London Road Squash Club

Last year’s score: UoL won the 1st team matchDMU won the 2nd team match

What training have you been doing? The regular really. We’ve been training hard all year, leading to the 1st team winning their BUCS league and gaining pro-motion for next year. We haven’t implemented a drinking ban; in fact we had a really good social last week and are expecting a few more before

Varsity!

Predictions? I think Leicester Uni will be much more prepared than last year. We have a much stronger team and have already beaten DMU in the BUCS league, and that was without our number 1.

Score prediction:1st team match 5-0 UoL win 2nd team match 4-1 UoL win.

Anything else? Check out our facebook page and come along and support Leicester Uni!

Squash

When and where? 7pm Monday 24th (Indoors) – Charles Wilson 2pm Wednesday 26th (Out-doors) - Victoria Park

Last year’s score: We only had an outdoors game, 14 - 3 UoL win.

What training have you been doing? We have 3 indoor and 2 outdoor sessions a week; so have spent a decent amount of time training.

Predictions? Unfortunately the DMU team (Demons) this year has been very weak, and they were not able to play at the outdoor re-gional tournament, so for out-doors, we have the potential to beat them by even more than

last year.

Indoors involves smaller teams, Demons will be able to put a stronger team out. They will be able to make use of some of there stronger players, includ-ing one of their girls who has played for GB. This will proba-bly be a closer game, but overall out team is looking a lot strong-er.

Score prediction:Outdoor 15-2 UoL win.Indoor 9-5 UoL win.

Ultimate FrisbeeWhen and where? Wednesday 26th March 8pm at Welford Road

Last year’s score: 26-3 UoL win

What training have you been doing? A varsity gym training pro-gramme has been followed by the varsity squad since January. The programme involves a mix-ture of weights and condition-ing. The club has been training biweekly with the varsity squad training an additional time. The varsity squad are currently on a drinking ban, which began on the 6th March.

Predictions? I predict that the match will closer than last year. If I had to choose an exact score I would say 20-10 to Leicester. I suspect the winning margin will be between 7 and 12 points but probably ten. A fairly safe bet

is that there will be an injury that forces a player off. I think that Jack Arundell and Kieran Robinson are the most likely try scores.

First team captain, Sam Pick-ett, predicts a 28-3 win for ULRFC. Social Secretary, Dan Hughes, predicts an amusing 1654-21 win for Leicester in what he considers, clearly, will be a free-flowing game. Dan was quick to change his mind though by suggesting a more serious 16-11 win for Leicester. Treasurer, Scott Worley predicts an 18-5 victory for Leicester Uni. Club President, Ben Shove, predicts a 26-15 victory for Leicester. Meanwhile, Aled Evans, Com-munity Officer and first team inside centre, is expecting a 38-9 win for Team Leicester.

Score prediction: UoL win.

Men’s Rugby 1st Team

When and where? 4pm Wednesday 19th March at Stoke Ski Centre

Last year’s score: UoL win.

What training have you been doing? We’ve been bringing the steez, throwing down week in week out all year long, which means the individual progression from our members this year has been exceptional. Our racers have qualified for national finals and we’ve developed a freestyle core with more competitors than ever before. As far as drinking bans go we feel this is detrimental to the spirit of snow sports. We’ve been increasing our alcohol intake to encourage people to

go harder and faster than they otherwise would, thus ensuring a solid performance on the day.

Predictions? We should win. We’ve beat-en DMU at every other skiing competition this year and we’ve increased our coaching levels from last year which has notice-ably increased progression.If we’re TOO drunk we could lose the racing but if we’re NOT drunk enough then we could lose the freestyle so it’s all about finding that perfect equilibrium around 4 or 5 pints. Top picks of members who will be crucial at securing our victory are free-styling fresher Scott Baker and El Presidente Max Thompson.

Score prediction: UoL win.

Ski/Snowboard

When and where? 4pm Sunday 23rd March, Man-or Road Gym

Last year’s score: UoL win by 1 point.

What training have you been doing? For the most part we have car-ried on with our regular train-ing – with a few minor adjust-ments. We placed more focus on sparring drills as well as free sparring and our instructors paid more attention to individ-ual competing members to help us improve our technique.

There is no drinking ban to speak of. We are counting on the members being smart enough

to not get horrifically drunk just before the event. If they do wish to turn up unable to spell their own names… well, that is their decision to make – but they bet-ter be able to compete (and win) on the day.

Predictions? Our chances are looking good. The team is doing better than ever, with loads of talented newcomers boosting our ranks along with seasoned members. We have been entering one competition after another, gath-ering experience and, of course, winning just about every event we entered. Score prediction: UoL win.

Taekwon-do

When and where? 2pm Wednesday 26th March, Carisbrooke Tennis Club

Last year’s score: 10-2 UoL win.

What training have you been doing? We have had two intense train-ing sessions a week with coach-es present. We focus on areas we need to improve on using specifically designed drills. We then try and apply this within a match situation, gaining as much competitive experience as possible to make sure we all match-fit. We do not have a drinking ban.

Predictions? The 1sts have had an incredi-ble year under Danny McArdle as captain. Undefeated in 1st semester they are strong con-tenders to be promoted and are looking a very capable team. To continue the fantastic league performance this year and give my players the perfect chance to promote their skills against the best DMU have to offer. We hope this to be a Varsity tie in which Alfie Whittaker, Liam Bligh, Josh Melville and Joe Id-dison prevail with relative ease.

Score prediction: 12-0 UoL win.

Men’s Tennis 1st Team

When and where? 6:30pm Wednesday 26th March, Welford Road Stadium.

Last year’s score: 27–0 UoL win.

What training have you been doing? We are on a sponsored drinking ban. Fitness testing and training now geared towards Varsity; set plays, team run throughs, varsi-ty specific moves.

Predictions? I think it will be a closer match

then we have encountered be-fore. DMU are having a bril-liant season, like Leicester and I think the Varsity match will be quite physical. ULWRFC have been working on their defence this year and try to restrict the opposition score to only one.

Score prediction: 20-7 UoL win. Anything else? If anyone needs tickets please contact one of the girls via Face-book/twitter and we’ll come down and sell them to you!

Women’s Rugby

When and where? Women’s 2pm and Men’s 4pm Thursday 27th of March, Charles Wilson Sports Hall

Last year’s score: DMU only had a mixed volleyball team. 2-1 DMU win.

What training have you been doing? We have been preparing not only physically but mentally as well. We take our rivalry seri-ously so we put varsity into the minds of our players early on in the year. We have had friendly

games a DMU to check out our competition and so far, so good!

Predictions? We are going to take back the victory from last year

Score prediction:2-1 UoL win

Anything else? Make sure to come support our volleyball teams! It’s a fun sport to watch and you’ll be surprised at how the sport will pull you in and keep you on your toes

Volleyball

15

Leicester University athlet-ics track- if indeed it can still be called a track- has reached an unusable level of disrepair. Maintenance of the cinder surface has been routinely ne-glected and it has subsequent-ly disintegrated into merely a mud and moss covered path. Approximately ten million pounds has been spent on dra-matic improvements in sports facilities in recent years and the University of Leicester’s sport-ing status has been significant-ly raised. With the impressive reconstruction of The Roger Bettles Sports Centre  in Oadby and the purchase of The Dan-ielle Brown Sports Centre  on Campus, we are starting to look like serious contenders within the world of university sport. However, the hideous track is undermining all of the Uni-versity’s hard work. The extent of this embarrassment is only exacerbated by the fact that the track lays adjacent to the brand new Sports centre on Manor road. The sooner a new track is built, the sooner the University can start to move on from such an embarrassment.

The history of the track helps to shed light on the extent to which the University has neglected the development of Athletics facil-ities. The track was originally built in 1950 by leading firm En-Tout-Cas and was hailed for its quality. The Leicester Mercury proclaimed the track would be ‘equal to the best in the country’ (10/8/48) and once opened, the same newspaper stated that ‘It is undoubtedly one of the fastest tracks in England’ (18/04/52). So high was the standard of the new surface, that it held not only numerous inter-univer-sity competitions, but also the county championships between 1950 and 1965. Yet sadly, these compliments are the reserve of a bygone age, which has been allowed to slip away from the University. The track was once something to be proud of, but technology has advanced sig-nificantly in the past sixty four years and a state of the art facil-ity to match the high standard set by the University itself is long overdue.

Furthermore, the dilapidated

track is having serious rami-fications in the bid to attract prospective students. As the University of Leicester strives to compete with the top Universi-ties in the country, our lack of Athletics facilities is undoubt-edly deterring some of the finest athletes and academics. The al-lure of nearby Athletics tracks at Universities such as Loughbor-ough, or Warwick, sees Leices-ter University falling short to our nearby rivals. The standard of Birmingham University’s track for example, was so high that it served as the training facility for Usain Bolt and the rest of the Jamaican Athletics team during the 2012 Olympics. Just two years on from this and Birmingham are already in the process of replacing that track as part of an impressive new redevelopment. All of which appears in stark contrast to the quality of Leicester’s Athletics facilities.

Moreover, the Running and Athletics club has gone from strength to strength in recent years, entering and hosting more competitions than ever before. Yet the club struggles to attract both serious athletes and casual runners, because they have to compete with the state of the art facilities of oth-er top twenty Universities. The majority of sessions have to be held in either Victoria Park or the unappealing location of the council owned track at Saffron lane which is over 3 miles away for first years in Oadby. Many students arrive at Leicester with excellent times in a range of Athletics events, but the lack of

adequate facilities means that they struggle or are unable to continue with a sport which they excel in. Thus a new track, in the middle of the student village would be a brilliant lo-cation to attract freshers to the sport and develop the athletics side of the club. Overall, be-cause the University has stated their intent to become a top sporting University and enter the top 50 of the BUCS leader board, a new athletics track is essential. Investment is need-ed in order to achieve this goal and the sooner work begins, the sooner we can begin to see the benefits.

A paper petition has already seen Leicester University Run-ning and Athletics club collect over 1500 student signatures urging the university to build a new Athletics track. There is also an online version of the petition, which we urge you to sign at the following link.

h t t p : / / w w w. c h a n g e . o r g /en-GB/pet it ions/univers i-ty-of-leicester-restore-the-ath-letics-track-to-its-rightful-con-dition

Petition for New Running Track Gathers Pace

When and where? 12pm Women’s 2nd, 4pm Men’s 2nd, 4pm Women’s 1st 6pm Men’s 1st Saturday 22nd March, Danielle Brown Sports Centre

Last year’s score: UoL win.

What training have you been doing? We haven’t changed our train-ing especially for varsity. Our training throughout the year has included lots of strength and conditioning, circuits, shooting drills and scrimmag-es. We feel like a season’s worth of intense training and tough games is enough.

Alcohol is actually a motivating factor in our club, so a drinking ban would only act as a det-rimental factor in our team’s preparation for varsity.

Predictions? We are going into this year’s var-sity having won the last 3 games against DMU, including an away win last week. (65-60). So we are confident that our win-ning ways will continue. The second team finished 4th in very tough 3A league this year behind some of the best basket-ball Universities in the country, so they will be determined to end an already successful sea-son on a high.

Score prediction Men 1st: dou-ble digit win.

Anything else? We would like as much support as possible to witness DMU’s imminent destruction. Its free entry and on campus, so no ex-cuses.

Basketball

When and where? 9am Wednesday 19th March, South Leicester Riding Estab-lishment

Last year’s score: UoL win.

What training have you been doing? Both teams have been training

weekly for Varsity and have competed in BUCS competi-tions to practice the format of competition. Training includes both dressage and show jump-ing. Predictions? The 1st team have won their league, which stands them in good stead for Varsity against

DMU who have not won their league. 2nd team were second in their league and have beaten DMU on numerous occasions before. Therefore we hope that we will win Varsity by some distance, particularly as we are hosting this year.

Score prediction: UoL win.

Equestrian

When and where? 1.30 pm Saturday 22nd March, Grand Union Canal (other side of the Tigers stadium)

Last year’s score: 9-1

What training have you been doing? We have enforced a drinking ban as from 8th March and the teams have been training up to 5 or 6 times a week. This in-cludes both water sessions and land fitness sessions. This part of the rowing season is usual-ly long distance races however Varsity is a 750m sprint so the crews have had to change their training. I do not think that winning this year will be as easy as it has been in previous years and we want to keep up our winning streak so the training has been pretty full on.

Predictions? As long as the Novice Men and Women’s crews keep up their training, I have high hopes that both 4+’s and 8+’s will win. The Senior Women have had a great season so far so I hope that they will come out on top. The Senior Men races only have two Senior Men in them unfortunately; therefore we have novices who have stepped up to fill the miss-ing places- fingers crossed for them.

Score prediction: 6-3. UoL win.

Anything else? It is a great afternoon and every-one is welcome to come and watch. The bar will be open in the clubhouse or you can bring your own booze and there will be a BBQ (hopefully the weath-er will hold up!)

Boat Club

When and where? 1pm Wednesday 26th March, City Cricket Academy

Last year’s score: DMU win.

What training have you been doing? We have been receiving coach-ing from an ex-professional

cricketer, running practice ses-sions specific to indoor cricket.We are not doing a drinking ban.

Predictions? We have a stronger team than in previous years so we are expect-ing a win this year. We haven’t beaten DMU first team in Var-

sity for 2 years so hopefully we will come out on top this time. It’s difficult to predict the score for an indoor cricket game but it will hopefully be a Leicester win by a distance.

Score prediction: UoL win.

Indoor Cricket 1st Team

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