The Courier - February 2013 - Year 63 Edition 4

A MASTER’S degree scheme advertised by Aberystwyth University as “a key compo-nent of a new initiative in interdisciplinary postgraduate study” has failed to attract any students, a request � led under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed. � ere were a total of eight applications received for the taught Master’s degree in “Digital Connec-tivity: Communications, Networks and Rev-olutions”, six of which were successful. How-ever, the University said none “accepted the o� ers, i.e. they did not turn up and register for the course”.

� e scheme, described as “unique, cut-ting edge and multidimensional” was to be led by the International Politics department and would “draw on areas of expertise” in

the Art, Computer Science, Information Studies, International Politics, Law and Criminology, Management and Business, Psychology, and � eatre, Film and Televi-sion Studies departments.

� e Master’s, which was launched at a re-ception hosted by the International Politics department in London in November 2011, was the subject of a social media campaign, with the University’s Twitter account post-ing 41 tweets about “#connectivity”. Vice-Chancellor Professor April McMahon said the scheme would “create a high-pro� le hub for the study of ‘Connectivity’, combin-ing teaching, research and dissemination in the � eld, as we establish ourselves as a fo-cal point of commercial and public outreach

for exploring the impact of the ‘information revolution’ on modern life.”

� e University o� ered � ve inaugural £7, 000 scholarships to cover the entirety of the agreed tuition fee for full-time UK/EU stu-dents for the “pioneering Masters [sic] pro-gramme driven by the most revolutionary transformation of the 21st Century”. Appli-cants were invited to apply for the scholar-ship by “providing evidence of engagement with digital/social technology and media”, which included the options of presenting a blog or piece of artwork with a 500-word commentary.

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Founded 1948 aberstudentmedia.com Year 63 Edition 4 February 2013

Cricket: BUCS ruling overturned

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14

Mental health: face the facts

Valentine’s dates in Aberystwyth

15

24

StarbucksWhat does the new coffee chain mean for the Union and the rest of Aberystwyth?

The publicity for prospective students used imagery pertaining to modern technology to highlight the ‘revolutionary’ nature of the course

Gangster Squad: mobsters and morality

NUS who?How relevent is the National Union of Students in Aberystwyth?

A SATIRICAL campaign for the position of National Union of Students (NUS) Presi-dent started by an Aberystwyth student has become that with the most “likes” on Facebook. At the time of going to press, al-most 1400 people had shown their support the campaign “Inanimate Carbon Rod #1 for NUS President”, more than the other three candidates combined.

Andrew Tindall, a third year student in the Department of Computer Science, started the campaign in mid-January a� er nomina-tions opened for the executive

positions of NUS. � e device of the Inani-mate Carbon Rod � rst gained notori-ety in ‘Deep Space Homer’, a Simpsons episode initially broadcast in 1994,

where Homer Simpson inadvertent-ly saves a space mission he was on by

holding the shuttle door shut with a rod he pulled o� the wall. Since then, ‘Inani-

mate Carbon Rod’ has been nominated for Students’ Unions elections around the

country, and even as a candidate for Pres-ident in the Irish General Election of 2011.

When the initial list of candidates

was released by NUS on Friday 26th Janu-ary, Inanimate Carbon Rod’s o� cial bearer, Samuel Gaus of University College London, was not included. � e following Monday, Gaus’ name appeared struck through, with an addendum that he had received insuf-� cient nominations. However, a� er NUS con� rmed the identities of the 10 students from di� erent Students’ Unions required for a valid nomination, Gaus appeared on the candidates list on 30 January.

Aberystwyth student starts satirical campaign for NUS President

> Read more page 3

ZERO STUDENTS ENROL ON ‘WORLD FIRST’ MASTER’S SCHEME

> Read more page 3

2� e CourierFebruary 2013

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Any opinions expressed in articles in this newspaper are solely those of the contributors and are not to be attributed to the Aberystwyth Student Media committee, Aberystwyth University Students’ Union or Aberystwyth University.

� e acceptance of advertising by � e Courier is not an indication that � e Courier, its editors or contributors or anyone associated with � e Courier either supports or opposes any activity in which the advertiser may participate.

� e Courier is published by Aberystwyth Student Media, an unincorporated association. Union Building, Penglais, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DX. © Aberystwyth Student Media 2012.

news 03

in depth 06

opinion 08

arts 15

Extinguisher 20

puzzles 19

sport 22

societies 11

lifestyle 12

[email protected]

Letters should be sent to [email protected] may be edited for reasons of space and clarity.

LETTERS EDITOR TO THE

Aberystwyth Student Media is the integrated student media organisation for Ab-erystwyth. We produce The Courier, Bay Radio and Bay TV.

We operate independently of the Students’ Union and University; all of our content is produced by Aberystwyth students on a voluntary basis.

We’re always looking for new members - however you want to be involved, Aber Student Media is the place for you! To fi nd out more, come to our fortnightly meetings at 6:30pm on Wednesdays in the main room of the Students’ Union, or drop by our o� ce, G2, on the ground fl oor of the Union between 10am and 4pm weekdays.

If you’ve got any queries about joining, email our Membership Manager, Amy: [email protected].

You can � nd all the articles from this issue of The Courier, and more, online:

Imagine that you some-how stumbled into the world of student journalism, and found yourself in the rather

perplexing situation of once a month need-ing to pick something which had happened in Aberystwyth to be published on the front page of a newspaper which is going to be printed 2500 times in the next 72 hours.

Imagine if, rather late on a Friday night, when any sensible student is pouring vast quantities of alcohol down their throat, an email appeared in your inbox with that front page story written all over it.

My initial reaction was to be relieved – nightmares about blank front pages would have certainly come out to play that night – and proud – “hey look everybody, I had a hunch which turned out to be right!” But, as I scrolled through the email with the answer to the Freedom of Informa-tion request about the University’s taught Master’s in Connectivity, my heart sank. � e University had o� ered £35k worth of scholarships for the inaugural year.

If you follow higher education news, you’ll know that it’s becoming increas-ingly hard for students to � nd funding for taught postgraduate courses, and that those studying beyond undergraduate level are ineligible for help from the Student Loans Company. I’d give a kidney (I hear you only really need one) to be able to study for a Master’s without the prospect of thousands of pounds of debt in the form of a bank loan looming over me as soon as I graduate.

I’m currently in the process applying for a Master’s which I know deep down I’ll never be able to a� ord to enrol on. Although I suppose “Grace Burton, Master of Con-nectivity” does have a certain ring to it…

Dear Editors,

I am lucky enough to have been reading the Courier now for a year and a half and admire very much how you try and advise people, especially freshers and newcom-ers to the university scene, on what can be expected now that they’re here. Certainly some of your articles on housing, budgeting, and the like have been very helpful to myself and I’m sure many others.

One very important thing that has been a huge problem for me and my housemates this year that I have not seen discussed in your paper is the problem of setting up an Internet connection and the cons that some companies seem to think they can get away with. I myself had the misfortune of choos-ing a very poor ISP.

Now, having been misled and even hung up on by their customer services sta� , and with no other options available, we have been forced to � nd a new service provider who will take at least another month to set up our internet. My housemates have been unable to revise for exams, do work during term, or even check Facebook without going up to the University.

I think it only right to warn people about the cons that some larger companies think that they can pull, and would be very grate-ful if you could, through some article or suchlike in your � ne paper, warn newstudents who are setting up their � rst inter-net connections to be very careful who they choose and ask around to see who has de-cent providers; as well as making sure they stand up for themselves if things go wrong!

� anks and regards,

Mike Steel

Dear Editors,

I have a confession to make. I am a tea snob. I like my beverages made with love, care and wisdom. For this reason, I tend to avoid co� ee shops such as Starbucks, and in-stead frequent more local cafés. I know I’m not the only one who thinks like this.It’s this preference for the local that makes me fairly con� dent that the newly opened Starbucks in the Students’ Union won’t be putting Ab-erystwyth town centre out of trade. One of the biggest arguments against the establish-ment of the market leading co� ee chain was the fear that it would steal clientele from the smaller, non-chain cafés in town. I don’t think that’ll be the case at all.

For a start, most co� ee shops in town seem to be doing a pretty good trade despite the presence of Costa Co� ee on Great Dark-gate Street – a chain that has nearly twice as many outlets in the UK. Although it’s true that Costa has become a popular co� ee shop of choice for many students, it’s not at the detriment to any of its more local rivals, so why should Starbucks prove any di� erent? It may have a reputation as a soul-sucking ti-tan of the high street, but so does Costa, and that’s not where I buy my beverages.

It’s clear that most of us, in the words of Tubbs, just prefer ‘local shops’.

Faithfully,

Anne Woods

Student politics. It’s a messy landscape of loud voices shouting over one another, occasionally at point blank and sometimes over vast dis-tances. Being involved in student media, you have to develop some awareness of what is being said and by whom. In all honesty though, it’s impossible to keep up with the opinions of everyone, especially as social media has given anyone with a functioning keyboard the ability to get involved. Opin-ions can either be as thoroughly researched as one of those thick tomes our elders used (I believe they were called encyclopaedias), or as under-informed as a Wikipedia page on the mating habits of dodos. � e key thing when keeping up-to-date is learning what is fundamentally important.

When the � rst anti-Starbucks motion was put forward at a General Meeting in No-vember 2011, those who intended to vote the brand out of Aberystwyth turned up in their masses. � ose who were pro-Starbucks also showed in their numbers, and it was a close vote. It seems most likely that those who were apathetic voted in favour of Star-bucks - do you want new co� ee? Yeah, sure, why not?

� e apathy of the masses can be wielded by the right hands, however. Just take a look at the Inanimate Carbon Rod for NUS Presi-dent campaign.

� is movement is student politics in a Simpsons inspired microcosm. � e brains behind it are making a valid point about the NUS and representation. � ey feel let down, and they know others agree. � ey also know, however, that the more apathetic members of the student community will join in be-cause lol, jokes, it’s done a funny.

It’s interesting what people prioritise.

Rhian EvansCo-Editor

Grace BurtonCo-Editor

aberstudentmedia.com

Editors

Sub-EditorNews EditorOpinion EditorLifestyle EditorArts EditorSports EditorProofreader

Grace BurtonRhian EvansKathryn HillLaura Say Callum McDonnellAlys HurnSteph SchultzHarry TaylorAnwen Hayward

[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@aberstudentmedia.com

archive 21


[email protected]/news

NEWS EDITORLaura Say

Aberystwyth student starts satirical campaign for NUS President

(continued from front page)� e deadline for applications for the schol-

arship was extended to “support interested applicants” in July 2012.

� e reply to the Freedom of Information request said that a� er no students enrolled on the Master’s it was decided “not to run the Masters in Connectivity for 2012 entry”; the scheme is no longer advertised on the Uni-versity website.

A further request has been � led under the Freedom of Information Act to establish the cost of promoting “the world’s � rst Masters Degree scheme of its kind”, which was wide-ly advertised through University publicity events and full-page adverts in the national press.

A University spokesperson, when given the opportunity to comment, said that the Uni-versity “has nothing further to add”.

Grace Burton

(continued from front page)� e Inanimate Carbon Rod’s manifesto was originally not distributed by NUS due to copyright infringe-ments regarding the images used, despite the current NUS Vice-President (Society and Citizenship) Dannie Gru� erty using � e Gru� alo, a copy-righted children’s character, in her 2011 campaign without consequence. A� er produc-ing a manifesto which named Samuel Gaus as Rod’s “o� cial bearer”, and in which every image was replaced with the text “image not approved by the NUS”, the campaign’s man-ifesto was accepted, although it is yet to appear in the online feature used by students’ un-ions or press with the other candidates’ manifestos.

� e policies which form Inanimate Car-bon Rod’s campaign satirise the typical lan-guage used in student movement manifes-tos. � e campaign calls for a “full nuclear arsenal for the NUS” and to “train 8,000,000 death cyborgs”.

� e campaign to elect Inanimate Carbon Rod has fast gained traction, with motions to be proposed at several students’ unions, including Aberystwyth, that would mandate their delegates to NUS National Conference

2013, at which the executive committee is elected, to vote in favour of ‘Rod’. Aberyst-wyth University Students’ Union will debate the motion at the next Student Assembly, which will be held on February 7th.

In an interview with Aberystwyth Student Media, Rachel Wenstone, NUS Vice-Presi-

dent (Higher Education), attempted to draw a link between the fact that this election fea-tures two women for the � rst time in many years, and the decision to run a “parody can-didate”.

Describing the situation as “a bit odd”, Wenstone said she was not “accusing the makers [of the cam-paign] of misogyny”, but that the situation did “worry” her.

� e full candidacy for the posi-tion of President was not publicly known on the date Inanimate Car-bon Rod’s campaign was started.

Steph Lloyd, President of NUS Wales, agreed with Wenstone. However, she added that the cam-paign is “more for popularity” and that Facebook ‘likes’ do not nec-essarily guarantee the outcome of the election, questioning students’ engagement.

� e other candidates for NUS President are Vicki Baars of NUS

National Executive Committee, Toni Pearce of NUS National Executive Committee and Peter Smallwood of Brunel University Stu-dents’ Union.

NUS ELECTIONS

Grace Burton

NETWORK

No students enrol on “pioneering” Master’s degree

A promotional image from Inanimate Carbon Rod’s o� cial manifesto

50 years on from original Welsh-language protest, “the struggle is by no means over”

> Full interview with Rachel Wenstone and Steph Lloyd, page 7

A RALLY on February 2nd marked the � � ieth anniversary of a sit-down protest on an Ab-erystwyth bridge that sparked the revival of the Welsh-language movement.

A crowd of around 300 gathered in Owain Glyndŵr Square in Aberystwyth town centre before marching to the site of the original demonstration on Trefachan Bridge.

In 1963, a group of students held a sit-down protest on the bridge in protest at the court system operating in English only.

But Robin Farrar, Chair of Cymdeithas yr

Iaith Gymraeg, said that the “struggle [was] by no means over”.

Farrar said “Cymdeithas and other people who have taken direction action and pro-tested have won very important concessions for the Welsh language over the years, We have seen the establishment of S4C, Welsh road signs, and � nally in 2011 with the Welsh Language Measure, we saw some degree of o� cial recognition for the language.”

“But the struggle is by no means over, be-cause I believe to secure a living future for the language we’ve got to protect communi-ties where there’s a high percentage of speak-

ers, we’ve got to re-invigorate some of the communities here in Ceredigion where the percentage has fallen steeply in the last few years, so that’s why we’re still on the streets today, calling for more action.”

“[� e student movement] is absolutely in-valuable; students were holding a rally yester-day. Protesting and changing the world isn’t all serious, there’s a lot of fun in it as well, but they have always also been willing to sacri� ce and to put their futures and careers on the line sometimes and that is absolutely critical. It’s their future, they’re � ghting for their own jobs, their own communities, but really quite sel� ess as well, so it’s really quite important.”

Guy Drury

Firewall issues plague University internet ON THE 28th JANUARY, Aberystywth University’s Information Services depart-ment reported a fault with the external network connection, resulting in the en-tire network going down, which was later con� rmed to be an issue with the � rewall. Students connected to the University net-work were unable to access the internet, and external students could not access anything on the internal network (includ-ing Student Record, Blackboard and Web-mail).

Although the connection was restored the following day, � rewall issues contin-ued and the connection was severed again on the 31st.

� at a� ernoon, the University tweeted that a temporary � x had been put in place and that a permanent solution was to fol-low in due course.

� e University’s internet is provided by national academic organisation JA.NET, who did not report any problems with the connections, suggesting the failure oc-curred inside the University’s systems.

Some Computer Science students had their Coding Week seriously interrupted by the inability to share their work with each other.

The Master’s was the subject of a social media campaign, with the University’s Twitter account posting 41 tweets about “#connectivity”

4 � e Courier February 2013

AT THE LAST Student Union Assembly, a motion was proposed by Laura Dickens (Student Support O� cer) to improve both accessibility and lighting on and around campus, including the main road through it as the current conditions are considered ‘unsafe’.

It has been suggested that Penglais cam-pus itself, as well as many of the exit routes and paths around the University, are inad-equately lit. Places in particular which have been highlighted are the footpath by the Sports Cage leading to Llanbadarn, the ex-its by Cledwyn and the Visualization Centre and the entrance to PJM. � e latter is even colloquially known as ‘rape alley’ due to in-cidents of sexual assault that have occurred in the past few years.

For the beginning of this academic year, the Hugh Owen Library extended its open-ing hours until midnight during term-time and the 24-hour computer rooms are be-coming more popular. Dickens noted that this means many students are le� to walk home in the dark, as some street lamps are switched o� a� er a certain time and there are limited bus services.

As well as the lighting issue, Dickens is working with Matthew Harvey (the Disa-bled Students O� cer) to improve accessibil-ity across campus.

� ere is currently a survey online for stu-dents to complete, which will provide the executives with information on the general times students leave campus, as well as the routes they take through the University. Dickens hopes that it will highlight im-portant places which are considered dan-

gerous. In total, Dickens hopes to receive responses from 1,000 students. � e results of this survey will be forwarded to the Un-ion President (Ben Meakin), who will work with the University and Ceredigion County Council to ensure proper safety measures are put in place in the near future.

UNIVERSITYNEWS

aberstudentmedia.com/news

Union to survey lighting and accessibility issues in and around campus

CAMPUS SAFETY

Unlit routes on campus and in town result in dangerous conditions for students at night

Laura Say

A TOTAL of 129 warnings and 96 Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) have been issued by the University for violating parking rules since 1st October 2012.

Under the new system, introduced to comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, vehicles contravening the Park-ing Regulations are � rst issued with a warning notice. A second contravention results in a Parking Charge Notice being issued, which costs £80.

If the debt is paid promptly (within 14 days), the charge is reduced to £40 - 30 of the PCNs issued were paid within this time frame.

A total of 10 violations have not been paid within the 28-day limit and the Uni-versity has made requests to the DVLA for the registered keepers’ information. How-ever, there have been no actions brought against the registered keepers to date.

Parking �ines IN BRIEF

MENTAL HEALTHOf�icers, staff and students trained in suicide intervention

THE STUDENTS’ Union and Mind Aber-ystwyth are running an ASIST (Suicide In-tervention Skills Training) course. � e focus of the course is to provide practical training for caregivers on how to prevent any imme-diate risk of suicide and developing basic skills such as listening.

� e course will be attended by four full-time o� cers, members of the Students’ Union executive, Nightline, AberPride, the Postgraduate Association, Signpost Mentors and members of Dyfed-Powys Police.

� e course has been led for the past few years by Dr Kate Bullen of the Psychology Department and Mind Aberystwyth, who are hoping for it to be further pushed out across the University.

� e number of sta� at the University trained to deal with mental health issues and suicide prevention has varied, with nine being trained in 2010/11, increasing to up to 18 in 2011/2012. In the current academic year, 13 have been trained with another 14 due to receive training. In addition to this, 10 people from the Department of � eatre, Film & Television Studies took part in the Mental Health First Aid course which was

run in conjunction with Mind Cymru in September 2012.

Laura Dickens, the Student Support O� cer, said: “In a time where mental health resources are under severe pressure, it is essential that we have more sta� and students trained. I took the ASIST course last year and found it extremely bene� cial.”

“Amongst teaching you meth-ods in which to help people and talk to them, it makes you realise the stigma attached to suicide and talking about it. I’m really keen to get people to start being more open about their mental health and to get them talking.”

“When the course is � nished we will have the � rst wholly ASIST-trained Union full-time o� cer team, as well as trained mem-bers of Nightline and AberPride. � at in itself will hopefully encourage other Unions to get on board and take the course, as well as members of our own University.”

“With the work we’ve already been doing

with Mind Aberystwyth, we launched our ‘café sessions’ last semester, o� ering students a stigma-free place to come and discuss any concerns or stresses.”

“With the immense amount of fund-rais-ing from Neon Presents Aberystwyth and the International Politics Society, as well as the initial donation from an alumnus, this is a service we are now able to o� er weekly, and it should hopefully comfort people who may be waiting for counselling or who may just want to get things o� of their chest.”

� e café sessions began again on 29th January from 4-6pm in the Students’ Union.

Ben Holihead

If you’d like to help write an article, or know of a local issue you think needs more coverage, get in touch today! email [email protected] phone 01970 621738

FOLLOWING a report in the previous issue of � e Courier, it has been revealed that the £10,943 which was deleted from catered students’ Aber Cards has been re-allocated to the Hospitality Department. Any money which was put onto the cards by the students remains, however, if the card is unused for six months it will be au-tomatically withdrawn. Catered students lose any remaining balance on the last day of the Accommodation Licence.

Deleted Aber Card credit

DESPITE the problems and complaints against the University in 2012, students were le� without timetables until the last weekend before teaching began.

Whilst provisional timetables were re-leased over a month in advance, many seminars were not added until the week-end before teaching began. At the time of going to press, IBERS students did not have their full timetables. � e Uni-versity commented on the complexity of the operation due to the sheer number of modules, and expressed their ambition to “increase contact hours in the year ahead and focus on the student experience”.

Union sources have suggested that from the start of the next academic year, timeta-bles could be extended to 7pm and students could have Wednesdays completely free.

Timetabling issues re-occur

A TOTAL of 129 warnings and 96 Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) have been issued by the University for violating parking rules since 1st October 2012.

Under the new system, introduced to comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, vehicles contravening the Park-ing Regulations are � rst issued with a warning notice. A second contravention results in a Parking Charge Notice being issued, which costs £80.

If the debt is paid promptly (within 14 days), the charge is reduced to £40 - 30 of the PCNs issued were paid within this time frame.

A total of 10 violations have not been paid within the 28-day limit and the Uni-versity has made requests to the DVLA for the registered keepers’ information. How-ever, there have been no actions brought against the registered keepers to date.

Parking �ines

FOLLOWING a report in the previous issue of � e Courier, it has been revealed that the £10,943 which was deleted from catered students’ Aber Cards has been re-allocated to the Hospitality Department. Any money which was put onto the cards by the students remains, however, if the card is unused for six months it will be au-tomatically withdrawn. Catered students lose any remaining balance on the last day of the Accommodation Licence.

Deleted Aber Card credit

DESPITE the problems and complaints against the University in 2012, students were le� without timetables until the last weekend before teaching began.

Whilst provisional timetables were re-leased over a month in advance, many seminars were not added until the week-end before teaching began. At the time of going to press, IBERS students did not have their full timetables. � e Uni-versity commented on the complexity of the operation due to the sheer number of modules, and expressed their ambition to “increase contact hours in the year ahead and focus on the student experience”.

Union sources have suggested that from the start of the next academic year, timeta-bles could be extended to 7pm and students could have Wednesdays completely free.

Timetabling issues re-occur

> take the surveyShare your views to help to improve campus acces-sibility and lighting

Mind Aberystwyth run mental health ‘café sessions’ for students in the Annexe of the Students’ Union Main Room


UNIVERSITYNEWS

aberstudentmedia.com/news

ABERYSTWYTH University has been ranked poorly on the diversity of its profes-sors, with regards to both gender and eth-nicity, according to a report published by UCU (the University and College Union). Data obtained by the Union under the Free-dom of Information Act shows that 91.4% of Aberystwyth’s professoriate are male, and 98.7%, where ethnicity is known, are white.

Professoriate are academic sta� that in-stitutes “return” as being professors to the Higher Education Statistical Agency; pro-fessors predominantly have the title “Pro-fessor” or “Chair” and are paid a minimum annual salary of £54,283.

� e request revealed that, of the 80 profes-sors at Aberystwyth University, 75 are listed as “ethnicity known”. It also showed that of the 810 “non-professors” at the University, 760 are listed as “ethnicity known”.

� e percentage split between female and male non-professors is 49.8:50.2, with a percentage point gap between women pro-fessors compared with non-professors of 41.2. � is was the second biggest percentage point gap of all the institutions reviewed in the report. � e (known) ratio of BME (black and minority ethnic) to white professors is 1.3:98.7, with a percentage point gap of 6.7 between BME sta� as % of professors com-pared with non-professors.

A gender pay gap of 7% was identi� ed among professoriate in Wales. Insu� cient data was available regarding the pay of black professors in Wales; however, the data ob-tained did reveal Chinese professorial sta� earned 7.5% less than white contemporaries, whereas Asian professorial sta� earned 4.5% more. Data relating to pay-gaps speci� cally at Aberystwyth University was not available.

On a national level, women form 46.8% of non-professorial academic sta� in UK HEIs, but only make up 19.8% of the professoriate. BME academic sta� comprise 13% of non-professorial academic posts, and form 7.3% of professorial roles.

On the � gures revealed in the report, UCU commented: “We are taking the employers at their word when they state their commit-ment to address inequality in the sector. We are therefore calling on them to work with us and seriously engage in tackling this problem. It does not help if employers try to deny there is a problem or if they take a con-frontational or defensive position. To tackle the issues outlined in the report, employers must commit to working in genuine part-nership with their recognised trade unions and to genuinely engaging with women and BME sta� .”

� e Quality Assurance Agency undertook an Institutional Review of Aberystwyth Uni-versity in October 2012 and identi� ed “the commitment to recognising and rewarding

excellence in teaching” and “the develop-ment and support available to academic sta� ” as areas of good progress. � e Univer-sity website states that “academic sta� who are seeking promotion have access to a men-tor to help with this process”.

� e University awarded two new profes-sorships in January; the two individuals who have been appointed to the roles are Richard Marggraf-Turley, for the role of Professor of

Engagement with the Public Imagination, and Professor Nigel Scollan, who became Professor of Engagement with Science. Vice Chancellor Professor April McMahon said: “We are fortunate to have some excellent examples of highly innovative engagement work going on already, and I’m sure both Richard’s and Nigel’s wealth of experience in public engagement and research will help us build on these initiatives.”

Aberystwyth University amongst lowest in the country for professor equality

PROFESSOR APPOINTMENTS

Grace Burton

THE FULL RENUMERATION of Aber-ystwyth University’s Vice-Chancellor, Pro-fessor April McMahon, has been revealed through a recent request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Her salary for the year ending 31st July 2012 totalled £208,000, a � gure which in-cludes her salary, bene� ts and a one-o� per-formance-related payment.

� e bene� ts which Prof. McMahon re-ceives include representative accommoda-tion on the upper � oor of Plas Penglais, a Grade-II listed mansion situated opposite the University, and full use of a University-owned car (which is also used for “other members of the Executive and University sta� ”) when travelling to and from meet-ings. A driver is allocated from Campus Services as required.

In the same request, it was revealed that the University employ ten full-time sta� who are paid less than the Living Wage of £7.20 per hour, six of whom are on industri-al year placements as part of an undergradu-ate degree scheme.

� e median-paid employee receives £27,578 per year, whilst the lowest-paid em-ployee receives £6,985.

University pay revealed

Professor Nigel Scollan (left) and Professor Richard Marggraf-Turley (right), the two new Professors for Engagement for Science and Imagination, respectively

THE ANNUAL Students’ Union Spring Election process will begin on 8th February.

Candidates who are interested in running for Union Executive positions (both the full-time and part-time o� cers) will be able to begin putting their names forward on this date. � e Liberation and Section o� cers will be elected in Autumn of the next academic year.

Students who wish to enter are to put for-ward a manifesto detailing the plans and policies they intend to implement should they be elected. Nominations will remain open for 10 days, closing on 18th February at 12pm. Verbal canvassing, when candi-dates can begin to spread word of their cam-

paigns, will also be permitted from this date; however, public canvassing, including post-ers and videos, will only be allowed from 1st

March, the week of the election itself.In the lead-up to voting, students will be

able to � nd out more about the candidates. Hustings (questions to candidates) will be held on the 4th, and a debate for presidential nominees will take place on the 5th.

� e voting period will run over the 6th and 7th March, and any student registered at the University (and therefore automatically a member of the Union) is eligible to vote.Results will be announced on the evening of the 7th, covered by Aberystwyth Student Media online and in print on the 8th March.

Union elections announcedRhian Evans Aberystwyth Student Media (publishers

of � e Courier) have introduced a new Regulation to cover conduct during Un-ion elections. Any member of the society who is involved in campaigning, either as a candidate or a member of a campaign team, will have no association with any content produced in conjunction with the elections, and committee members are not able to exercise editorial functions in rela-tion to elections content. A separate Elec-tions Editor is responsible for all elections content.If you are interested in getting involved with Aber Student Media’s coverage of the Spring Elections, get in touch with Rhian Evans, the Elections Editor, at [email protected].


IN DEPTHaberstudentmedia.com/features

The Students’ Union and Starbucks

THE BAR IN the Cwtch began selling Star-bucks branded beverages on � ursday 17th January. � e opening followed a long series of discussions on the advantages and disad-vantages of making Starbucks the brand of choice in the Students’ Union, as the change of co� ee provider proved to be an issue which engaged many within the student body, as well as the local area.

STARBUCKS was � rst considered as a Union co� ee option at the start of the 2011 academic term.

It was not long a� er this that students began voicing their opinions. � e mo-tions associated with the Starbucks de-bate, which were raised in several General Meetings and Student Assemblies, are de-tailed below.

General Meeting, 8th November 2011: ‘Keep Starbucks Out!’An initial motion, titled ‘Keep Starbucks Out!’ was forwarded by Kieran Ford, speak-ing for the proposal of options other than Starbucks. Ford’s argument stated that “� e Guild is currently � nancially unstable, but even though this is the case we cannot move away from our ethical principles”. Starbucks was referred to as being ‘anti-farmer’, and a case was made to not overlook local busi-nesses.

Speaking against the motion was Guild President, Ben Meakin. Meakin noted the Guild’s a� liation to NUS, and the NUS’s approval of the Starbucks brand, as well as mentioning that Starbucks would provide training for sta� and discounted prices for students.

Speakers for the motion countered that Starbucks as a business potential could fail, and that the brand already in use, Wicked Co� ee, was not being promoted enough, so comparison of potential pro� ts was unfair.Meakin admitted that to be in business with Starbucks could be a “dance with the devil” but that the money that could be brought in (as demonstrated in other SUs, such as at Salford University) could make for a strong-er Guild.

A vote was taken, and the motion to ‘Keep Starbucks Out!’ fell by � ve votes.

General Meeting, 8th December 2011:Questions raisedWhen the Starbucks issue was raised at the following General Meeting, Meakin replied that he would be open to “further consulta-tion” on the matter.

Student Assembly, 6th December 2012: ‘Unethical and Unwanted’� e eleventh motion of December’s Student Assembly (the Union democratic proce-dure currently in use, replacing the previ-ous General Meeting format), put forward by Assembly member Jamie O’Brien, was in support of other ‘co� ee social spaces’, and against Starbucks as being ‘unethical and unwanted.’

Once again, Ben Meakin spoke against the motion, citing many of the reasons he had formerly given. Despite the “national mood” around Starbucks at the time of the Assembly, following revelations of the cor-poration’s tax avoidance, Meakin continued to believe that Starbucks, as an internation-ally recognised brand, could o� er a much needed � nancial boost to the Union.

It was announced that the £18,000 start-up cost of launching the Starbucks brand would be provided by a Capital Investment fund, and that it was possible other compa-nies could cost more.

� e majority of votes counted a� er this debate were deferrals. However, time and cost constraints meant that the Union were not able to hold a referendum on the issue, and so a new vote was taken, with the op-tion to defer removed. In this instance, four assembly members voted in favour of the motion, seventeen voted against and ten abstained, meaning the motion to prohibit Starbucks did not pass.

Students and locals speak outON THE DAY of the launch of Starbucks at the Students’ Union, many students and locals made use of social media outlets such as Twitter to share their opinions on the Un-ion’s new acquisition. � ose students who were in support of the purchase tweeted im-ages of their � rst drink, and those against continued to state their case to boycott the brand.

Local business owners also became in-volved in the discussion. Owner of MG’s Cafe and Co-Chair of the Chamber of Com-merce for Aberystwyth, Christopher Mac-kenzie-Grieve, was particularly vocal, and tweeted his thoughts to � e Courier via his Plaid Cymru-branded Twitter account.

Mackenzie-Grieve, who last year stood for a town council position in the Aber Cen-tral ward under a Plaid banner, claimed that Starbucks in the Union was “a victory for capitalists and tax dodgers!”. When � e Courier made enquiries to Plaid Cymru as to the use of Mackenzie-Grieve’s Plaid branded Twitter account to broadcast this opinion, Elin Jones AM replied, stating that

“Over the years, many Party of Wales mem-bers have campaigned in Aberystwyth in support of locally-owned co� ee shops over multinational chains. � at’s very much in line with our policy to keep employment and pro� ts locally. We want to see Aberyst-wyth retain its individuality by retaining a network of independently-owned co� ee shops. Starbucks has not covered itself in glory over recent months and Plaid Cymru is hugely critical of multinational companies avoiding paying its fair rate of tax.”

#AUSUStarbucks: Mackenzie-Grieve’s tweet to The Courier on the launch of Starbucks

MG’s Cafe, in the centre of town

Going through the motions

FINANCES FIGURES show that Starbucks prod-ucts have proved lucrative for the Un-ion in the � rst two weeks of operation.

As of January 20th, Starbucks has put £7,866.67 into the Union’s tills.

� e average daily taking for the � rst two weeks was £524.44 a� er VAT.

� is � gure includes sales made on the weekends, which, as trends in the � nances have shown, are likely to be lower than sales made on weekdays.

Takings on weekdays have stayed consistently within the £500 - £800 region.

� e £800 ceiling has been breached twice, with £805.79 made on Monday 28th January (the � rst day of teach-ing for Semester two) and £885.92 on � ursday 31st January.

All of these numbers are so far un-audited and non-inclusive of tax un-less stated otherwise.

Starbucks, behind the bar at The Cwtch

IN THIS issue’s In Depth, we examine the motions that led the Union to Star-bucks, the reactions of students and locals, and the overall e� ect the acqui-sition is having on the Union.


IN DEPTHaberstudentmedia.com/features

Grace Burton (GB) interviewed Rachel Wenstone, NUS UK Vice-President for Higher Education (RW) and Stephanie Lloyd, President of NUS Wales (SL) about how NUS is perceived at Aberystwyth Uni-versity and their plans for across Wales and the UK in 2013.

GB: We polled over 100 students around our Students’ Union and we found that about 60% said they didn’t feel represent-ed by NUS and the poll also indicated that people perceive NUS to be the Extra Card; have you got any plans to get students to understand or engage beyond this?

RW: We get asked this quite a lot. We have 7 million members and the possibility of ac-tually engaging with them on a one-to-one basis is extremely di� cult. People’s engage-ment with NUS through the Extra Card is a good thing – the Extra Card brings in thousands of thousands of pounds for stu-dents’ unions and the students’ movement; that’s really positive and enables us to do the work. � e di� culty with NUS is that obviously it’s political; it’s a political organi-sation and we’re being held politically ac-countable for things that we do, and that’s a good thing. If a union does something you disagree with, you don’t feel represented by them. Now actually, away from the politics of motions and all the rest of it, just because you don’t agree politically with the stance of something it doesn’t mean that they’re not representing that student who then goes and talks to the sector, or to ministers, to West-minster or wherever, and it’s trying to sepa-rate that stu� . For example, when we run our access agreement workshops, and places like Northumbria are able to transfer every penny from fee waivers into bursaries, per-haps students at the intuition don’t necessar-ily know that, perhaps they don’t realise how

that a� ects them, because actually they’re already in there and therefore bursaries and fee raises don’t a� ect them. It’s very hard to make the link between Northumbria being successful in that, and linking it all the way back to NUS UK, to develop that workshop, taking it out and training people up and pro-vide support. We saved a grant called ‘Care To Learn’, which is a grant for young parents, teenage parents to go back into further education and primarily, unsurpris-ingly, they are for women, and that was going to be cut and we saved it. � at’s millions of pounds saved for young mums but ac-tually, in reality, again if you’re not a young mum, or even if you are, this wasn’t something that was picked up by the press because it wasn’t anything exciting that made the headlines, but this is huge. � e dif-� culty that we have is not necessarily that we aren’t representing or we’re not doing a good job; the di� culty is trying to link the wins that we make with the membership on the ground, and the NUS extra card is the � rst step in reaching out and communicat-ing with them, but we do have to be better at doing that. Personally, I do a lot of course rep conferences, where I’ll go and I’ll talk to course reps and run sessions, and I’ll do speeches and whatever – this for me is the best way I’m able to talk to beyond sabbati-cal o� cers, beyond executives in Students’ Unions and go beyond that. I know Steph, you had a lot of non-sabbaticals at your summer training stu� right?

SL: For our Zone conference, we had more students there than we had o� cers from Stu-dents’ Unions, and for us that was brilliant. � e thing is as well, if you look at the works

we do with NUS Wales with further educa-tion, every single student governor in every college across Wales, and you have to look at the breadth of the work that we do and the amount of people that we work with, too. We may not always be able to get every sin-gle student on every single campus to know who I am (which I think is � ne, it’d probably be a bit creepy), but the amount of work and

time that goes into training people to be able to make, as Ra-chel said, that di� er-ence on their campus that results in that massive wins for their own students that their students have asked for.

GB: What do you both think of the cam-paign to elect Inanimate Carbon Rod? It currently has more Facebook likes (at over 1200) [as of 31st January] than any other candidate. What do you think this says?

RW: It’s di� cult to comment on the cam-paign for the elections as I’m a candidate myself, but the di� culty that I have with it is, in my personal opinion, everything we’ve talked about so far… I � nd it quite upset-ting that people don’t take it as seriously as I think it deserves, and at the end of the day, when you consider how important the rela-tionship we have with the Government is, the sector and the students and the impor-tant role we have in training and campaign-ing and so on. I � nd it quite sad there are three candidates in the election, all with a completely di� erent mission, across the po-litical spectrum, but that’s not enough; peo-ple aren’t taking it seriously. I also worry, to be honest with you, we had an election last year with four candidates all across the po-

litical spectrum but they were all men. � is is the � rst time in a hell of a long time where there’s two women in the election, and it’s this year there’s a parody candidate. I’m not accusing the makers of Inanimate Carbon Rod of misogyny, but it does worry me that the � rst time we’ve got women candidates, and the � rst time there’s the likelihood of one of them winning, this is the year that they’re being pulled apart by Inanimate Carbon Rod. I don’t know. It’s just a bit odd that’s all, I think.

SL: A ‘like’ on Facebook, what does that really mean in the sense of, does that person really engage? I do agree with Rachel, it’s a laugh, it’ll be the best inanimate object in that election and it’ll all be fun but you can’t slam NUS on one hand for not engaging with students and taking ourselves too seri-ously, but at the same time, we’re not good enough for people and we don’t represent people and we don’t win for people. I think it’s an odd one and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. I’ll enjoy watching that from afar I think.

RW: I don’t know how it’ll be able to speak!

SL: I want to know if there’ll be an out-� t… I’m looking forward to the something moreso than the speech, because rods can’t speak so…

We polled Aberystywth students about their perceptions of the National Union of Students, then put our �indings to NUS Wales President Stephanie

Lloyd and NUS Vice President (Higher Education) Rachel WenstoneNUS who?

Additional reporting: Laura Say, Kathryn Hill

IN NUMBERS

Rachael wenstone pro� le Rachael wenstone pro� le Rachael wenstone pro� le

Lloyd has previously been NUS Wales Women’s O� cer and the President of Swansea Met Students’ Union.

Wenstone was Communications and Internal A� airs O� cer at Leeds University Union.

Have you heard of the NUS?

%, based on 106 responses

What do you think the NUS do?

based on 133 responses

Who are they?

Do you think they represent you?

National Union of Students

OtherDon’t know



> read more...Scan the QR code to read the full article on aberstudentmedia.com

“The di� culty that we have is not necessarily that we aren’t representing or we’re not do-ing a good job; the di� culty is trying to link the wins that we make with the member-

ship on the ground.”

8 The Courier February 2013

OPINION OPINION edItOrCallum McDonnell

aberstudentmedia.com/opinion

MeNtAL HeALtH

[email protected]

We need to face the facts

A RELATIVE of mine was diagnosed with cancer, so I told her to get over it. “Just think about something else,” I said. “It’s your body, anyway! Why can’t you just stop it from producing the cells? Just get over it.”

Except I didn’t say that, because I’m not an awful person, and coincidentally, that’s the same reason I didn’t tell a friend of mine to just ‘get over’ her depression. Men-tal illness is just that – an illness. A sufferer of depres-sion is no weaker, no less deserving of treatment and empathy than someone with a physical illness. The symptoms are just less obvious – and far more misunderstood.

The main problem with the treatment of the mentally ill is that there’s still a stigma attached to admitting to having a problem. Due to a lack of awareness, peo-ple believe that mental illness is a prob-lem that affects relatively few people, and treatment options are limited accord-ingly. Society’s current ideas of mental ill-ness are something along the lines of “it won’t happen to me, so why should I care”?

Well, perhaps that’s precisely why. Even if you don’t personally suffer from a men-tal illness, it’s likely that it’s affecting you in ways you don’t know about. The British economy loses £30bn (yes, you read that right) a year due to sick leave and absences caused by mental illness. The total cost to families and individuals affected by mental illness is estimated to be somewhere around the £54bn mark. The NHS and other social care avenues spend £21bn per year on treat-ing mental health issues. Already, we have a problem; the cost of dealing with mental illness is less than half the cost of ignoring it. Yet, in this time of economic recession, during which cases of depression have sky-rocketed, NHS services across the country are cutting costs in their mental health de-partments by hundreds and thousands of

pounds. NHS services are already unsuc-cessful enough as it is when dealing with mental illness; waiting lists go on for months, referrals take weeks to process and it’s not unheard of for patients to get fed up and decide to forego treatment, with dire con-sequences to their health and, on a broader societal level, the economy and society itself.

Instead of ignoring mental health issues and pretending that it’s something that af-fects only a handful of us, we need to face

up to the facts. Es-timates show that approximately one in four people will suffer from a men-tal illness at some point in their lives,

one in 100 of whom will become seriously ill from it. By allocating more funds to men-tal heath, rather than less, the eventual costs of treating mental illness will fall. Funding research and de-stigmatisation is most des-perately needed; if the public understands and is sympathetic towards mental health issues, more people will feel able to seek treatment. Clearly, the technique of with-drawing funding from NHS trusts in this department hasn’t worked; between 2009 and 2010, the total cost of mental illness to the economy increased by over £28bn. Early government figures have suggested that the worldwide cost of mental illness in the UK was around the £100bn mark in 2012, yet 73% of British workplaces still don’t have a mental health policy. Clear-ly, something has to be done, and soon.

Essentially, not only is the economy suf-fering from our failure to engage with and properly discuss the issue of mental illness, but the very society that claims to be so toler-ant of it, is letting sufferers down badly. You know what? I’m mentally ill. I suffer from an illness that is not my choice, and I control it the best I can while holding down a job and studying for a degree. I’m sick of being referred from GP to GP to specialist to hos-pital outpatients to GP. I’m sick of being told to ‘get over it’ because it’s ‘not your problem’. I’m mentally ill. Why don’t you get over it?

“even if you don’t personally suffer from a mental illness, it’s likely that it’s affecting you in ways you don’t know

about.”

the ‘get over it’ approach to mental health perpetuates pre-existing stigmas, and needs addressing

FrOM tHe OPINION edItOr

Hashish, milk and mopedsWHEN Spanish customs officials captured

a ton of hashish from a drug gang earlier this month, they must have been estatic. “What a haul, chicos!”, they must have said (in perfect Spanglish). The following even-ing, when the very same gang recaptured the very same ton of hashish from the unguard-ed customs warehouse, the officials must I can only imagine what they were thinking. “Oioioi, bollocks mierda!” they probably said (in equally perfect Spanglish). “Don-de menos se piensa, salta la liebre” (“hares jump when you least expect it”) is the Span-ish proverb. Those hares have been rampant these past weeks.

Across the Atlantic, in California, a pair of teenage daughters heavily laced their parents’ milkshakes with sleeping pills, fol-lowing a ban on Internet access after 10pm. Parents can be twits, sure, but doping them? That’s pretty high-stakes daughtership. It must undoubtedly have its benefits. Only the ballsiest mums and dads would not pur-chase these kids’ entire birthday list. Perhaps this is where I went wrong all those years? Anyway, the parents woke with headaches, nausea and a new perspective on modern day parenting. The girls were charged and found guilty. Child therapist Leslie Whitten said that drugging the milkshakes was not “a healthy level of rebellion”. There you have it, rebel! Dope whoever’s milkshakes you like, as long as they’re low fat and semi-skimmed.

Gérard Depardieu, the acclaimed French actor, has been rebelling of late. Disputing a proposed new 75% top rate of tax, he threat-ened to leave France in December. Con-sequently, Depardieu, once at the heart of French film, is now a Russian citizen, having moved his estimated $200mil fortune to pay tax at 13% in Moscow. He shakes his gastro-nomically enhanced ass at the French state. Straight faced, he lauds Russia as “a great de-mocracy”; proof that he remains a fantastic actor. I like Depardieu. He once claimed to drink five or six bottles of wine a day. His size suggests he consumes a meal with each. But he worries me. He continues to drive a

moped. Here is the portliest of men, driving the smallest of vehicles. He’s sure to crash. Indeed, last November, three times over the limit, he did. Quel désastre!

I worry the moped has a parallel with Aberystwyth. Is our Students’ Union simi-larly being ridden by an oversized entity; a university, drunk on the £623,000 surplus it made last year, heading towards a £150,000 shortfall shaped lamppost? Is this a result of the £98,000 real terms cut in the block grant over the last ten years? I hope not. It is a sad indictment of the leadership of any institu-tion when that organisation is perceived to neglect those at the very heart of it, espe-cially a body that provides the support and services which make up a large part of the student experience. A crash is inevitable.

We can learn much from the Spaniards, Americans and Frenchmen. Lock up your hashish, be wary of full fat milkshakes, and scrap a moped when you can afford a car.

Callum McDonnell

Anwen Hayward

9The CourierFebruary 2013

Crime dos and don’ts

IN RECENTLY released national crime sta-tistics, the UK has seen a decrease in general crime, a trend which is exemplified in Dyfed Powys. Apart from drugs offences, which continue to rise, all crime is dropping, and we find ourselves attending University in the safest area of Wales. In order to illustrate this, I’ve arranged 2012’s crime statistics in a completely arbitrary and unnecessarily competitive way against the crime figures for the most criminally active areas of Lon-don, Barking and Dagenham. Fight!

Anti-Social Behaviour: 46.5%Coming in at the top of the chart is the

crime of being a public douche. It bodes well for Aber that the most prevalent crime here is barely a crime at all. Getting arrested for anti-social behaviour is basically like a pre-emptive strike against your impending dumbness. In comparison, for Barking and Dagenham anti-social behaviour accounts for just a quarter of offences, because real criminals don’t get busted singing ‘Come on Eileen’ in residential areas whilst holding traffic cones.

Criminal Damage and Arson: 12.5%Neither of these first two crimes will come

as much of a surprise to anyone who’s been in Aber for a while; getting rowdily drunk and smashing something is a rite of passage known as ‘Fri-Day’. The arson might come as something of a surprise, but there are no figures to say how much of the total dam-age was fire related, so let’s assume it wasn’t much; unless beach fires count as arson at-tacks, then we would probably notice. Again, this drunken rookie crime is not as popular in the mean streets of Barking and Dagen-ham, where it takes only 8% of the vote.

Other Theft: 10.5%‘Other theft’ refers to stealing that isn’t

shoplifting or burglary and it’s huge in Aber right now. On the national police website, the examples of ‘theft from a person’ and

‘bicycle theft’ are given to demonstrate what is covered by this label. Owners of stuff, es-pecially bicyles, beware; there were 51 in-dividual cases in November alone. I don’t know what the black market for bicycles is like in what is (un)officially the hilliest part of the world, and the only other kind of theft I can think of is mobile phones at parties. This presumably means that these num-bers are boosted by people who have actu-ally dropped their phones down the sides of sofas. Barking and Dagenham are hot on our heels with this one, taking 9% for ‘other theft’.

Violent Crime: 10.5%Yep, it’s joint third place for other theft

and violent crime. I guess I’ve painted my-self into a corner here, what with making light of those other crimes. Hmm. In-stead, let’s take a moment to appre-ciate the kind of safety most of us feel in Aber, where a person can walk down the street any time of day or night without feeling particularly ruffled. On top of that, we can all feel thankful that we don’t live in Barking and Dagenham, where November saw 100 incidents of violent crime.

Drugs: 5.5%I’ll be honest, in a safe town like Aber,

with a lot of rich students, I was expect-ing the drugs entry to feature much higher in the charts than fifth. I’m not going to use this soapbox to condone or condemn anyone’s preferred style of recreation, but I can’t be the only one who’s been in situa-tions where drugs have happened (to other people). I suppose it’s a pretty easy crime to get away with, though be warned - this is the only crime locally and nationally that has increasing arrest rates, which either means

there are more drug users or more vigilant police. Again, we have the drop on Barking and Dagenham, with drugs representing 4.5% of their crime.

Public Disorder and Weapons: 4%...and Weapons? The public disorder part

I imagine is a dangerous extension of Anti-Social Behaviour (although the actual police define it as ‘offences which cause fear alarm or distress’), but the weapons part I was un-prepared for. I did once meet a drunk local who showed me a screwdriver that he car-ried in order to protect himself from ‘Lon-doners’. I didn’t know what to make of that at the time, but now I see the irony, given that Barking and Dagenham has one of the highest rates for gun crime.

Shoplifting:Walk through the

town around three in the afternoon and you’ll have to bat-tle against the tide of schoolkids mak-ing their way home. Swing by Poundland at that time of day and you may never

make it out again. No, I’m not saying that all schoolkids are shoplifters. It’s probably about 50/50. I don’t know about you, but when I was a very young teenager, before we thought of smoking as a way to look cool, we stole the most trivial and worth-less items we could. Shoplifting usually di-vides up between children and junkies, but as mentioned above, there are surprisingly few drug addicts in town. And, once again, Barking and Dagenham is just too cool for us. They left shoplifting behind long ago, and now they’re more into...

Burglary: 2.5%Finally, a crime where London has us

beaten. 2.5% equates to four burglaries in

the area compared to Barking and Dagen-ham’s 75 over the same period. This is one of the more telling statistics because burglary usually occurs in either places of relative af-fluence or places of unusual poverty, so it hints at the general quality of life in a given area. Other factors apply, of course, so this is far from a fair measure (in case you hadn’t figured, my approach isn’t very scientific), but as burglary is among the worst non-vio-lent crimes that one can commit, we can all be glad that it doesn’t happen much.

Other Crime: 2.5%Yeah, I was disappointed with this one

too. According to the Police website, ‘Other Crime’ covers fraud, forgery and miscellane-ous criminal activity. It’s a good thing that there isn’t much of it, because otherwise I would feel pretty threatened by the non-specific ‘miscellaneous crime’. Barking and Dagenham saw 27 acts of nameless crime, 4.5% of their total, and I’m sure they’re los-ing sleep over it.

Vehicle Crime: 0.6%This apparently just happened once,

which is nice. A few decades of video game pundits have told us that we were going to be driven into homicidal rages by our Xbox-es, but it appears that only one person went GTA in the month of November. Naturally, car theft is a big thing for real criminals, so our friends in twin city (one day?) Barking and Dagenham have a much bigger problem with TWOCing than we do, with vehicle crime accounting for a full 10.5% of their November crimes.

Of course, I should probably mention that Barking and Dagenham has more of every crime than we do, and that these numbers refer only to the ratios of different criminal acts. In total, November in Barking and Da-genham saw 571 reported crimes (in a one mile radius of the town centre) compared with our 160, so they totally owned us.

OPINIONaberstudentmedia.com/opinion

JACK BARTON: ABER AND THE WORLD

“I did once meet a drunk local who showed me a screwdriver that he carried in order to protect himself

from ‘Londoners’.”


OPINIONA RECENT article in The Western Mail

stated that Aberystwyth University are ad-mitting students who have just managed to pass their A-levels, with some only gaining around 80 tariff points. Should they be al-lowed to study at degree level if they could barely pass their A-levels? The University Vice-Chancellor argues that they don’t only look at the simple facts; Aberystwyth look at the people behind them.

Polls have shown that a lot of Welsh stu-dents are deciding to attend university in England instead of Wales, making the com-petition higher between the universities. As a Welsh student myself, I saw that staying in Wales would be of financial benefit as the

Welsh government would give me the sup-port I needed. However, with news stories saying that Welsh universities are “dumbing down” their entry requirements, it’s easy to see why those students fresh out of school are deciding to attend English universities.

With regard to mature students, many have qualifications that don’t carry UCAS points, or have great in-field experience but no actual educational qualifications. Does this mean that they shouldn’t be allowed to gain a degree? Aberystwyth University prides itself on its close and helpful relation-ship with the student body, giving the indi-vidual the chance to show that they are able to succeed. They don’t just look at your re-sults; they are interested in the person too, seeing if they have the talent with which to gain a great degree.

There is also extra help for those from a disadvantaged background. The University runs a six-week summer course, aiming to help potential students see what university is like and to learn and improve on skills.

So, some of these people might have low grades, or none at all, but they shouldn’t been seen as a risk. The University helps the disadvantaged and the advantaged together. Some might need more help than others, but they all deserve the chance to gain a higher education. To me, that doesn’t say that the university is stupid or dumb, but that they are giving people a chance - meeting them personally and seeing that they have the potential, when other universities wouldn’t bother to look twice because of how they look on paper. Is that stupid? Certainly not.

Normality is relativeSTUDENT CULTURE

UNIVERSITY, by its very nature, is a very hard place to get into; not just academically, but emotionally, mentally and sometimes physically. You are, for the most part, sepa-rated from your parents, with whom you’ve been living for the majority of your life, and from your friends whom you swore to never leave – I know I did – and live, in our case, in what seems like a Welsh backwater town by the sea with a mile-long torture device known as Penglais Hill.

For many of us, university is a chance to wipe the social slate clean and start afresh, with all the knowledge gained from years of formal school, and some of us from years in the workplace. Couple that with living in a faraway town, miles from the nearest city, and you have a perfect recipe for reinven-tion.

Or, as its student population has shown, a recipe for unleashing, well, yourself. There’s a reason Aber was voted as having the “Best Student Experience” in April 2012, but I don’t think it’s because of the inordinate amount of pubs we have (seriously, I’ve tak-en to giving directions to freshers using the pubs as markers). Nor is it solely because of the academic facilities we have, although it does help. I think it’s because of the people and the geography. Every time I go back and meet with my friends in Cardiff, we have a tradition of sharing uni stories. Most of their stories involve drinking gambits, household pranks and the odd social faux pas. When it comes to me, I don’t actually know where to start. Do I open with the time I fended off twelve zombies by the Castle? Maybe that one night where the whole High Street was littered with drunken, oversized Smurfs, or that time that every window and door of Al-exandra Hall’s ground floor was covered in orange construction paper? Or should I start them off lightly with that one guy whom I

saw naked, drinking the dirtiest of pints from an old boot? Yes, it all happened. Just ask around. And the fun part about this? Nobody bats an eyelid any more.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - since when is running around with kids’ toys in public at university age ‘normal’? Normality is relative, dear reader. And here’s the kick-er - even in a town where stuff on this scale happens, it’s still not ‘normal’. It’s still consid-ered downright bonkers. It’s still odd to be doing such things at our age, and whoever does so should be ashamed, the act itself for-gotten and dismissed as a moment of weak-ness when our otherwise academic minds are in an alcohol-induced haze. But person-ally, I think that’s pretentious. The mere fact that these people aren’t considered savages, and that the people with the lab coats and the staffs and the Stetsons are not ostracised for their choices, is a welcoming sign of the times, at least here in Aberystwyth.

I admit that the weirdness and the zom-bie-killing and the uphill unicycling isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and neither is drink-ing until Lost makes sense. Yet here in Aber, according to the students, it’s okay. In fact, it’s wonderful. It sounds cheesy when put into words, but because as a town we’re cut off from the big city, and therefore have our own little ecology of trends, we accept and even applaud the things that other people are proud to be doing.

Aberystwyth is filled with the weird and wonderful, because we let it be. As a popu-lation, we’re placed in this little pocket of Wales, and it’s a blank canvas. Whether you reinvent yourself, explore a new hobby or just drink yourself silly before an exam, you’re not judged by anyone because, let’s be honest: we’ve all been there.

We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad. You must be, or you wouldn’t have come here.

aberstudentmedia.com/opinion

Jay Appleseed

YES, I KNOW what you’re all thinking: why on earth is a student writing an article telling students how to drink? Surely we know how to drink? Is it not an inevitable part of stu-dent culture to drink enough until you think going to Yoko’s is a good idea?

Well, if that’s what you thought, I’m glad I managed to mislead you. What I propose to challenge is not just the pointless desire to drink large quantities of alcohol for the sake of getting drunk (I remember seeing on the wall in Scholars “Drinking to get drunk is like having sex to get pregnant”, or some-thing to that degree), but also to challenge the really poor taste in drinking students have (the widely acclaimed Deathstar in The Cambrian is an example). Yes, the rest of this article is me being a drinking snob.

In a bizarre way, Christopher Hitchens has become the Godwin’s Law of many fellow atheists who hang on to every word he ut-tered or wrote. Whilst I find this annoying to some degree, what this article concerns would be a missed opportunity if I did not quote the late Hitchens on something else that he is very much experienced in. In his memoirs, Hitchens calls drinking cheap booze a false economy, presumably referring to the enjoyment that it takes out of drink-ing. He goes on to state: “you should not ex-pect to be believed if you take refuge in say-ing you can’t properly remember last night (if you really don’t remember, that’s an even worse sign).”

Not being able to remember the night seems a bit pointless for quite obvious rea-sons, particularly if the intention was to en-

joy it. Fortunately, if you genuinely cannot remember the night we now have pages such as Spotted Aberystwyth and Get A Room or This Happens in Aberystwyth to help jog your memory.

I should point out I found very little joy in my first year when I found myself drink-ing large quantities with others in the false hope that it would be enjoyable. It was a massive waste of money overall for very little gain. I am also unfortunately going to have to admit to hypocrisy, as I am also guilty not only of drinking rubbish myself, but also of encouraging others to drink it or to ‘down it’ at some point. Needless to say, I’m quite glad that eventually my pre-university stand-ard of local ale in a pub came kicking and screaming back.

I urge you to ask yourself: what’s the point a gaa? What the point in alcopops are? What’s the point in ‘pennying’ someone? The answer to all of those questions is that it’s to waste your money.

Think about the ‘student culture’ that so many appear to be proud of. I certainly do not want to be associated with it, and nei-ther do many around me who don’t drink or only drink very little. Please consider that not everyone wants to hear your intoxicated shouting in the middle of the night or wants to know about your hangover on Facebook (at least from me you will attract very little sympathy). If you insist on pre-drinking and someone asks you to keep the noise down, it’s not because they don’t want you to have fun, so don’t reply with “what did you expect when you came to university?” (as I have witnessed). If you pre-drink, ask yourself what damage it is doing to local pubs.

A good quality ale, fine whisky or cup of tea can set you up for a good evening. The opportunities are everywhere, with even the Union now serving ale! For whisky I recom-mend observing the Glengower’s fine selec-tion.

Learn to drink!Ben Holihead

“Not being able to remember the night seems a bit pointless for quite obvious reasons, particularly if the in-

tention was to enjoy it.”

UNIVERSITY STANDARDSIs Aber “dumbing down”?

Ashleigh Davies


[email protected]/societies

DEBATING PROFILE

THE TEAM representing the Aberystwyth Debating Union has been ranked 11th in the world, ahead of universities such as Harvard, McGill, and the LSE, securing Wales a place in the quarter� nals of the World Universi-ties Debating Championships (WUDC).

WUDC, held this year in the Tech-nische Universität of Berlin, is a pres-tigious event attended by nearly three hundred debating teams from the best universities from every continent.

Speakers Oliver Newlan (Undergraduate, Interpol) and Roberto Sarrionandia (Un-dergraduate, Computer Science) became the � rst Welsh team to progress to the out rounds of the tournament since 1992, when another team from the Aberystwyth Debating Union

� nished 23rd. � e next championship will be held this December, in Chennai, India.

� e speakers presaged their success by win-ning the John Smith Memorial Welsh Mace, an annual competition to determine the best

team in Wales: a title which Aberystwyth has held for the previous two years. � is secures them a place in the John Smith Interna-tional Mace � nal, to be held in Edinburgh, where they will compete against the best teams from Ireland, Scotland, and England.

Aberystwyth Debating Union was founded in 1872, and meets every Tues-day on the Penglais campus to debate about current a� airs, philosophy, eco-nomics, and the bizarre. Unlike most university debating societies, most of

Aberystwyth’s members come to their � rst meeting with no experience of de-bating or of public speaking, which un-til recently was a privilege a� orded only to fee paying and grammar schools.

� e Union gathers each week at 6pm, in room C4, Hugh Owen. All are welcome, re-gardless of speaking experience.

Aber Debating Union ranked 11th globally

STUDENTS’ UNION

TICKLED PINK

Roberto SarrionandiaChair

Martin Fletcher (Vice-President) Tom Stitfall (Religious Liasion)

THE STUDENTS’ Union Societies Din-ner will this year take place on Friday 21st March.

Held annually, the dinner is a chance for committee members of all societies to dress up and come together to discuss what they have achieved in the year. Tickets to the event, which is to be hosted at the Students’ Union with the support of Residential and Hospitality Services, will cost £15 per per-son. � is price pays for the two-course meal which is to be provided by the University’s catering services.

However, the Societies Dinner is not merely an opportunity to put on your span-gly gladrags and eat a meal you didn’t have to cook yourself - many people in attendance will be eagerly awaiting the announcement of the award winners. Awards categories include Society of the Year, Most Improved Society, Society Person of the Year, Society Personality of the Year and Most Dedicated Committee Member. Nomination packs are to be sent out to each society’s committee in the coming weeks.

� e Societies Dinner will be o� cially launched by the Societies Executive at the Societies Forum on 21st February.

Societies Dinner and awards announced

Make 2013 the year to CoppaFeel!

THIS SEMESTER, the Tickled Pink ‘Boob Team’ will once again be spreading CoppaFeel!’s message, reminding all stu-dents about the importance of ‘copping a feel’ and knowing their boobs. Last semes-ter, the team were kept busy putting on a variety of events, including cake sales, going around campus with the CoppaFeel! boobs and stripping o� for the charity calendar, along with the help of 11 other sports teams and societies.

Anyone can get involved. Last Novem-ber, the team met comedian Rhod Gilbert following his tour stop at the Arts Centre. A� er hearing about all of the activities the

Tickled Pink team had put on, he donated £500 to the causes supported by the society, CoppaFeel! and Breast Cancer Care Cymru.

� is semester, the team hope to become even more visible on campus, attending more events and being more visible than last semester, in the hope of raising further awareness - and some money too! As part of this, they are encouraging as many peo-ple as possible to get involved with the cause and commit to checking themselves so that they know what is normal for them when it comes to their boobs. If you’ve got a phone - and there can’t be many of you that haven’t - it’s as simple as sending a text, and best of all it’s free! Simply text Aber to 70500.

So, join in - Aberystwyth’s Tickled Pink Boob Team are inviting ALL the girls AND guys to get involved and CoppaFeel!

Rhian Evans

Claire JamesPresident

Aberystwyth Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society

WE REPRESENT the needs of atheists, secularists and humanists among us, whilst positively engaging with people of religious faith. � e society aims to remove the nega-tive connotations associated with atheism by being open to those with any religious (or non-religious) background. We promote understanding of atheism, secularism and humanism by positive engagement with both religious groups/societies and the gen-eral student population in a variety of ways, including cross-society events.

We are a� liated with the AHS, the um-brella organisation which represents Athe-ist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies within the UK. � e AHS themselves are af-� liated with the British Humanist Associa-tion allowing us the opportunity to acquire grants, receive speakers and attend national events.

We are a fairly new society established at the start of 2012, and have had many suc-cessful events including � lm nights, cross society debates, ‘think and drinks’ co� ee socials, as well as the obligatory themed so-cials. By using a variety of formats we have been able to engage in topics and issues such as the ambiguity of agnosticism, morality outside of religion and the e� ects of organ-ised religion in the world thus far.

As an evolving society we wish to chal-lenge the views of others using the structure of debate to exemplify the secular position that exists in society. We wish to continue our previous avenues of logic and reason, as well as using our past experiences as a soci-ety to create our week based event in Febru-ary around the date of Darwin’s birth. � is will include a guest speaker, � lms and a Dar-win themed social and much more. For more information check out:

• facebook.com/groups/AberASH/ • [email protected]

The Tickled Pink Boob team with Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert

Want to see your society’s activities covered on this page? Get in [email protected]

Overhaul of BOS card system announcedAT THE SOCIETIES Forum on February 1st, a replacement for the BOS card system was announced. � e new “SocCard” will be introduced in September, and will feature a two tier system. Students who were only part of charitable societies had previously complained that being charged the full £4 for a BOS card was unfair as their societies could not receive grants from the Union.

Under the new system, students who only wish to participate in charitable societies will only have to hold tier one cards, which will cover the costs of insurance and ad-ministration. � ose who wish to participate in other societies will hold tier two cards, which will be more expensive but allow so-cieties to receive grants from the Union.

• For more information, contact Tick-led Pink President, Claire James, at [email protected]

12 � e Courier February 2013� e Courier12

LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE EDITOR

[email protected] Hurn

aberstudentmedia.com/lifestyle

Make-up bag classics for a night on the townBEAUTY

Sabrina Collier

Vanessa Mensah

IF YOU NEED some new make-up for your nights out in Aberystwyth but your bank balance is looking a bit miserable, never fear! You can spice up your make-up bag ready for a night on the town without spending a fortune.

For foundation, I wouldn’t suggest wear-ing a foundation with SPF in it as it can

cause a dodgy ‘ghost face’ e� ect in � ash photography. I would recommend the Bourjois Healthy Mix Foundation, £9.99, as it gives a nice dewy e� ect on the skin and good coverage.

As for concealer, I swear by Collection 2000 Lasting Perfection Concealer. It cov-ers a multitude of sins and it’s only £4.19. Collection 2000 also do a neat concealer-highlighter hybrid, the Illuminating Touch

Concealer, £4.99, which is great for adding radiance under the eyes.

For blush, I love a warm pink shade for nights out, and many brands have their own dupe for the famous NARS Orgasm blush, £21. � e Sleek blush in Rose Gold is a gorgeous ex-ample, at only £4.49. Sweep it around your cheekbones in an upwards motion for a dramatic look, but avoid looking like a clown by only using a small amount of product with this

technique!My preferred brand for eye-shadow is

MUA. Available in Superdrug, they do amazing quality palettes for only £4. ‘Un-dressed’ is a palette with great nude/brown shades and is a good dupe for the famous Urban Decay Naked Palette, and they’re great for creating a sultry smoky eye look.

In terms of mascara, anything that gives a bit more ‘oomph’ is great for nights out. If you want waterproof mascara, Boots’ Natu-ral Collection Water Guard mascara de-livers great length and volume and is only

£1.99. Max Factor’s False Lash E� ect mas-cara, £10.99, is also perfect for volumising your lashes. Although more expensive, it is well worth the money.

Tip: To make the e� ect last, try applying a coat of waterproof mascara over normal mascara.

For eyeliner, I love Boots’ 17 High Drama Intense Liquid Eyeliner - it’s easy to apply and stays on all night, and winged eyeliner looks great with a red or plum coloured lipstick. If you’re feeling a bit more daring, Rimmel do some fun colours in the Scandal Eyes Waterproof Kohl Kajal range, cheap and cheerful at £3.99.

I adore a bright, bold lip colour for a night out and Barry M do a pretty Barbie pink shade – 146 ‘Dolly Pink’, which is nice and girly and only £4.49. If you’re feeling brave, the shade 52 Shocking Pink is a vi-brant fuchsia which will really stand out.

If you want to ease yourself into a bright lip colour, try applying it as a stain with your � ngertips or a lip brush, building the colour up to the strength you want it.

However, if you’re wearing a statement shade, keep the rest of your make-up sim-ple.

How to look slimmer without a gym membershipFASHION

‘‘anything that gives a bit more ‘oomph’ is great for nights out’’

Accessorise� e human eye will automatically notice

the most attractive qualities about you, so use this to your advantage and give the hu-man eye something to look at.

Adding accessories like necklaces, brace-lets, rings, scarfs and belts to your out� ts helps emphasise your look. � e more dis-tinctive an accessory is; the more people draw attention to it. � e right type of neck-lace can help elongate your neck and chest.

Focus on your waistFor centuries the waist has been the focal point for women, an icon for femininity.

In the past, women used corsets to draw in their waistlines. Luckily for us, we have new improved ways to draw the eye to our mid-ri� whilst still able to breathe.

� e � rst option is the waist belt. It came back into fashion a couple of years ago and since the 1980’s it has been seen as the best way to achieve a curvier body shape. Re-gardless of the size of the belt, if you position it just a little bit above your belly button, it helps draw in your waist and accentuate your hip bone.

However, waist belts are not a practical so-lution for every out� t. � e best way to wear one is with loose � tting jumpers, tops and dresses. � e looser the out� t, the more ef-fective.

A more recent trend to help achieve the allusion of a smaller waist is the skater skirt. � e A-line cut of the skater skirt and dress

has a history that dates back to the 18th cen-tury; the idea was to follow the drapery all the way down the skirt, making the waist smaller and hips bigger.

Elongate your body� is idea is very simple; the taller you look, you slimmer you look. � e easiest way to achieve this look is to wear heels. Yes, heels do make you look taller but in actual fact it only makes your legs look slimmer. To suc-cessfully make your entire � gure longer and slimmer, you have to focus on your waist, hips and thighs.

A recent trend that brings these three key sections together is the Maxi. A Maxi dress or skirt is one simple way to emphasise your � gure. However, wearing it right is essential in helping you to look slimmer and taller.

For a shorter frame, wear vertical stripes or prints to elongate the body.

For a bigger frame, avoid wearing thin prints and opt for wider prints which com-pliment your � gure. Wearing a V-neck maxi dress in particular, helps to elongate your upper body but a good bra is needed to make sure your other assets don’t steal the show!

Solid neutral colours help create a longer slimmer body, it’s all about � nding the right shade for your skin tone.It’s a myth that maxi’s belong in the summer, since this look is trending all through the year, take advantage of it. For a winter look pair your maxi skirt with long sleeve top and a pair of wedges or boots depending on the occasion.

Maxi skirts and dresses in neutral colours help to elongate the body

Skater skirts and waist belts are a great quick � x to imitate a smaller waist

IT’S THE BEGINNING of a new year. � e post-Christmas blues are a curse and I’m sure many of you have noticed an increase of people jogging along the sea front- perhaps you are one of them! � ere are ways of look-ing better in the New Year without having to join a gym. Here are my top three tips to trim down without spending a fortune.


LIFESTYLEHEALTH


ACCESS

The dif�iculties facing disabled students around campusAlex SmithWALKING up Penglais Hill and around the campus itself can be challenge for anyone, especially on Monday mornings heading to a 9am lecture or a� er a night out in the town! However, for those su� ering from disabilities, particularly mobility issues, this is more than just an inconvenience. Su� er-ing from mobility issues and having to use a wheelchair around campus, I have had � rst-hand experience this year of the di� culties faced by those with mobility issues at Aber-ystwyth University.

Timetabled roomsOne of the main di� culties I have faced this year is the lack of disabled access on campus having an e� ect on my ability to attend lectures and seminars.

On Penglais Cam-pus, there are 81 centrally timetabled rooms, 48 of which do not have disabled access. � at means that over half are una-vailable to those who have mobility issues. � is has a signi� cant e� ect on the ability to attend lectures and seminars and to work e� ciently.

� e 48 rooms without disabled access in-clude important University facilities such as � oor F in Hugh Owen Library. With depart-mental sections of the library being situated on the top � oor, it has a serious e� ect on stu-dents’ ability to work as they are unable to go and look through books that are required

for their course. � e solution given for this di� culty is to

� nd books using the Primo service and then ask a member of the library sta� to go and collect them. However, this is not practical if a student needs to go and physically look at the books on the top � oor.

Getting from A to BOne of the obvious features of Penglais Campus - the hills! � ere are disabled ac-cess ramps in place to improve the situation, however, these ramps are o� en still fairly steep inclines which are di� cult to use, es-pecially for students using mobility aids such as wheelchairs and mobility scooters.

A number of the doors around campus are automatic opening doors; however, I have

found that they are not reliable as they are frequently out of or-der, and there’s still a large number of doors around campus which do not automatically open at all.

For disabled stu-dents, particularly those using mobility aids, this means that

they have to rely on someone else being around to open the doors for them, which is not always the case. � is is a huge disad-vantage and a problem that needs to be ad-dressed.

� is is a particular problem in the Hugh Owen Library. A li� is available for disabled students to use, but it lacks an automatic door, preventing them from using the li� when alone.

In this case, the disabled access could be considered to be more of a hindrance than an aid. For students with mobility issues, independence is something that is very im-portant, and if they have to rely on other stu-dents and sta� being there to open doors for them, their independence is compromised.

One student I spoke to who su� ers from balance and coordination di� culties said: “In my opinion, they are doing well for dis-ability access with student support, which is great for help with disability and other issues that the student may have concerns about.”

However, they experienced di� culties when faced with some of the stairways around the campus as some of them, such as the steps outside the Union, need to be ad-justed as they are too steep for people with mobility issues. � ey added: “When there are a lot of people, you can’t get hold of the banisters”.

� e University has installed a number of disabled access stairli� s in some of the buildings around campus, but these are once again unreliable as not all of them work.

I have found particular di� culties with the stairli� in the Arts Centre. If accessing this stairli� from the bottom of the stairs, you are faced with the di� culty of having no way of requesting for a porter to come and operate the stairli� .

Porters are called from the box o� ce, sit-uated at the top of the stairs, which means that disabled students’ independence is compromised once again as they have to rely on someone passing through to inform a porter from the box o� ce.

Aberystwyth University welcome applica-tions from students with various disabilities; however, those with mobility di� culties are advised to contact the University before submitting applications.

Student Support� e University’s student support depart-ment is a useful resource for disabled stu-dents, o� ering accessibility support and ad-vice. � ey are able to arrange services such as note takers, adapted accommodation and special equipment. � ey are the department to contact with queries relating to disability support, including Disabled Students’ Al-lowance.

I have found Student Support to be a very valuable department when it comes to issues with disability support and guidance; how-ever, there are still many disabled accessibil-ity issues which need serious attention and action from the University.

� e University Union also has a Disabled Students’ O� cer. � e position is currently � lled by Matthew Harvey, who is there to support and represent those disabled stu-dents who feel they are being unheard and unrepresented.

Accommodation� e University has a number of special adapted accommodations for students with disabilities.

� ere is a variation of adapted rooms at the University with basic adjustments from handrails, visual aids and levels access to fully adapted � ats equipped with lower level kitchens and wet rooms suitable for wheel-chair access.

� e University has adapted accommoda-tion in Alexandra Hall, Tre� oyne, Pentre Jane Morgan and Pantycelyn.

Tre� oyne, for example, has one � at that is a specially adapted large single room, with wider doors and a wet room with a shower with level � oor access.

Pentre Jane Morgan Student Village has three specially adapted houses, two of which have a ground � oor room with a self-con-tained kitchen, shower room and toilet and another ground � oor standard room.

Prospective Students� e University recommends that applicants with mobility issues visit the campus before applying due to the terrain of the campus. Following visits, the University are on-hand to discuss issues that prospective students may have and to help to judge if Aberyst-wyth is the right university to apply for. Prospective students are advised to contact the University’s disability o� cer on (01970) 628537 or email [email protected].

‘‘over half of timeta-bled rooms are un-available to those who have mobility

issues’’

The University has installed a number of disabled access stairlifts in some of the buildings around campus, but these are once again unreliable as not all of them work

14 � e Courier February 2013� e Courier14

RELATIONSHIPSLIFESTYLE


Different dates to try this Valentine’s DayVALENTINE’S SPECIAL

VALENTINE’S Day is around the corner once again. All the restaurants in town will be booked up, the cafés will be over� owing with loved up couples and if you are any-thing like me, options for a romantic even-ing are quickly running out.

� ere is absolutely nothing wrong with going out for a meal; it’s a chance for you and your signi� cant other to be alone, share a nice meal and, hopefully, nicely � owing conversation.

However, for those of you out there try-ing to do something a little di� erent for your Valentine, the tips below will hopefully inspire you to make your Valentine’s Day a great one.

� e broke student dateA sumptuous meal out with roses and cham-pagne is hardly an option, and the thought of a homemade meal may seem a little too stressful for the novice cook. So here are a couple of ideas to make your Valentine feel special without splashing the cash.An indoor picnicFebruary is a little chilly for a picnic outside, so this is a great way to maintain a tradi-tional romantic gesture whilst staying warm and dry.

I would suggest you � nd somewhere to lock yourself away; the � oor of a shared kitchen surrounded by mounds of dirty plates is hardly going to impress your sig-ni� cant other.

So, clear your bedroom � oor, push eve-rything to one side and make enough room for you both to sit. � e cosier the better so you can snuggle up (a� er all, it is Valentine’s Day).

Find out your date’s favourite bag of sweets or box of chocolates, make some sandwiches and a pot of tea (or co� ee), and maybe get some nice crisps or some cupcakes, and you have your picnic sorted!

It’s low cost, low maintenance and there are millions of options for tailoring it for you and your Valentine.Home-made gi� sSomething home-made shows that a little time and e� ort has gone into the gi� . If the thought of making something by hand � lls you with fear, there are hundreds of internet

sites that can give you ideas for the perfect handmade gi� .

A personal favourite is Martha Stewart’s website which has more ideas for DIY gi� s than you can shake a stick at.

� e active dateFor those of you who hate the idea of being cooped up inside and long to be outside and active, why not share your favourite hobby with your Valentine?

You may have a so� spot for sailing, a fondness for Frisbee, a hankering for hiking or even a zeal for zorbing.

If this is the case, then what could be bet-ter than sharing it with that special some-one?

I would suggest that it is probably best not to surprise your date - I’m fairly certain that they won’t be too happy if you arrange to meet at a little café for a co� ee, only to drop the bombshell that you are going rock-climbing /abseiling /sur� ng later. It could be met with a little (or a lot) of apprehension.

� erefore, it is a good idea to pre-warn your date of suitable attire and vaguely out-line what may be happening so that they don’t turn up in a cocktail dress or a suit.

Regardless of this, getting out and about can be a new and exciting way of spending Valentine’s Day, even if it just means a walk up Constitution Hill.

� e singles’ date� is last group is by no means the least; we have all been there, at one stage or another, when the words ‘Valentine’s Day’ leave a bad taste in our mouth. Single ladies (and gents) - I’m talking to you.

Fear not; a singlet’s Valentine’s Day can in fact be a lot more fun (and less disappoint-ing) if you don’t have to worry about how romantic the situation is, or how the night isn’t playing out quite as you hoped. Why not use Valentine’s Day to let your hair down and have a bit of fun with your friends?

Send Valentine’s cards to your housemates (or yourself), make an online dating pro� le with your friends and see how many people you can attract, or even just go out for a few drinks dressed to the nines and see what ro-mance the night brings.Whatever you decide to do this Valentine’s Day just have fun, stay safe, and, if it comes down to it, use protection.

Katherine Young

“getting out and about can be a new and exciting way of spending Valentine’s Day”

Be di� erent and take your Valentine on an active date

Tea and chocolate: the perfect ingredients for a romantic indoor picnic

Single? Treat yourself to a night of cocktails with friends

to find out moreemail:

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LES MISERABLES. Even those who don’t know it, know it. A story of love, war, fear and hope, it embodies everything that is needed to make a winning � lm. � eoreti-cally.

When the � rst trailer hit our screens showing a bald-headed, angst-ridden Anne Hathaway giving a heart-wrenching ren-dition of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’, our hopes were raised exceptionally high – it promised us everything that we loved from the stage-show, only in high-de� nition with surround sound and a stellar cast. What could possi-bly go wrong?

Missed cues, poor directing, unclear pur-poses…Shall we go on?

Directed by Tom Hooper (� e King’s Speech), and scripted with the help of Boubil and Schonberg, who wrote the original mu-sic for the 1985 stage production, the � lm seems stuck in some sort of limbo between a movie and a musical. All of the original songs have been kept, with an additional song, ‘Suddenly’, added in by Boubil. It’s just a shame that the newly composed score sticks out like a sore thumb – the melody and the composition rushed to say the least.

� e � lm boasts an impressive Holly-wood cast with the familiar faces of Hugh Jackman, playing fraught protagonist Jean Valjean, Anne Hathaway as the long suf-fering Fantine, and Helena Bonham Carter and Sasha Baron Cohen make for a hilari-ous Mr and Mrs � enardier. However, in-stead of blending the acting and the singing e� ectively, it seems they have been forced to compromise, which leads to a jarring com-bination of the two. Hugh Jackman is hit and miss; Jean Valjean’s soliloquy at the begin-ning of the � lm is emotive, yet is let down by poor directing. ‘Bring Him Home’, however, is beyond redemption and led one of us to take a tactical toilet break just to escape.

Hathaway boasts real talent, but due to

the poor shooting of the much anticipated ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, is not provided with the right environment in which to spread her wings. � e entire song is � lmed as a close-up of her face, and although this dis-plays the talent of the make-up department, a� er three and a half minutes it is easy to lose focus on what potentially could be the emotional pinacle of the � lm.

One of the most unexpected performanc-es was given by Russell Crowe. Upon scruti-nising the pre-released soundtrack, we were more than ready to slate him. A� er seeing his portrayal of the typically callous Inspec-tor Javert, we were treated to a glimpse into a more sympathetic character. However, when compared to the vocal talents of Phillip Quast (who appeared in the 10th Anniver-sary stage production) he doesn’t quite hit the mark. His rendition of Javert’s ‘Suicide’ waned and felt just as misguided as ‘Bring Him Home’.

Some of the core songs such as ‘One Day More’ can only be described as a missed or-gasm – no sooner do they brush against the right spot, giving a shiver of delight that only comes through surprise, than it shi� s and

continues to rut against a distinctly wrong spot, causing cha� ng and irritation. It’s enjoyable enough, but lacks the oomph re-quired to do the lyrics and the music justice and, as you prepare yourself for the grand � nale, you are only le� with disappointment and frustration.

Due to the nature of the plot, Les Misera-bles is a story that needs careful planning in order to tie all of the individual stories to-gether, and the � lm fails to do this. � e � lm, however, watches as a medley of disjointed solos from a group of people all striving for the limelight.

We can’t help but feel that it would have bene� ted from a complete remodelling. But how could it have been done better? It was our overriding opinion that Les Miserables as it stands is best suited to the stage, and upon leaving the cinema that supposition felt very much justi� ed. Similar criticism was made upon the book’s transition to the theatre. Does this � lm mark the end of the ascent of Les Mis, or will it prove to supply a new platform on which the universally be-loved story can continue to shine? We must wait and see.

ARTSARTS EDITOR

[email protected]

Steph Schultzaberstudentmedia.com/arts

LIFE doesn’t always have happy endings. � at’s why we have � lms. Silver Linings Playbook is a romance, a comedy, but not a traditional rom-com. It’s also one of the best � lms you’ll see this year.

Silver Linings Playbook features a stellar cast at the top of their game, including � e Hangover star Bradley Cooper as a bipolar man trying to cope with life a� er a mental breakdown and a failed marriage, Robert de Niro as his supportive but confused fa-ther and � e Hunger Games’ Jennifer Law-rence as an equally mentally bruised foil for Bradley Cooper. � e real comedic delight comes from Chris Tucker.

What’s wonderful about the movie is that it never patronises its characters. It treats mental illness as a serious issue but it never presents it as a point of pity or easy laughs. Whilst comedy is found throughout, it’s never at the expense of the characters. � e � lm’s biggest emotional beats seem to natu-rally develop from the relationships instead of feeling forced. � e relaxed pace will de-light some but probably annoy others as it is not heavy on plot, although never stag-nant.

� is is not to say the � lm is perfect. A sub-plot involving Bradley Cooper’s char-acter being over-shadowed by his older brother feels underdeveloped, and there are too many times when the � lm devolves into shouting matches between characters. It is a bruised, imperfect movie about bruised, imperfect people and for all its predictable plotting and occasional generic romantic beats, it never feels less than honest. It is a � lm with strong performances, con� dent scripting and enjoyably o� eat direction. You couldn’t ask for a happier ending.

AS IS USUAL for any � lm starring Ryan Gosling, people won’t hesitate to see this movie. � e fact that this is yet another ex-ample of Gosling in his acting prime only scratches the surface of what makes this � lm great.

As seen in the trailer, a group of cops put down their badges to chase a� er Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) and his LA mob em-pire. Josh Brolin’s Sargent John O’Mara stars as the � lm’s main protagonist, who believes very strongly in shoot-� rst-ask-questions-later in order to make LA safe for his family.

We � rst see him breaking into one of Co-hen’s brothels and freeing all the women he

had been drugging to use for sex tra� cking. Some of the higher-ups at the precinct don’t exactly agree with this angle of attacking Cohen. However, Lieutenant Quinncan-non believes that O’Mara is exactly what is needed.

A� er forming the squad of mis� ts who will go a� er the mob boss’ money-making schemes, there are a few failed attempts and complete catastrophes, like O’Mara and Harris (Anthony Mackie) ending up being broken out of their jail cell.

Sergeant Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling) is taking Cohen’s ‘etiquette tutor’ (Emma Stone) to bed behind the rest of the squad’s backs, but in doing this gains insights and a few safe passages that would have otherwise

been unavailable to them.� ere is little moral value throughout the

movie, with the exception of O’Mara’s preg-nant wife (Mireille Enos) and the gangster squad’s tech guy, Conway Keeler (Giovanni Ribisi), but it isn’t substantial enough to cause much of a moral dilemma for the men involved until their own families begin to be attacked.

� is is the only thing that could’ve been better developed, even subtly - it’s as if all of a sudden these men have moral compass-es. With that being said, a� er O’Mara and Wooters have a good man-cry together on O’Mara’s porch, the movie improves rapid-ly. � ere is blood, gore, sex, guns and some very sexy 1920s costumes.

“Blood, gore, sex, guns and some very sexy 1920s costumes”

Beth Winnall &Esme Symes-Smith

LES MISERABLES

Jozef Raczka

Steph Schultz

Ryan Gosling is in his ‘acting prime’ in Gangster Squad, out in the Commodore on February 15th to 21st.

Does Tom Hooper’s mark the end of the ascent of Les MIs in popular culture?

From book to stage to silver screen

GANGSTER SQUAD


aberstudentmedia.com/arts

MARVEL seem to be on unbeatable form. A� er 2012’s much anticipated � e Aveng-ers made over $1billion to become the third highest grossing � lm of all time, many people were le� wondering just how exactly Marvel were going to beat that per-formance. In response, Marvel announced their plans for the next ‘phase’ of their cin-ematic universe, and it looks like it’s going to be even more exciting than the � rst.

� e � rst part of the second phase is the very eagerly awaited Iron Man 3. � e third instalment in the most successful series of Avengers prequels, the trailer has already been released, and the details look rather exciting. Introducing classic comic book villains such as the Mandarin and the Iron Patriot, the plot is based around a virus, spread via nanotechnology, that threatens the very fabric of society, and also threat-ens to put rather a dent in Tony Stark’s home equity, not to mention his relation-ship with Pepper Potts. � e � lm is released on April 26th in the UK.

In November, � or: � e Dark World will hit the big screen. � e sequel to 2011’s � or, it stars Chrisopher Eccleston as su-pervillain Malekith the Accursed and Tom Hiddleston as � or’s disenfranchised brother Loki (well, adopted brother, but don’t mention that around � or). � e last time we saw Loki, he was being led o� in chains by � or a� er attempting to take over the world with an army of Chitauri in � e Avengers, so it remains to be seen what exactly his role will be in the sequel.

April 2014 will mark the release of the sequel to 2011’s Captain America. � e Win-ter Soldier is based on the comic book story of Captain Steve Rogers’ best friend, James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, who, a� er being feared dead, will return in the capacity of a brain-washed villain.

Following from this, August 2014 will see the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, an ensemble cast space romp. It’s a risky move for Marvel, lacking the prequels and antici-pation build-up of the Avengers series, but it looks to be interesting nonetheless.

� e � nal stage in the next phase, of course, is � e Avengers 2, slated for a May 2015 release. No plot details have been re-leased as of yet, but with Whedon return-ing to direct and � anos reappearing as the villain, last seen being rather menacing at the end of � e Avengers, it’ll almost cer-tainly be worth the three year wait. A� er all, we’re hardly spoilt for � lms to watch in the interim.

IF I WERE to tell you that one of the best comedies about to come to British television was a mockumentary following the work-ing and personal lives of a group of people working for the Parks and Recreation De-partment of Pawnee, Indiana, you might not be immediately enraptured. Allow me to go into more detail, however, and maybe you’ll be prepared to give Parks and Recreation a chance.

Now in its � � h season in the US, Parks and Recreation is due to be broadcast on BBC Four later this year. � e � rst season, originally a mid-season replacement, is only six episodes long and acts as something of an extended pilot. � e scene is set and the troupe of strange yet endearing (for that is the staple requirement of comedies these days) characters take their stations.

Amy Poehler leads the excellent ensemble as eternally optimistic and enthusiastic Les-lie Knope, the Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation department. Poehler makes for a fantastic lead-in character - Leslie’s in-tensity could make her unlikable, but the combination of some clever scripting and Poehler’s ability to improvise (the occasional quick cut scene of Poehler throwing out line on top of hilarious line in response to cer-tain situations are de� nite series highlights) so� en her wa� e-loving, women’s rights championing edges.

Joining Leslie in the special little world of Pawnee, where citizens are enamoured of a small horse called Li’l Sebastian and hate on pretentious neighbouring city Eagleton, are a group of people who put up with her mad plans. Assistant Tom thinks himself something of an entrepreneur too big for Pawnee, nurse friend Ann is caught up in

the whirlwind of small government bureau-cracy whilst only wanting rid of the huge pit next door to her house. Sullen intern April is attracted to puppy-in-human-form Andy, Ann’s ex-boyfriend who once fell in the pit and broke both of his legs. Libertar-ian Department Director Ron Swanson is something of a cult hit, with an army of fol-lowers online, something the moustachioed stalwart of masculinity would be proud of.

� ere’s no doubt that it’s the characters and the way in which they grow on you that will keep you coming back for more, but they would be nothing without the storytell-ing. Creators Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, who previously worked on the American version of � e O� ce - before it started going downhill - have pulled together a very ca-pable group of writers. � e stories of Parks and Recreation thrive on their characters evolving through decisions and accepting consequences in a world littered with equal parts silliness and the satire of small town Americana. Story arcs are carried through organically and there’s rarely a missed beat.

� e � rst series doesn’t best demonstrate what the show’s later seasons have been ca-pable of, but it did provide the creators with the feedback needed to make changes and carry on as an even stronger beast, � ex-ing further than the initial concept. Once it � nds its feet by mid-season two, it starts walking well-paced and proud, hysterically � ghting down the laziness and team build-ing activities of modern day government.

So please, if you’re tickled just a bit by the � rst season, but unsure about whether to continue, I would urge you to do so. � e sec-ond season and beyond make it completely worth it.

COMING SOONParks and Recreation

Rhian Evans

LOST Girl is most de� nitely worth a watch, and with its third season not premiering in the UK until sometime in March, you’ve got some time to catch up. � e stellar cast of characters is slightly unexpected, but in-stantly lovable. � e show’s lead, Bo (Anna Silk), is a succubus – and if that isn’t enough to entice you, then mentioning Kris Holden-Ried as one of Bo’s series-long squeezes will. It also stars Ksenia Solo as the street-smart human best friend, Kenzi, who will make you laugh so hard that you’ll cry with her non-stop quips. Hale (K.C. Collins), Trick (Richard Howland), and Lauren (Zoie Palmer) round up the cast of regulars, but of course there’s a slew of other great charac-ters that viewers will grow to love and love to hate at any given time.

� e basic premise of the show revolves around Bo. She doesn’t know she is a succubus,

only that she kills her conquests, but in the � rst episode she learns what she is - and that there is a whole world of supernatural creatures out there called Fae. Like many shows, it follows a solve-the-puzzle plot-line each episode, but puts a fresh spin on many things – including stories and legends we’ve all been told since

childhood. Bo and Kenzi form a duo of investigators

who work with both groups of rival Fae (the Light and Dark) as well as humans when-ever they’re needed, which always results in mishaps, hilarity, and with the show’s lead protagonist being a succubus - lots of steamy scenes.

I was sceptical at � rst, thinking it was just another half-witted supernatural show, but

it easily became a not-so-guilty pleasure. � e Canadian drama is sexy, quirky, and

never fails to impress. � is show is an ex-tremely fun watch, and while it seems

to have an under-the-radar cult fol-lowing, its cast and crew have won more than a few well-deserved awards for it. � e � rst two sea-sons were explosive at times and just plain fabulous at others, and - coming from someone who has been able to watch some of season three a bit early - season three is proving to be even greater.

Steph Schultz

NEW SERIESLost Girl: “a not-so-guilty pleasure”

Marvel: What’s next?Anwen Hayward

ARTSTV & FILM


MUSICARTS

aberstudentmedia.com/arts

COMPARING one artist to another is a blunt way of categorising our music in the same way that genres allow us to tag and pi-geonhole the music we love so much. With that in mind, you might say the fragile vocals of frontman Conor O’Brien remind you of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, but that would be a shallow comparison. Villagers are much more than one man with a guitar (not saying that that is the limit of Bright Eyes); {Away-land} has nearly as much in common with a � lm score from someone like Hans Zimmer. Sure, the songs take root in strong lyrical content and a guitar, but the use of strings

and beats adds a depth that pushes the re-cord onto a new level.

� e album starts o� with the quiet sim-plicity of ‘My Lighthouse’, which shows what {Awayland} is all about when stripped back to the bare bones - storytelling. � e next two tracks build the layers with a subtlety that al-lows their exuberant climaxes not to feel too out of place next to the more gentle inter-ludes of those such as the instrumental title track and the penultimate ‘In A Newfound Land You Are Free’. � is clever layering us-ing an arsenal of sounds created by the keys, strings and electronic elements gives a cin-ematic feel that only enhances the quality of song cra� shown on a more basic level. On the other hand, songs like ‘Nothing Arrived’ and ‘Rhythm Composer’ are more obvi-ously catchy numbers that let the fun shine through.

If there’s one thing that makes this al-bum such a gem, it’s the poetry of the lyr-ics. It’s rare to � nd a songwriter as brilliant as O’Brien. His quiet crooning and wordy rhymes are totally enchanting. Coupled with the brilliant instrumentation that refuses to be tied down to a particular sound , this brings the record above any of the British folk that may have caught your attention in recent times.

VILLAGERS: {AWAYLAND}

Alex Pike

The albums shaping the sound of 2013

THE JOY FORMIDABLE are a band for whom the nineties never ended. For some, this is a recommendation when you con-sider a large proportion of modern ‘Pop Music’. To many, it could suggest a band stuck in the past, one who can’t form their own sound. � is was a thought I can’t deny I had with their debut album, but with Wolf ’s Law, the band have really come of age. Far more con� dent in its sound and broader in its palette and deployment of the in� uences it so charmingly wears on its sleeve, it is an enthralling, engaging and o� en beautiful al-bum.

� e band’s secret weapon is the crystal-line vocals of Ritzy Bryan, whose ethereal

tones recall the greats of the shoegaze scene like My Bloody Valentine and � e Cocteau Twins whilst retaining a harder edge that distinguishes itself. On the mid-album high-light, the gorgeous ballad ‘Silent Treatment’, Bryan’s voice soars anthemically, but is also at times quiet and vulnerable. � e band clearly favour the faster, aggressive songs and they con� dently display this on opening number ‘� is Ladder Is Ours’, which crescendos from a light orchestration into full-blown alt-rock histrionics. It must be said that since their � rst album, the band’s musicianship has certainly improved without sacri� cing their youthful energy.

If the album has one major � aw, it’s that in sticking to their roots, the band is perhaps guilty of repeating themselves. Too o� en the songs seem similar to their � rst album, and certain experiments like the six minute epic ‘Maw Maw Song’ should soar but fall � at. Most of the album’s lower points seem to come in the second half with tracks which, although musically � ne, can feel like echoes of the earlier highlights.

It is hard not to recommend the album as it is an exceptionally enjoyable listen, but as a signi� er of where this band are, it may suggest that they are likely to keep making a similar album to this every two years. � en again, when a band makes as joyous a sound as this, it’s hard not to want them to keep do-ing so.

THE JOY FORMIDABLE: WOLF’S LAW

Jozef Raczka

A$AP Rocky is a Harlem based rapper who rose to prominence in mid 2011 thanks to his fantastic mix-tape LIVE.LOVE.A$AP which had dark, ambient production, killer guests from Rocky’s A$AP Crew and very catchy hooks. � is album is his major label debut and it is a very � ne debut.

Let me just get a couple of problems I have with this album out of the way. Firstly- and this is more of a personal preference - there are far too many features for a de-but album (17 in 16 tracks). I believe that a debut should showcase the artist’s talent as much as possible to avoid getting lost amid all the guest spots, although this is a trend that hasn’t really been adhered to for a long time. A second problem is that the themes of the album don’t really extend beyond guns, drugs, sex and how much money A$AP has. It, quite simply, gets rather monotonous.

However, I wouldn’t call it a � ne debut if

the positives didn’t outweigh the negatives. � at problem of all those features is coun-teracted by the fact that each of the featured artists goes, to use a colloquial term, hard. Everyone, from Drake to Kendrick Lamar and even Florence Welch, brings their ‘A’ game. Meanwhile A$AP is shockingly not lost within all the features which is a testa-ment to his memorable wordplay and sheer charisma that bleeds through to the listener with every song.

In particular, the song ‘1 Train’. � is track has the most artists attached to it (six!), all � owing one a� er another. One would ex-pect A$AP to be buried under all of this talent, yet he plays to his strengths, remain-ing memorable and unique. A$AP isn’t the greatest rapper by any means, but he cer-tainly holds his own against his more tal-ented contemporaries.

� is is because A$AP has a rather unique skill. His � ts any beat. � e production on this album is a mixture of more brood-ing ambient beats, RZA-esque minimalist strings and - most unusually – a Skrillex beat on ‘Wild For � e Night’ that sounds like an apocalypse in a reggae-tinged dub-step factory, and all of it is fantastic. Despite this variation, A$AP’s � ow � ts like a glove as he raps.

And that is exactly what makes this album so great: A$AP’s vision. His choice of pro-ducers, guests and subject matter creates a cohesive album that is a joy to listen to. New York hasn’t released a hip-hop artist this in-teresting in a very long time. � is is a great start to 2013 for hip-hop.

A$AP ROCKY: LIVE. LOVE. A$AP

Joe Fairweather

FOLLOWING the band since the release of ‘Final Form’ from their debut album, Man Alive, released in 2010, I was eager to hear Everything Everything’s new work. � e band have matured, musically and lyrically, earning them a spot on the young, alterna-tive British band scene.

It has been a long wait for Arc, from the release of ‘Cough Cough’ in October last year, but I’m afraid to say I found the album a mixed bag, a collision of di� erent ideas that didn’t quite seem to musically match-up.

� e album opens with ‘Cough Cough’ and ‘Kemosabe’, two songs that really highlight the band’s uniqueness and ability to create a di� erent music experience, but then the album begins to move into the less-polished area.

‘Torso of the Week’ is an example of this. It really is a strange mixture. It has a brilliant chorus that’s been carefully composed, but there are moments in the song don’t seem to match; an experiment that hasn’t quite paid o� . ‘Duet’, the track that follows, doesn’t particularly stand out on the � rst listen, but it is a grower.

‘Amourland’ is the song, besides the two that have been released as singles - ‘Cough Cough’ and ‘Kemosabe’ - that truly stands out from the rest of the album. It is a beauti-fully constructed synth-y ballad, but with-out the cheesy connotations of the song type we know. I think this is the pinnacle of the album that reminds us of the band’s potential and skill, a mixture of music and lyrics that is successful. However, this seems to fade as the track that follows, ‘� e House is Dust’, loses the momentum that the last song worked hard to create.

Following ‘Radiant’, the album feels like it is about to � zzle out with the second to last track, ‘� e Peaks’. � e song has good lyrics, but the musical side really lacks the texture of the previously mentioned tracks.

� e other songs carry the some of the aforementioned tricks, not notable enough to stand alone. It feels like the album, un-fortunately, lacks the stamina to have the excellence I know the band is capable of. As a whole, however, the album is a fantastic experiment, creating a harmonious collage, questioning lyric norms and the narratives we have become accustomed to in the music scene today. A* for e� ort.

EVERYTHING EVERYTHING: ARC

Kathryn Hill


aberstudentmedia.com/artsBOOKS ARTS

THE CLASSIC book about burning books that was banned itself is coming up to its 50th birthday this year. Protagonist Guy Montag, a � reman (in his time they start � res, not put them out), takes a book from a house illegally a� er watching a woman die in the blaze for her books. � is sets him on the adventure he never thought he wanted, but in the end was prepared to give everything for. Like 1984, it revolves around censorship, but is also about soci-ety shunning literature and the arts. It will barely take you a few days to get through, but it will stick in your mind for ages af-terwards.

BY NOW, MOST of us have probably seen the trailers for Warm Bodies. What is slightly less well known is the fact it’s based on Isaac Marion’s fantastic book, originally self-pub-lished in 2008. Quite a few people I’ve spo-ken to are turned o� by the idea of a zombie “love story”, but it’s much more than that. It’s an unexpected love story within a much larger tale of getting back to life in general. While it takes place in a post-apocalyptic period of humankind, Marion says that it is the most autobiographical thing he’s ever written – and it’s easily relatable for its read-ers. Don’t judge the book by its trailer or its cover (especially considering it’s apparently been approved by Stephenie Meyer). � is is one of those books you will pick up and not be able to put down, and then the next thing you know it’s 08:30 and you’ve got a lecture at 9.

Not just any love story, Warm Bodies details the connection between a zombie and a human. R, by zombie standards, is a disgrace. Compared to most of his fellow brain-munchers, he has no missing limbs, nor a gaping, unsightly hole where his eye should be. He could almost pass for a hu-man, with a decent amount of make-up and copious amounts of Lynx to mask the stench of his rotting corpse. R and his friend, M, live in the local airport with a horde of other zombies that do nothing all day but shu� e, groan and feed. One zombie-feeding excur-sion into the city later and R � nds himself, for reasons he can’t explain, hiding an en-tirely human girl – Julie – in his own private jet. � is story evolves into one of the most unpredictable and thrilling love stories in a long time. You won’t be able to put it down once you � nally go out and get it, and if you don’t, you’ll regret it.

WARM BODIES BOOKS YOU ALWAYS MEANT TO READ

LOVABLE television personality Miranda Hart has revealed that she is multi-talented with the release of her � rst book, Is it Just Me?. � e book is an autobiography with a twist of the self-help genre thrown in, as Miranda attempts to guide hapless readers through everyday social situations, avoiding potential mine� elds of embarrassment (or in some cases, gleefully exploiting them). � e comic, light-hearted, fun-loving esca-pades of her television show Miranda are re� ected and referenced in the book (in-cluding her on-screen mother’s famous catchphrase, ‘such fun!’), with its style being similarly jovial and sometimes a little silly. � at being said, if you are a fan of Miranda, then de� nitely give this book a read. If you aren’t, then perhaps it’s best to avoid it for the sake of your sanity.

� roughout the book, Miranda takes us on a tour of her life, looking back on her time working in an o� ce, recalling excru-

ciating memories of bumbling her way through parties � lled with the social elite and discussing the thorny worlds of beauty, � tness and dating. Her self-deprecating style, rather than inspiring sympathy from the reader, actually serves to make her a more likeable and relatable � gure.

� e title, Is it Just Me?, and her explora-tion of situations that each of us are bound to have come across at some point in our lives, invites the reader into the world of Mi-randa (which is actually more recognisable than her television show makes it seem), encouraging them to laugh along with her and, more subtly, at both society’s and their personal � aws.

� e book has a satiric undertone, with Miranda gently mocking the social norms and ideals that shape our daily lives. I par-ticularly liked the section on clothes shop-ping, where Miranda experiences the exotic, low-lit and heady scented world of fashion-

able shops like Hollister. It is also deeply poignant, as Miranda chats to her eighteen-year-old self, who had so many expecta-tions for her life, and has to let her past self gently know that things did not turn out as desired, but in a funny way are actually bet-ter. � rough this, Miranda encourages the reader to take a step back and reassess their life goals, making sure that they accept themselves for who they are. Yes, it’s a lit-tle soppy, but coming from Miranda, who uses her TV show to make herself the butt of many jokes, it is quite reassuring.

� is book is fun, inclusive (note the use of ‘pit stops’ and ‘checklists’, where the reader is encouraged to tick o� all the embarrass-ing things they’ve done, and to applaud themselves for it), and a bit silly, but it is also heart warming, relatable and unashamedly honest. � e chatty, gimmicky style can get a little wearing, but it is de� nitely worth a read as a little light relief from the heavy reading university throws at you.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Steph Schultz

Miranda Hart: Is It Just Me?

“Not just any love story”

RAY BRADBURY: FAHRENHEIT 451

Julia

Ste

iner

Nia Liversuch

Miranda Hart has become especially popular since the launch of her eponymous BBC sitcom

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: THE GREAT GATSBYWith the � lm set to come out in May, this is most de� nitely one you’ll want to read beforehand. Nick Carraway is a great nar-rator who is seemingly telling the story about his neighbour, Jay Gatsby, but at the same time telling his own story and revealing just as much about the both of them. Gatsby and Daisy’s love story is still one of the greatest ever written in this tale encompassing America in the 1920s – plus you can picture Leonardo DiCaprio and Toby Maguire as Gatsby and Nick as you’re reading it.


Across

1: Latin, hand (4)3: To be displaced (4)6: Opposite of � nish (5)7: Another term for colloquial9: A de� nitive period of time (3)10: Popular � lm by Christopher Nolan (9)13: Playground equipment (5)17: _________ Carbon Rod is a candidate for NUS President (9)19: A make of pen (3)20: Area of parkland (5)21: Beach destination in Florida (5)22: Precipice(4)23: Used to clean the body (4)

Down

2: Eight-legged sea creature (7)4: Mammal, varieties of which include Bengal and Snow (5)5: ___ _ the Explorer (4)8: Polite term for toilet (3)10: Small island, such as Man or Wight (4)11: Common method of transportation (3)12: Destiny (4)14: Wrapped inside a mystery, wrapped inside a riddle (7)15: Service o� ering massages, face masks and saunas etc (3)16: Yellow-orange colour (5)18: To be, or ___ to be (3)19: Surname of Friends character Chandler (4) SU

DO

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Answers on page 23Ea

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PUZZLES

20 February 2013

THE EXTINGUISHERUniversity launches prospectus cover competition on Instagram

#connectivity #classof2013 #metaphorforyourfuture #yolo

#no� lter #pioneering #unique #cuttingedge #revolutionary #multidimensional #yolo

#connectivity #seminar #emptychairsatemptytables#hatetosaywetoldyouso #yolo

To vote for the photo you want on the cover of the 2014 prospectus, cut out your fa-vourite and hand-deliver it to the Visualisation Centre.

ABERYSTWYTH University has been forced to apologise to frustrated students following delays in issuing lecture timetables for this semester. � e Academic O� ce stated that a timetabling issue was to blame, as the team in charge of collating lecture timetables had experienced delays in receiving its own timetables.

“Unfortunately, the person in charge of issuing work timetables to our timetabling department was forced to take time o� work owing to injuries sustained in an accident involving a table,” a spokesperson from the department explained. “� is le� our sta� in the di� cult position of being unaware of

which pieces of work they needed to com-plete by particular dates. � e Timetable Of-� ce operates a zero tolerance policy for late submission of work, so everyone involved was promptly sacked.”

Following the appointment of a complete-ly new team of employees, there were further delays due to some completely unprecedent-ed cold weather in January. It is understood that an email containing the � nalised time-tables was held up by a treacherously icy bit of internet which had not been gritted by the Estates Department, who blamed the lack of grit on a timetabling error.

Timetabling woes continue

A member of sta� at the academic o� ce plays a game of ‘grown-ups’ the week before a new term begins

Psychology department research reveals imitation is the sincerest form of � atteryRESEARCH carried out by Aberyst-wyth University’s department of Psy-chology has made the ground-breaking discovery that imitation, especially with regards to Aberystwyth-based satire, is indeed the most sincere form of � attery.

Carpet missing from Llanbadarn campus

Satire writers made redundant a� er zero students enrol on ‘world � rst’ master’s scheme

SEE PAGES 1 and 3 of � e Courier, Aberyst-wyth’s Student Newspaper, for the full story.

UNIVERSITY bosses are investigating the disappearance of sections of carpet from Lllanbadarn campus. “It feels like the rug has been pulled out from under our feet” Dr D. Pile told � e Extinguisher.

Local paper unearths mysterious artefact JOURNALISTS at Abergavenny newspaper � e Shambrian News have unearthed a col-lection of documents in an unused area of their Defn Llan o� ce which a local historian has identi� ed as a ‘style guide’.

“We’re really confused about what we should do with this. It’s all very well and good for you to say that we should apply lan-guage consistently, but some days I really feel

like calling the Guild of Students the Student Guild,” one Shambrian journalist told � e Extinguisher.

When a passing student informed the journalist that the Guild of Students was renamed the Students’ Union in the middle of 2012, he retorted angrily “shut up, you’ve got a Starbucks in there now, therefore all of your opinions are invalid.”Journalists from The Shambrian News have

yet to decide what to do with the papers

University appoints Pro-fessor of Engagement with Fruit and Firearms

WRITERS for Aberystwyth’s original source of satire have been made redundant follow-ing the emergence of news that no students enrolled on #Connectivity.

“� ere’s no point keeping them here. � ey tried to satirise that news article in � e Courier about nobody showing up for that

Master’s scheme, but they couldn’t come up with anything.” Extinguisher editor Grhian Bevans said, announcing the shock redun-dancies.

Hitting out against the news that she would no longer be chained to a desk in the Students’ Union until he wrote something

funny, Extinguisher writer Steph David said “I thought it was already satire; I assumed one of the other lads had already done it.”

When asked what her plans for the future were, Steph said: “I’m not sure, but they’re sure as hell not getting that article on Profes-sorships that I promised them.”

Zero students enrol on ‘world � rst’ master’s scheme

Occasionally Animate Paperweight upset over unfair coverageOccasionally Animate Paperweight, a can-didate in the upcoming National Union of Stationary (NUS) elections has complained to press regulators over what it describes as a ‘bias’ in the coverage of its candidancy for the position of Vice President (Pencil Case Cohesion).

Paperweight said it has issues with its por-trayal by NUS o� cers as a “parody candi-date”.

“I’m just as valid a candidate as any of those felt tips. I might be translucent, but my policies are simultaneously solid and trans-parent” Paperweight wrote in its complaint.

Other candidates for the position are Re-cycled Paper Cup Pencil, Pen Stolen From Argos and Blackboard Chalk.

FOR SALEThe dignity of 7000

people.

Unwanted. Low price for a quick

sale.

Contact: Mr S. Potted

21February 2013

� is month we’re introducing a new feature in which we take a look at Courier articles from times gone by. You may - or may not - be surprised to � nd that many of the issues of yesteryear still plague students today.

ARCHIVE

“� e Courier” June 1976 A� er quoracy problems continued to plague General Meetings, they were abolished (and reinstituted) in the 1990s, and again abolished in 2012 when they were replaced with an elected Student Assembly.

“� e Courier” February 1995Poor street and footpath lighting on campus continues to be a serious issue, exacerbated by the decision by Ceredigion Council in 2011 to turn o� street lights in town at 12am. A survey of routes home is currently underway and the University already have plans to improve footpath lighting on several designated as “Primary Pedestrian Routes”.

“Free Courier” November 10th 1970Relations between the University and the local community have improved somewhat, with regular communication between various agencies, including the Students’ Union. However, a glance at the “Letters” page of the Cambrian News suggests that some still feel students fare to blame for everything from late-night noise to litter and poor parking.

“� e Courier” May 2008 As we report in this month’s issue, today the Vice-Chancellor (now April Mc-Mahon) earns £208,000 a year, in addition to a grace-and-favour suite in Plas

Penglais, and use of University car and driver.


A view from the terrace

Aberystwyth Motorsports Club on the right track

UniversitySPORT

aberstudentmedia.com/sport

Cheating in sport, it happens. The stakes are often so high that it seems worth cut-ting corners or not acting completely fairly in order to gain an advantage and the last few weeks seems to have exploded with examples of cheating, or those advocat-ing it. it seems you cannot mention cheat-ing at the moment without talking about Lance armstrong in the next breath and in a way, rightly so. The former seven time winner of the tour de France (he has now been stripped of his titles) admitted tak-ing performance enhancing drugs (known commonly as ‘doping’) and in a series of two interviews with Oprah Winfrey in america, he shocked the world by revealing the extent to which the cheating occured.

Then there was the incident in the Carling Cup fixture between eden hazard and an unsuspecting ball-boy. Don’t be necessarily fooled into thinking that the latter was all too innocent, he had tweeted hours before the game about wasting time to aid Swan-sea City’s chances of winning the game but the actions of the Belgian hazard, was un-professional of the highest order, attempt-ing to kick the ball from under the prone ball-boy and catching the latter in the pro-cess and receiving his marching orders.

and finally the advice given by former Welsh-international footballer Robbie Sav-age who seems to inundate any BBC cov-erage of football these days with his strong and controversial opinions, sometimes to the point where he seems to say such things to cause a reaction. he said that any player should foul an opposition player, rather than to let them score if there was no other option. This is slightly excusable, with it going on up and down the country every weekend at

levels from the highest to the lowest, but for someone with such airtime to advocate con-duct like that, when the game is supposed to be more and more about fair play, is border-line ridiculous in order to cause a reaction.

The problem is there always seems much to be gained. armstrong achieved great prestige after his tour de France wins, and especially battling back af-ter cancer to win the title in 1999.

The shame now is, it’s not just him suf-fering personally because of his cheating, a cancer charity that was set up by arm-strong will now suffer, a charity that does great good and with the globalising ‘brand’ offered by sports starts today, it’s not just them personally they have to think about.

The same applies to hazard, you can understand with his Chelsea side be-ing 2-0 down in a cup semi-final why he would want to retrieve the ball as quickly as possible. Yet, hindsight dictates that he should have waited for the referee to take action and to add time on at the end of the game. Chelsea didn’t score at all which makes his actions even more futile.

With the stakes seemingly so high, arm-strong making millions from his cycling ca-reer and prestige from winning any trophies available to anybody who challenges for them, in a team sport or on a personal level, it’s easy to see how incredibly tempting it is for sports players to cheat. But by nature it is unfair on those who play by the rules, put the hours of work in and strive to be the best and don’t try to take short-cuts, but are beat-en by those that do. The playing fields need to be level, and things have got to change.

aBeRYStWYth Motorsports Club has seen a decline in members in the last few years, but has recently enjoyed a revival, coupled with a former member being signed by a Formula 4 constructor.

a bumper intake from Freshers’ Week saw more people sign up than in the last five years - and with much enthusiasm. Sec-retary for the club, Jon aldridge, explained their competition status; “BUCS is not sup-ported for us as we are a more obscure club, although there is a championship called the British University Karting Championship in which we have competed for the last three years”

The club also suffered an unfortunate de-feat in the national Championship qualify-ing stages at teeside autodrome on 21st no-vember 2012, where a group of four had to try and qualify in the top 26 in order to get through. Luckily, they saw some success in

the Rookie Championship, where they will compete in the two rounds of the competi-tion this year.

Other news for the club includes the an-nouncement that current club member Dan headlam, has signed a contract with BDRC Formula 4 constructor Lanan Racing for 2013.

headlam, an international Politics stu-dent described Lanan as a “very professional team” and said he would be starting to do pre-season testing with the new car in early match at anglesey race circuit.

Before driving at Formula 4 level he raced at Formula Ford 1600 for Medina Sport , fin-ishing 10th in the national series and mak-ing the final of the Walter hayes trophy and Formula Ford festival.

EDITORIAL

KARTIng

VARSITY PREVIEW

“Varsity...more important than any year before”

aBeRYStWYth University and Bangor University lock horns once again later this month in the annual Varsity sports tourna-ment on Saturday 16th February. 34 fixtures are to take place, with sports ranging from football and rugby to octopush and sailing.

The tournament will take place in aber-ystwyth, following last year’s 19-13 defeat in north Wales, with controversy as both the men’s and women’s Rugby Union matches being cancelled despite Women’s football fixtures taking place on the same pitches that were deemed ‘unplayable’ that day. The reasoning was that due to two heavy defeats for Bangor’s Rugby team in 2011, they hoped to avoid a repeat performance.

activities officer, ioan Rhys evans spoke about the disparity in funding and how he felt aberystwyth should win in spite of this: “Varsity this year is more important than any year before, for the previous years our nemesis and ourselves have been on the same par, however this year due to their in-stitution recognising the important [sic] of sport and injecting £130k into their grant system this has given them the upper hand.”

evans also spoke of the ‘team aber’ mentality that he has been attempt-ing to create this year, to push aber toward victory in the tournament.

“even with Bangor’s financial back-ing, team aber has been showing how talented we are at sport by challeng-ing them in the BUCS table. Varsity now gives us a massive chance to prove our-selves against them and on home turf, i’ve got confidence that we can win.”

two fixtures will take place before the 16th; dance on the 9th February in the Students Union between 1-3pm and riding events on the 6th February be-tween 1-4pm at Llanbadarn Campus.

aberystwyth Student Media will be covering the tournament, and is still looking for reporters, photographers, camera operators and video editors. anybody who is interested in getting involved in such roles or is curious about how to get involved, is urged to email the Sports editor, harry taylor on sports@

aberstudentmedia.com

The Motorsports club celebrate another successful day at the track


THE RECENT Aberystwyth Town revival sparked by the signing of Mark Jones from Afan Lido was halted by � e New Saints last Saturday at Park Hall. A 3-0 defeat knocked Aberystwyth Town out of contention for the top-six of the Welsh Premier League

in the last game before the league splits.A brace from Alex Darlington and a Kai

Edwards header sentenced Aberystwyth Town to the rest of the season in the bot-tom six, in a game where T.N.S dominated, and ruling out any chance of them being

involved in the Europa League next season.� e revival, brought on by Tomi Mor-

gan’s transfer policy in the January trans-fer window, saw Adam Worton and Josh MacAuley leave the club, two players who have underperformed at the start of the season. Mark Jones, Antonio Cor-bisiero and Chris Venables were brought in, the latter two from Llanelli who con-tinue to spiral into the � nancial abyss.

Mark Jones scored a hat-trick on his de-but against an impressive Prestatyn Town at Park Avenue on 5th January, Aber won 4-1 with Jordan Follows getting the late fourth before netting again a week later against Airbus Broughton UK in a slim 1-0 victory.

� is brought them back into contention for the places which would see them given a chance to be rewarded with Europa League football, something which would be worth tens of thousands of pounds to the club.

� is saw the league tighten on the � -nal day before the split, three points sepa-rating 11th place from the all important 6th spot. GAP Connah’s Quay � nished in sixth a� er a 6-3 victory over Bala Town,

but subsequently had two points de-ducted due to � elding an ineligible player.

� e � xtures were released Mon-day 4th, a� er the appeal from Connah’s Quay against their points deduction.

ABERYSTWYTH Sports teams fared well in the � xtures that took place on 30th January. BUCS Wednesday � xtures returned for the � rst time since Christmas, with the weather wrecking havoc previously with snowfall across the country.

� e hockey team won two out of three � x-tures on Wednesday, the men’s side defeating Glamorgan 6-4 and the women’s beating Car-di� 4-1.� e Rugby Union 1st XV side were stopped in their tracks in the Western Confer-ence Cup, losing 26-0 to Glamorgan 2nd team. Badminton saw themselves secure a full house with two victories for both gender’s � xtures, a 5-3 win over Winchester 1st for the Aberyst-wyth’s 2nd team, and a 8-0 trouncing of UWE.

Results 30/1/13

Mens (Aberystwyth University - AU)Badminton: AU 2nd 5-3 Winchester 1stBasketball: Newport 1st 78-56 AU 1stFootball: AU 1st 6-4 Glamorgan 4thFootball: AU 2nd 4-4 Newport 1st

Fencing: AU 1st 5-0 UWE 2ndHockey: AU 1st 5-1 Glamorgan 2nd

Hockey: Gloucestershire 2nd 3-3 AU 2ndLacrosse: Bristol 2nd 5-3 AU 1st

Rugby Union: Glamorgan 2nd 26-0 AU 1stSquash: AU 1st 5-0 Swansea 2nd

WomensBadminton: UWE 1st 8-0 AU 1st

Fencing: UWE 1st 130-102 AU 1stFootball: AU 1st 0-1 Cardi� Met 2nd

Hockey: Cardi� 4th 1-4 AU 1stNetball : Hartpury 1st 34 - 44 AU 1st

Tennis: AU 1st 10-2 Plymouth 1st

Seasiders fail to secure European spot despite resurgence

We need your stories! If you have photos, reports or results of your matches, please get in touch with Harry Taylor, our Sports Editor:

[email protected]

LOCALSPORT

aberstudentmedia.com/sport

Across :1- Mano, 3- Lost, 6- Start, 7- Slang, 9- Era, 10- Inception, 13- Slide, 17- Inanimate, 19- BIC, 20- Heath, 21- Miami, 22- Edge, 23- SoapDown: 2- Octopus, 4- Tiger, 5- Dora, 8- Loo, 10- Isle, 11- Car, 12- Fate, 14- Enigmas, 15- Spa, 16- Ochre, 18- Not, 19- Bing.

ABERYSTWYTH TOWN

Builth Wells complete double over Aberystwyth University F.C. ABERYSTWYTH University Men’s Football team are hoping to go from strength to strength in the Spar Mid-Wales Division 1 following the 4-2 drub-bing of 4th place Aberaeron a week ago.

Chairman Dan Moore lead by exam-ple with a brace, with Tom Sparks and Ed Richardson netting the other two goals. � e � xture was not originally planned, with Aberystwyth set to play Welshpool. However, due to the snowy weather condi-tions, the � xture was switched for one clos-er to home, and Aber reaped the bene� ts.

� ey faced 2nd place Builth Wells away last weekend, with Moore iterating before the game that they had a decent chance of getting a good result. “When we played there earlier in the season I couldn’t believe we didn’t win. � ey’re a physical side but we should be winning” he said. � ey will

have to be wary of Sam Williams, who has notched 12 goals this season, making him the top scorer for Builth. Yet Moore’s con-� dence was unfounded, Builth won 1-0 at Lant Field with the University dropping to 9th in the table. � e University side had hor-rendous luck, hitting the woodwork three times throughout the course of the game and had chances throughout the games to win.

In between those � xtures, they executed a 6-4 hammering of Glamorgan Mens 4th XI, with hitman Tom Sparks scoring four goals.. However defensive lapses meant that they conceded a heavy amount of goals

� is moves them up to 3rd in West-ern 4B, three points o� the top spot.Teams for the Builth Wells game:

Starting XI: 1. Tom Spence 2. Dan Williams 3. Callum

Warren 4. Tom Poulton 5. Matt Perry

6. Dan Moore 7. Barney Tierney 8. Dan March 9. Tom Sparks 11. Tom Court 16. Ed Richardson

Subs:12. Graham Dyment 14. Ben Jenkins 15.

Celt Iwan

ABERYSTWYTH UNIVERSITY F.C.

Rugby Union 1st XV dumped out of Western Conference Cup

BUCS 30/1/13

THE ABERYSTWYTH University cricket team have been celebrating a� er changes to the structure of � xtures implemented by BUCS (British Universities and Col-leges Sport) were overturned with a 57% of the vote in favour of the old rules.

� e most controversial change would have seen matches between teams in Tier 2 and below reduced in length from 50 overs to 20 overs, in response to adverse weather conditions in 2012 meaning little cricket was played. � e decision was also made to remove the knock-out trophy, which was replaced by semi-� nals between the top two teams from the Premier North and South in the event of games being called o� . � e result would

have meant both teams receiving a point.� e change that caused the most anger is

that of the length of games. President George Kinsey, speaking to � e Courier, slammed the decision, saying BUCS were “demean-ing University cricket in a way that would be seen unacceptable if done to other sports.”

He went on to say that he had emailed 20 University cricket repre-sentatives across the country and eve-rybody he had contacted agreed that it was a short-sighted format change.

Kinsey said “Such a drastic change is pointless as all of our 11 league games that were washed out, were cancelled before a ball was bowled. It would’ve made no dif-ference if it was a 20 overs match or not.”

He also proceeded to say that the costs of games would be no di� erent and, there-

fore, of the games that were played, players wouldn’t be getting their money’s worth from a 20 over match when they have travelled to far-� ung � xtures such as Plymouth. Kinsey also pointed to the value for money aspect applied internally, as well as the fact that they will no longer be able to sell the club on the 50 over matches that are played. He feels that to train and wait eight months won’t be an attractive prospect to players who will then be playing 20 over cricket, and the money from membership could be hit as a result.

With the 1st XI una� ected by the change as they are in Premier South, the 2nd XI would be reduced to playing T20 cricket and the gulf in � xture type would a� ect performances by 2nd XI players called up to the 1st XI team.

A re-vote was held on the 29th January but if clubs didn’t vote at all, BUCS stated that they would automatically be put as

opting for the changes. Even so, those wishing to overturn the result were le� celebrating a� er they won 57% of the vote and the proposed changes were dropped.

� is isn’t the � rst time that BUCS deci-sions have caused outrage from the Uni-versity cricketing community. � e Welsh division of BUCS were playing in the indoor cricket competition and in order to cram games in, the matches were played on half courts. � is meant that bowlers were two metres away from the bat and many felt that this was unnecessarily dangerous for players.

All the scores, all the match reports The Courier, your home for sport in Aber @SportsCourier

BUCS CRICKET REFORMS DROPPEDCRICKET TEAM CELEBRATE AFTER REFORMS SPARK ANGER

SPORT SPORT EDITOR

[email protected]

Harry Tayloraberstudentmedia.com/sport

Harry TaylorSports Editor

Chad Balluza

22

22

Varsity: the buildup begins

Aberystwyth Motorsports Club on the

right track

Aber Town fail in Europe bid

Inside this issue’s sports

section

VARSITY 2013ABER vs BANGORfebruary 16th aberstudentmedia.com/varsity

We’ll be bringing you live updates, photos, interviews and videos all day, from the heart of the action:

Documents

The Courier - February 2013 - Year 63 Edition 4