THE SAINTSt Andrews’ Independent Student Newspaper

Issue 155 FREEThursday 13 October 2011

Expelled student speaks out on “ridiculous” punishmentHenry Turnbull

The Other Guys, St Andrews’ all-male a cappella ensemble, treated revellers to a performance of their Youtube hit “Royal Romance” at the Kate Kennedy Charity Opening Ball on Saturday, 8 October. Over a thousand students attended the event, which was held at Strathryum Estate. Turn to page 18 for more photos of the event.

A ST AndrewS STudenT who was convicted of racism has described himself as the victim of “misinformation, melodrama and outright lies.”

As detailed in the previous issue of The Saint, Paul donnachie, 19, was expelled from the university and sentenced to 150 hours of community service after being found guilty of a racist breach of the peace.

Charges had been brought against Donnachie after he defiled an Israeli flag belonging to Chanan reitblat, an American student studying at St Andrews for a semester, in March of this year.

In an exclusive letter to The Saint, Mr. donnachie attacks what he describes as Mr. reitblat’s “malice and irrationality” and labels his punishment “ridiculous and disproportionate,” as well as questioning the truthfulness of Mr. reitblat’s testimony.

during an incident on the morning of March 12, donnachie had entered Mr. reitblat’s room in their shared halls of residence, John Burnet Halls, after a drunken night out.

Noticing an Israeli flag hanging on the wall, donnachie declared the flag to be a “terrorist symbol.” He then unbuttoned his trousers, removed pubic hair and rubbed it on the flag.

In his letter, Mr. donnachie accuses Mr. reitblat of “rabid invention,” asserting that several parts of his testimony were untrue.

He particularly takes issue with his accuser’s allegation that Mr. donnachie called him a “terrorist,” something he refutes entirely, as well as with Mr. reitblat’s denial that they had engaged in a political discussion on the conflict in Palestine prior to the incident with the flag.

“reitblat’s evidence in court was truly Oscar worthy,” Mr. donnachie states.

Mr. donnachie also believes that his criminal conviction was a disproportionate response to his role in the incident, arguing that it

should have been dealt with through internal university procedures rather than in a court of law.

“I maintain that this affair should have been dealt with through mediation and the buying of a pint,” he argues.

donnachie states that he comes “from an area with a very high rate of actual crime,” and asserts that Mr. reitblat saying that he ‘feared for his safety’ in the aftermath of the incident was “ludicrous and disrespectful to those who have actually suffered due to criminals.”

The ill-feeling between Messrs reitblat and donnachie shows no sign of abating in the near future.

In a perhaps ill-advised allusion, in light of the charges

of racism brought against him, to Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice, donnachie likens Mr. reitblat to the character of Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, describing the American student as “akin to one with an insatiable appetite, who, having devoured his pound of flesh, wishes to further feast.”

Mr. donnachie has announced his intention to travel to the Palestinian territories in the near future in order to “witness first hand the degradation inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli state.”

To read the exclusive statement from Paul Donnachie, turn to page 8.

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Straight Talking from KPMG. Graduate Programmes – All degree disciplines

www.kpmg.co.uk/careers

2 News The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

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The Saint Student Newspaper LtdC/O St Andrews Students’ AssociationSt Mary’s PlaceSt Andrews, FifeKY16 9UX

Phone: (01334) (42) 2737Editor: 07986156766Fax: (01334) 462716

Email: editor@thesaint-online.com

Useful Numbers:Nightline: (46) 2266IT Services: (46) 3333Police: (41) 8900Health Centre (47) 6740

Association General Office: (46) 2700Rector: Kevin Dunion: rector@st-andrews.ac.uk

Rector’s Assessor: Amanda Litherland:al382@st-andrews.ac.uk

INSIDENewsScottish universities raise tuition feesPage 5

Viewpoint

I </3 Newspeak

Page 9

Features

Page 13

Arts & Culture

Pages 23

InFocus with the new ChaplainPage 7

Vapid Politicians

Page 10

Fighting fire with fire - the Union vs the Vic

Burlesque Confessions with Chelsea DaggerPage 17

Remembering Steve Jobs’ work with Pixar Studios

The Good, the Bad and the App

Page 27

Sport

Rugby World Cup Round-Up

Dunhill Winner

Page 32

Pages 30

In Pictures: Opening BallPage 19

New laws prohibit multibuy alcohol purchases

Dinora Smith

November finish for Market Street upgrade

Rachel Kay

The £1.5 milliON renovations on Market Street are due to be finished by the end of November, freeing up the road after three weeks of being completely closed off to all but pedestrian traffic.

Fife Council and T&N Gilmartin, the contractors working on market Street, are quite confident in the completion of the road by this time, but allow for the possibility of further problems pushing the end date back to as late as January.

last month, construction was pushed back for two weeks due to the discovery of the St Andrew’s tollbooth, the oldest town council building in Scotland.

In the event of finding more archaeological remnants on the opposite side of the road, the roadwork would theoretically be pushed back for another two weeks.

This setback would leave work to commence after holidays and be completed by January’s end.

however, the contractors are confident that there should be no further delays to the schedule. There appears to be no disruption as of yet, as market Street partially reopened this week, providing a glimpse into what the new refurbishing will look like without barriers and construction vehicles.

One second year Geoscience student, Alex Kummer, shared her observations about the construction.

“As one can already see, the end result will be beautiful and will add to the entire picture of one of our main streets,”said Kumner.

“At the moment, some people might find it inconvenient ... but i’ll happily put up with all this now because i’ll soon be able to enjoy the improved end result.”

While the aesthetic side of the roadwork is admirable, heleyna Patel, a second year Psychology student, raises a different view. “Putting cobbles into the road will make St Andrews look a lot more archaic and picturesque, but surely tearing out tarmac would make it harder for cars to drive on? Just seems impractical really,” said Patel.

The new road features a granite zebra crossing at the south end outside of Tesco and will be flanked by two trees on either side. A matching pair of trees has already been planted on the footpath at the northern end of the pavement.

The final section of road to be cobbled, the south side from Tesco to Subway, is being completed now. The last stage of work is to place the tree pits at the south end of the street in time for planting season at the beginning of November.

SCOTTiSh lAWmAKeRS hAve cracked down on the promotion of alcohol in response to concerns over an increasingly “unhealthy” drinking culture.

New government legislation, which came into effect on Saturday, 1 October, now prohibits retailers from offering ‘multibuy’ or multi-case discounts on alcoholic

beverages.The laws were passed in

holyrood after an NhS report revealed that adults in Scotland are now consuming 23% more alcohol than adults in england and Wales, the widest statistical gap recorded in the last 17 years.

They come as part of the wider Alcohol Scotland Act 2010, which also restricts alcohol advertising around shop premises, enacts more

stringent age checks, and adds a new tax for some license holders.

This “social responsibility levy” is meant to ensure that alcohol vendors assume greater financial accountability for the impact of drinking on the community.

A survey by the Scottish Government’s health Analytical Services Division estimates the price of alcohol misuse at £2.25bn per year, taking into consideration costs to businesses, the NhS, police, and court services.

Nicola Sturgeon, Cabinet Secretary for health and Wellbeing, said the figure comes to £900 for every adult.

however, there are concerns that the new approach could backfire, for instance if retailers respond by cutting the prices of individual products, or decide to only stock multipacks.

Tesco has already announced that it will continue to offer online discounts to customers buying wine, through a legal loophole which allows the cases to be dispatched from a depot in england.

Sturgeon said the SNP plan to counteract such possibilities by bringing back proposals for a bill to fix the minimum price per unit of alcohol at 45p.

Statistics from the NhS report on national consumption levels of

various drinks call into question the link between price and popularity.

Wine is currently the highest, with sales having doubled since the mid 1990s.

While ready-mixed drinks and alcopops also saw growth, spirit sales remained constant, and those of beer, cider, and fortified wine declined.

David Graves, the Students’ Association’s Director of Student Development and Activities, and Rollo Strickland, Director of events and Services, expressed their approval of the government legislation.

The sabbaticals said they were “fully supportive of all efforts to curb unhealthy and potentially dangerous commercial practices with regards to alcohol,” including the minimum Unit Pricing.

“it should be noted that the deals offered by supermarkets often undercut independent specialists, for example luvians, using their muscle to distort the market,” said Strickland and Graves.

“however, we recognise that drinking can play a significant role in the student experience, and remain confident that the canny student body will find ample opportunity to get hold of affordable alcohol and have a great, but sensible, time,” they added.

The first floor of the library before and after the summer renovations.

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News 3The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

University battles for wind farm planning permissionCharlotte Wilson

The UNiversiTy Of st Andrews is striving to achieve planning permission to build six wind turbines on Kenly farm near Boarhills.

The 12MW wind farm would meet the University’s electricity demand, making it the first university in the United Kingdom to generate its own power.

if the planning is approved, the University hopes to cut its current energy bill of £5.4 million per year.

The wind farm would also reduce the University’s carbon footprint by 18,000 tonnes, enhancing its strong reputation for being environmentally conscious.

Last year the University supported 111 green projects costing 1.9 million pounds.

The st Andrews University student representative Council (srC) voted unanimously to support the project.

srC President Patrick O’hare said: “We commend the University’s commitment to renewable energy and believe that it is engaging positively with student desire for sustainable energy solutions as well as promoting itself as a leader in the higher education sector on sustainable development.”

Cristina Boulineaux, the student

Association’s environment and Ethics Officer, praised the SRC’s support and described the plans as “an example of great forward thinking and a responsible effort to tackle climate change and spiralling energy costs.”

however, the University’s plans have been challenged by the Kenly Landscape Protection Group (KPLG), formed by disgruntled residents from Boarhills, Dunino and Kingsbarns.

“Turbines of this scale have a massive visual impact over a huge area on residents and visitors alike and the impact on fife’s biggest industry – tourism – cannot be ignored,” John Goodwin, a spokesman for KLPG, told The Courier.

“Golf brings thousands to fife. The turbines could be seen over st Andrews from the Links and from other courses in the area, completely altering the amenity and the visitor experience,” Goodwin continued.

The farmland for the proposed site has passed a full environmental impact Assessment. however, the Ministry of Defence has objected to the wind turbines as they would interfere with the radar system over rAf Leuchars.

The University is working with the MOD to find a solution, and their case may be helped by the fact

that the complaint was made before rAf Leuchars prepared to close.

The University has expressed its desire to interact with the community over the Kenly Wind farm and has recruited frost-free, a group to aid discussions within the area.

roddy yarr, the University’s environment and energy Manager, said: “We need the community engaging with us in a positive way.”

st Andrews students were largely supportive of the proposal. second year Claire Gourlay said: “i support the wind turbines because i think it’s a great opportunity for the University to contribute to the movement towards the future of more sustainable energy.”

however, John Trevor, a sustainable Development student, stated that, “although i appreciate the environmental benefits of the wind farm, i am concerned that the turbines will ruin the beauty of the countryside.”

supporters of the project state that the community could benefit from Kenly Wind farm as the government financially awards renewable energy producers. The money would be distributed to the community via trusts following guidance provided by the scottish Government.

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www.atass-sports.co.uk/careers

turn data into knowledge

Statistical modelling in action

Why not dosomething you love...

4 News The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Stars light up the Dunhill Championship

Beyond

Bubblethe

IN a TOwN where you know everyone else, bumping in to Tim henman outside the pub is a bit of a shock.

On the first weekend of October celebrities of the acting and sporting worlds descended upon St andrews for the 2011 Dunhill Links Championship. Oscar winner Michael Douglas celebrated his recovery from cancer by returning to the ‘home of Golf’ after a year away being ill, while Olympic rowers Steve redgrave and Matthew Pinsent demonstrated their other sporting talents.

rory McIlroy, the recent US Open Champion who usually prefers the sun of the american tour, braved the St andrews rain. Geography student angus roberts spotted the Northern Irishman “out for a run,” and he was also reported to be seen in the University gym.

There was, of course, the annual hunt for actor hugh Grant, which ended in disappointment for Tania Valyaeva, studying Ir. “he reminded me a bit of a shy deer in the middle of the road, paralysed by the lights of a car. He fled the scene very quickly.”

radio DJ Chris evans, however, was more than happy to steal the limelight. he and golfer Nick Dougherty claimed the team competition title. Their winning partnership of 40 under was just four off the record.

Some of golf’s top stars were playing, but the celebrities stole

Letter of the lawPOLICe IN COOk County, Chicago, have secured the arrests of 50 criminals through the use of junk mail.

Officers dispatched letters promising 100,000 otherwise illusive offenders $75 and free consumer electronic goods for taking part in a product testing exercise in an out of town warehouse.

On arrival, those that had made appointments were met by undercover officers, who, after taking “publicity” photos, arrested them.AH.

Astronomical mistakeaN raF heLICOPTer and an rNLI lifeboat were dispatched to investigate a maritime distress flare after receiving a telephone call from a concerned local of the Tynemouth area.

however, after further investigation, it turned out that the man had been looking at the planet Jupiter. The rNLI have made clear that the call was not a wind-up and was made in the best faith, emphasising that Jupiter’s red light, especially when obscured by cloud, could reasonably have been mistaken for a flare. AH.

Dangerously hotTwO PeOPLe haVe been taken to the hospital after eating a ‘killer’ at the ‘world’s hottest chilli’ competition in edinburgh.

The Scottish ambulance Service are calling for a review of how the event is managed after they were called to the Charity event at kismot restaurant. Two people suffered a violent reaction to the ‘kismot killer’ and had to be hospitalised. One competitor, Curie kim, a student at edinburgh University, said: “It felt like I was being chainsawed in the stomach.”LA.

Unusual AwardThe 21ST aNNUaL Ig Nobel prizes have been presented at a ceremony at harvard University. They aim to “make people laugh and then think,” with awards in 10 different categories.

winners include writers on subjects such as “The Theory of Structured Procrastination” in the Literature category, how the problem of illegally parked cars can be removed by running them over with tanks in the Peace category, and the inventors of a Wasabi fire alarm in the Chemistry category.DP.

their thunder. ross Davidson, an economics student, said the tournament “creates a real buzz around the town… Someone saw Shane warne in Tesco.”

while warne was busy polishing a sapphire ring for his marriage proposal to Liz hurley, the pro golfers put their feet up. angus roberts spotted a few at the Jigger Inn: “They were all sitting having fags and pints together and Darren Clarke brought out his miniature Claret Jug,” said roberts. “They were acting like a bunch of normal guys.”

“Normal guys” they were for one weekend as their amateur playing partners eclipsed them at the Old Course.

Jonathan Bucks

The NewLy INDePeNDeNT St andrews branch of Stop aIDS held an evening talk designed to put faces to the millions affected by hIV last Tuesday.

The talk focused around two very different people who had both suffered discrimination and hardship after contracting the hIV virus. The first to speak was Mohammad Berry, a twenty-year-old from Af-rica who was exposed to hIV after an emergency blood transfusion at seven. he spoke movingly about how, feeling his life was so worthless, he had tried to commit suicide twice at the age of sixteen.

Mohammad is now actively involved in campaigning and told those present:

“I’m telling you just one story out of millions of untold stories. you can make all the difference, because you are healthy, wealthy and edu-cated. you have an opportunity to hand down a new generation.”

Leah Griffiths, a mother of two from Bedford, spoke about the hor-ror of finding out she was both pregnant and HIV positive. She spoke of how friends and family couldn’t see past the disease and how only after years of depression did she find a support group that made her feel empowered again.

St andrews’ Stop aIDS is currently participating in the university’s first SHAG (Sexual Health And Guidance) Week. The group’s main goal is to fight for better access to STI testing for students, a particular problem in St Andrews, with the first step being the free clinic open on the Union’s second floor every day this week from 1 to 5 pm.

earlier in the day, the Students Stop aIDS Campaign Speakers Tour had taken to the streets of St andrews, protesting against Johnson and Johnson, who currently hold the exclusive patents for many hIV-drugs.

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Student Stop AIDS campaign in St Andrewserin Lyons

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University Chaplain retires after 18 year tenureThe ChaPLaIN OF the University of St andrews, who was awarded the prestigious University Medal for exceptional and dedicated service to the University, has officially retired after 18 years in his post.

The rev Dr Jamie walker retires after almost two decades of service in which he was responsible for advancing cross cultural and interfaith communication within the student body.

During his tenure as Chaplain, rev walker was an integral part of the daily life of St andrews’ faith communities, leading chapel services and preaching each week at St Salvator’s chapel. He officiated in over 500 marriage ceremonies during his 18 year tenure.

rev Dr walker was awarded the University Medal at a special Laureation address at younger hall this summer. University Vice Principal for Government and Planning, Professor ronald Piper, said at the event: “In 1993, Jamie walker was appointed university chaplain for the normal term, in those days, of five years.

“The fact that he is now due to retire from that post 18 years later gives an indication of the esteem with which he has been held and the reason that we are honouring him.”

Upon Rev Walker’s official retirement, University Proctor Lorna Milne said: “In his time at St andrews, Jamie provided a listening ear and support for staff and students alike.

“In times of bereavement and sadness his support extended to colleagues, friends and family, near and far, not just in the immediate aftermath, but year after year,” Milne continued.

as associate Director of Student Services, rev Dr walker worked alongside the Students association and athletic Union of the University to monitor and enhance student experience.

In 2005, rev Dr walker set up the ethical review committee to improve the ethics of research conducted in the various schools and faculties of the University.

Under his leadership, the University Teaching and research Ethics Committee (UTREC) has raised awareness and established a high standard of ethical practice across the University.

Speaking after his official retirement presentation this week, walker commented: “It has been a great pleasure being University Chaplain for eighteen years, and also associate Director of Student Services.”

“I wish the University and its new Chaplain, Donald Macewan, God-speed for the future.”

Simeon Burke

News 5The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

FS Young Designer Competition launchedKetsuda Phoutinane

A cOmPeTiTiON ruN by FS 2012, St Andrews’ Student Fashion Show, is aiming to raise the profiles of young fashion designers.

The Alfa Romeo Young Designer Competition is encouraging all budding student designers to apply. Applications will be accepted until 15th October.

The competition, now in its second year, seeks student designers from across the uK. Five finalists will be selected to feature their designs in the fashion show on Saturday 25th February and in a photo shoot for FS magazine.

“The aim of the competition is to search for and find the very best designing talent the UK has to offer,” said a spokesman for FS.

“Last year the competition did that very successfully. It found young designers that had, above all, lots of ability and showed huge promise for the future. This competition with all of its opportunities could provide a real springboard for these young designers’ careers.”

Last year, the competition received applications from all around the world, and an even greater number of applications are expected this year.

The first step of the application process includes a short form available on the FS website. Applicants will then be interviewed

by a judging panel composed of Amy Molyneaux and Percy Parker, the PPQ design duo, and Alex evans, the winner of Britain’s Next Top Model.

The winner of the competition will be entitled to £1000 in prize money courtesy of Alfa Romeo, the opportunity to design a fashion line worth £500 in support of charity, and a feature and spread in FS magazine. The chosen charity for FS 2012 is The Muir Maxwell Trust.

Emma Sherlock, the only finalist from St Andrews in last year’s competition, spoke positively of her experience. “my favourite moment of the show was watching my garments on stage,” said the self-taught dress maker. “The process of design to actual making is very slow, hard work. To see the final product alongside my closest friends makes it all worth it.”

For the fourth year Art History student, one highlight of the competition was coming into contact with people in the fashion industry. Sherlock undertook an internship with PPQ this past summer.

FS will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this upcoming winter. The organisation has raised over £180,000 for various charities in the past ten years.

“It looks like FS is going to be great this year. i’m excited to see what the designers come up with,” said second year erin Greengrass.

Campus

Campusto

American University61% PerceNT OF managers plan to hire interns this autumn, according to an online survey. A recent study of 416 uS universities revealed that an average of 37.6 percent of 2010 graduates were involved in internships as undergraduates.

More students from D.C.-based American university were hired as interns than from any other university.

The study, put out by u.S. News and World Report, announced that, of American university’s 1,515 graduates in the class of 2010, 84.7 percent participated in at least one internship during their undergraduate study.

Although unpaid internships have recently come under fire in some sections of the press, many students still regard them as an invaluable introduction to the world of work. CW.

CaltechTHe TimeS HiGHer education released its top 200 universities league table (rankings) for 2012.

The California Institute of Technology occupied the coveted number one slot, followed by Harvard and Stanford jointly holding the number two ranking.

The London School of economics and university of manchester have moved in to this year’s top 50 alongside Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College London, University College London and University of edinburgh.

Overall, the UK possesses 32 of the top 200 spots, up from 29 last year. The top 200 institutions remain mostly American.

The uK has been warned by the Times Higher education that, unless state funding increases, they may be unable to maintain their international reputation for universities.

Wellesley UniversityFLASH mOBS HAve become increasingly popular and are now making appearances on university campuses across the united States.

B o s t i n n o v a t i o n t o o k advantage of the new trend and staged a contest on YouTube, asking readers to vote for the local campus -- Wellesley, Emerson, or Merrimack -- with the best welcome. Wellesley won with a 120-person mob dancing to Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

Wellesley’s first year class dean, Lori Tenser, said: “We thought it would engage a lot of people from different parts of the college.” During the student leaders’ training week, the Wellesley group rehearsed for six hours, even posting the moves on YouTube for anyone in need of extra practice. CW.

St Andrews local killed in car accidentJames Gray

A ST AnDREWS RESIDEnT died in a car accident on the A91 just outside St Andrews on Wednesday, 28 September.

The crash took place in the early hours of Wednesday morning and did not involve any other vehicles.

The silver Ford Focus was driving from Guardbridge towards St Andrews at 4:15 am when it careened off the road and overturned, according to Fife Constabulary.

The driver - named as 56-year-old mother, Grace Thom - was the only occupant of the car.

Despite the speedy arrival of paramedics on the scene, mrs. Thom was pronounced dead some three hours later at ninewells Hospital in Dundee. Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the crash are ongoing, and police are still appealing for any witnesses.

The news broke in a week where road accidents were at the forefront of the public mindset, as two days later the Conservative Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, announced that the government are planning to increase the speed limit on motorways in the UK from 70mph to 80mph.

Mr. Hammond explained the plans aimed to “make sure that our motorway speed limit reflects the reality of modern vehicles…not those of 50 years ago.”

The current motorway speed limit was introduced in 1965, when the majority of road cars would struggle to reach 70 mph.

The proposal will also include a widespread expansion of the 20mph zones in built-up areas. Under the new Scotland Bill, Holyrood will take control of national speed limits in Scotland next year, but seem unlikely to support the plans.

Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said of the proposals: “This is an entirely backwards move and would be particularly unfortunate in Scotland where the government has already raised the idea of lower speed limits to save lives.”

“It will be fascinating to learn from an official consultation how many more people UK ministers propose to condemn to death so a few people can get to a meeting five minutes early,” Dixon added.

Fife sees on average 20 deaths on the road a year, with the A91 being particularly dangerous; two people have died driving on it in the last month.

Opponents of the plans have pointed out that allowing faster driving on the motorway encourages faster, more reckless behaviour on the already far more dangerous A-roads of Britain.

The government consultation on the proposed speed limit increase is due to report back in a couple of months.

Callum Forster

Tuition fees for RUK students rise across Scottish universitiesDEGREES FROM SCOTTISH universities will be the most expensive in the uK for students from England, northern Ireland and Wales following major rises in tuition fees.

All of Scotland’s universities have now declared their fees for non-Scottish students. The average cost of a degree from a Scottish university will be nearly £7,000 a year for ‘Rest of UK’ (RUK) students.

The decision follows last year’s move by the uK government to allow universities to charge up to £9,000 a year for tuition.

The rise in fees will face new students enrolling in Scottish universities in 2012/13.

A number of universities, including Aberdeen, Dundee, and Strathclyde, have followed edinburgh and St Andrews in charging the maximum permitted fee of £9,000 a year.

Fees will rise dramatically from their current level of £1,800 a year for RUK students at all of Scotland’s universities.

St Andrews’ Students’ Association’s President Patrick O’Hare feels only an increase of fees to £3,300 a year could be justified to cover the reduction in ruK funding from the government.

“In setting fees well above this level, and well above the average degree cost in England, universities

like St Andrews have shown that they care more about generating income than about fairness, or the financial burden placed on students,” he argues.

However, some universities, such as Aberdeen and Dundee, have announced that they will cap degree fees at £27,000, in effect making one year tuition-free, in order to match the maximum degree cost of a degree in England and limit the financial expense for students.

Degrees from St Andrews and Edinburgh will be the most expensive in the uK for students from the rest of the uK.

President of nUS Scotland robin Parker described the cost of Scottish degrees as “startling.”

The average cost of a Scottish degree for a RUK student will be £27,083, nearly two thousand pounds higher than the English degree average of £25,179.

Parker said: “The average degree, and I repeat average, will cost more than the very maximum allowed in England. This system is one that simply allows principals to cash in on students from the rest of UK, and that’s unjustifiable.”

Patrick O’Hare hit out at what he termed the “elitism” of the decision by the Scottish government, which will allow universities such as St Andrews and edinburgh to increase their finances due to their high number of ruK students at

the expense of students from lower income backgrounds.

O’Hare believes this risks the creation of a ‘two-tier’ university system in Scotland.

Scotland’s Education Secretary Mike Russell declared himself pleased by the “restraint” shown by the majority of universities in Scotland when deciding fee rises.

The result of the fee rises on

RUK applications to St Andrews remains to be seen. Last year, RUK applications to St Andrews fell 18%, despite the fact that the price of Scottish degree at that point in time was 28% cheaper than a degree in England.

Patrick O’Hare said: “Now it will become 25% more expensive, and it is hard to see that not taking its toll on our application level.”

A sign outside the St Andrews Union expresses the Students’ Association’s feelings on the tuition fee rises for RUK students.

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6 News The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

News 7The Saint •Thursday 13 October 2011

In Focus

New University Chaplain introduces himself

SB: For students unaware of the nature and purpose of the Chaplaincy service, could you briefly describe the aim of the Chaplaincy and the activities it puts on?

DM: The Chaplaincy exists to provide spiritual care and a confidential, listening ear to any member of the university regardless of religious faith or whether the individual expresses no faith.

The Chaplaincy building on St Mary’s Place is a space for students to conduct a variety of activities in exploring and deepening their faith. As Chaplain, I promote worship at the two historic, beautiful chapels, St Leonard’s and St Salvator’s, which are accompanied with beautiful music.

There are a host of other activities and services the Chaplaincy conducts to serve students. These

include visiting students in hospital, a befriending scheme wherein students for whom English is not their first language are linked with local families in St Andrews and a Thursday evening discussion group centring on questions of faith. SB: As new chaplain of the University, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your interests?

DM: I am 41 and was raised in Glasgow before studying English and Philosophy at Aberdeen. I lived in Japan for two years and then made the decision to study for the ministry. I spent the last ten years before coming to St Andrews as parish minister at two small villages close by. In my spare time I play tennis and golf and enjoy listening to music, my favourite bands being King Creosote and other members of the Fence Collective.

SB: What do you hope to achieve for and with the St Andrews student community in your four years here?

DM: I hope to continue to foster cultural, particularly religious, appreciation and expression among the student body. Coming to

university exposes students to so many new things and greatly broadens their horizons. This is no less true in St Andrews, which is such a multi-ethnic and international town.

Our goal at the Chaplaincy is to provide a place where these people of diverse ethnic and faith backgrounds can come into regular contact with one another, opening the way for dialogue and friendship. I also hope to be someone students can trust and speak to.

SB: What do you see as the challenges and rewards of working with students of diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds?

DM: The Chaplaincy is a diverse meeting place, and out of that often comes rich community and friendship. Personally, it is humbling to see young students explore and come to express their faith. The greatest challenges occur when political commitments are brought into religious faith, resulting in great misunderstanding as people distort their view of one another. Both the rewards and challenges are the product of being in such a multi-ethnic environment and press home the importance of respect in interfaith dialogue. Like

many if not all rewarding things, respect takes work.

SB: In today’s individualised and technologised society, does your job of listening to students take on new significance?

DM: Yes, because human nature does not change as fast as technology does. To be sure, we see the proliferation of social

networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, and yet, as humans, we still crave company. We live in a world in which loneliness is an increasing problem and genuine friendship can be rare. In this context, face to face contact is more valuable than ever. Alongside the other many student services, we at the Chaplaincy strive to provide this kind of confidential contact to the students of St Andrews.

Digging up the past

The Saint delves back through the archives to see what was making news in and around St Andrews in years gone by

At Salford University, the Union President decided that he would no longer allow the army to recruit students on University ground, as “a university was not a place where the army should be encouraged to appear.” The army, upon being informed of this, said: “We’re coming anyway.” Students immediately began building barricades.

The release of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart prompted, within a two week period, several attacks on English students in St Andrews when local youths decided to re-invigorate ancient hostilities between North and South. At least 16 assaults took place. Seven arrests were made. The oldest person arrested was 18.

Pete Ashworth, a second year student well-known to authorities after exposing himself in front of a police car in 1984, took up residence in a cave between West Sands and Castle Sands. When questioned, he gave three reasons for his choice of address: he had no money for rent, he stood to win £10 in a bet, and he wanted to win the love of a beautiful 16 year old German girl called Snowflake.

The inline hockey club had its right to host matches in AU facilities revoked when the Department of Sport and Exercise deemed them to be ‘too smelly.’ An outraged Captain, Mr. Craig Smith, said, “There were seven teams sharing one changing room. What did they expect?”

1973

1985

2005

1995

This year sees the Chaplaincy and St Andrews community welcome Rev. Dr Donald MacEwan to its staff. The Saint’s Simeon Burke was able to speak with Rev MacEwan about his life and work before St Andrews and his purpose and passion for working as Chaplain of the University for

Cartoon

Meet Drew - St Andrews’ newest matriculated student. Pick up fortnightly issues of The Saint to follow Drew in his (mis)adventures in the Bubble!

Rev MacEwan is looking forward to a successful tenure as Chaplain.

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o: C

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“Today’s news, tomorrow’s chip paper”

The politics of student journalism

8 Editorial The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Editorial BoardEditor Rachel Hanrettyeditor@thesaint-online.com Deputy EditorAndreea Nemes editor@thesaint-online.com Production Manager Camilla Henfreyproduction@thesaint-online.com

Business Manager Anna Wollman business@thesaint-online.com

Web EditorHillevi Gustafsonweb@thesaint-online.com

News EditorHenry Turnbull news@thesaint-online.com

News Subeditors Craig Lye, Pete Stebbing, Charlotte WilsonViewpoint Editor J.H Ramsayviewpoint@thesaint-online.com

Viewpoint Subeditor Nick CassellaFeatures Editor Melissa Steelfeatures@thesaint-online.com

Features Subeditors Samantha Gordine, Alyce Shu, Francesca VaghiArts & Culture Editor Al Bellarts@thesaint-online.com

Arts& Culture SubeditorsRoss Hamilton, Rosalie Jones, Ruby Munson-Hirst, David SwensenSport Editor Richard Browne sport@thesaint-online com

Sport Subeditors Alastair Ferrans,Ben Reiss Ruraigh ThorntonPhotography ChiefsCeleste Sloman, Jake Threadgouldphotography@thesaint-online.com

The Saint is an entirely independent newspaper, run by students of the University of St Andrews. It is published fortnightly during term time and is free of charge. The Saint is not affiliated with the University or the Student Association. The text, graphics and photographs are under copyright of The Saint and its individual contributors. No parts of this newspaper may be reproduced without prior permission of the editor. Any views expressed in the newspaper’s viewpoint section are those of the writer’s individual opinion, and not of The Saint. The Saint is printed by Cumbrian Newsprint - Newspaper House, Dalston Road, Carlisle, Cumbria CA2 5UA.

THE SAINTSt Andrews’ Independent Student Newspaper

Newspapers are in the difficult position of being responsible for transmitting an unbiased account of current events while also taking a stand regarding said events. We look to newspapers for our information as well as for guidance on what to think.

Many (indeed many within The Saint) would argue that it is a newspaper’s duty to be political, positional and controversial. But only in an ideal world would it be as straightforward a matter as that.

In the real world there are many factors to take into consideration. The Saint’s permanent staff numbers 30 highly opinionated and passionate students who can hardly agree on fonts and layout styles, never mind asking us to come up with a political manifesto. How do politics translate into practice for student newspapers?

Furthermore, The Saint faces political and financial constraints. Politically, we are ultimately students of this University

and members of the Students’ Association. Are we students or journalists first? Can we negotiate these two positions?

Financially, we go to print based solely on the ability of our Business Team to drum up advertisements. As such, can we afford to be political? Perhaps if we became too radical we would lose our advertisers and St Andrews would suffer the loss of the fortnightly calls of ‘free copy of The Saint!’ However, if we can’t be political what does it mean for the

integrity of what we publish?

We can’t answer all these questions on our own – this is why we need the help of all willing writers. The Saint is by the students, for the students. If you think we’re doing something wrong or could be doing something more then tell us and get involved. It’s easy to criticise without understanding fully what goes into the publication of the 32 pages that you receive every other Thursday. So you tell us – should we be more political?

I would like to respond to your article about the HMO Moratorium (29 Sept).

The pressure on available housing in St. Andrews is acute. This leads to very high rental levels and this is a major problem for many students. I can understand why students are opposed to the moratorium, but it is important to understand the problem in terms of the overall relationship between the university and the resident community.

The high house prices affect everyone, residents as well as students. The resident population in the town centre has been dwindling over the years as the number of students increases, and the position now is that there are estimated to be less than 300 permanent residents in central St. Andrews. There is a very high density of student flats, some HMOs and some not. If this trend continues, then there may be no resident community remaining in the years ahead. This would be bad for everybody, because the sense of civic pride that sustains efforts to maintain the quality of the environment is dependent in large part on the core of permanent residents. This is why the goal of maintaining a degree of balance in the centre of town is important. Some say it is too late for that, we should just accept that the centre should become a wholly student zone, but I don’t agree with this.

Use of the phrase “social engineering” is very misleading.

Policies like this have been in place for years in parts of Glasgow and Dundee for the same reason, that is to support a mixed community. We know that unrestrained market forces can lead to very undesirable consequences and the planning system is there to help to mitigate these. HMOs can give a very high financial return to landlords and so can add an additional premium to house prices. The purpose of the moratorium is to reduce this premium. The intention of the policy is emphatically not anti-student. It is pro-community, meaning for both residents and students.

To claim that the moratorium aims to “deliberately segregate students and the community” is the exact opposite of the truth. The aim is to avoid such segregation. The decision last June affects only the centre of town, there is no new restriction on HMO conversions elsewhere. The town is small enough that everywhere is within easy cycling distance. The new guidance is subject to review in 2013, and there will then be an evaluation then of the effects of the moratorium and whether or not to continue it.

I come back to the fundamental problem – lack of housing, both general purpose and student accommodation. The university has a responsibility to ensure adequate provision of residence accommodation, and there is a need for more housebuilding in suitable parts of the town. But these are difficult economic times

and we can’t produce miracles. The relationship between

students and residents of St. Andrews has historically been very good, students contribute immeasurably to the life of the town, and this is part of the unique experience of living here. It is very important that we all work hard to sustain this. We don’t have to agree, and we probably won’t on the HMO issue, but we should keep communication open as best we can, and listen to each other.

I am pleased that the joint forum of students, residents and councillors is to be relaunched, and hope that this will improve communication on issues of common concern, to the benefit of everyone.

Robin WaterstonCouncillor, St. Andrews Ward.

As the manager of Luvians Bottleshop in Market Street, I see a lot of

students coming into our shop with all sorts of legal forms of ID that are, in the view of the Scottish Government, not considered legal. I thought I would write to The Saint to clarify the law for all students, to avoid the embarrassment of being refused service in shops and pubs. At Luvians, we have not had any problems with students being refused service, all of whom have been polite, understanding, but disappointed, however there is a

lot of confusion within the student body as to what will be accepted.

The following are acceptedPassportEU Photocard Driving LicenceAny ID with the PASS hologram

on it

You can find out more about the PASS hologram at www.pass-scheme.org.uk

No retailer or pub is allowed, by law, to accept anything else. As licencees, we are also obliged by law to request identification from anyone who we suspect to be under 25 years old, and if you come in a group of people, we have to see ID from everyone in that group, regardless of how many people are buying alcohol.

I know that foreign students are reluctant to carry their passport with them, as they are easy to lose and quite bulky, so I strongly urge all students to lobby the University to sign up to the PASS scheme and have the matriculation cards of the 2012/13 academic year carry the PASS hologram. This would enable all students to use the card that they already carry as a legal form of of identification.

Yours,

Peter WoodManager, Luvians Bottleshop

Letters to the Editor

ViewpointEditor: J.H. Ramsay Email: viewpoint@thesaint-online.com

Every generation lives within its own historical matrix. It

has its own demographics, its own economic system, military complexes, global affairs, and religious assumptions. Every generation is uniquely enclosed within their context. We, like every other generation before us and every one to follow, cannot escape our self-imposed reality.

I believe the current short-comings of the U.S. Congress have a large part do with the fact that the Constitution is entrapping the current genera-tions into a 18th century matrix. This July 4th, Richard Stengel wrote a feature article on the Constitution in TIME magazine and observed that ‘Americans have debated the constitution since the day it was signed, but seldom have so many disagreed so fiercely about so much’.

Americans now find them-selves in a crisis of historical matrixes. Today’s world is one with organ transplants, satellite technology and internet por-nography, and yet Americans strain back towards a document which was written by quill to

govern their significantly more complex world.

The Constitution is not sacrosanct, should not be sacro-sanct and was not intended to be sacrosanct. The Bill of Rights was established in 1791, four years after the Constitution, because the founding fathers recognised the need to ‘amend’. The Constitution is a document that was created in a 3 mph world, where crossing the Atlantic took months instead of hours and sending mail took weeks instead of seconds.

This is an incredibly frighten-ing and dangerous opinion to hold for those in Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans uphold the Constitution because they understand that change to the central foundation of Ameri-can democracy would terrify the American people.

In fact, I do not think it is hyperbolic to say that the U.S. would border on revolution if such amending were to occur. And so it is ironic then, that those in Washington who are so wedded to the Constitution and its every word are so willing to warp these same words to fit their political agenda.

If Tea Party Republicans like Christine O’Donnell proclaim that the Constitution isn’t just a legal document but a ‘covenant’ based on ‘divine principles’, they seem scar-ily prepared to ignore vital sections of such a ‘holy’ scripture. Where were these people when the Patriot Act was created? Or when habeus corpus was taken away? Or when America tortured suspects?

Indeed the recent debt-ceiling crisis over the summer is a per-tinent example. For according to Article 14, Section 4 of the Constitu-tion ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned’. It is written directly in the Constitution that America has a constitutional obligation to back its currencies and pay its bills to other nations. This is not negotiable; the US cannot repudiate its debts.

I am trying to illuminate the two-faced approach politicians have towards the Constitution. Even those that herald the document spin it to fit their context. I believe they are inadvertently recognizing that it needs to be adjusted to fit our times more congruously.

We have seen other texts writ-ten in different historical matrixes transform to better suit the cur-

rent generation. It is exigent that America achieves this with the Constitution.

What I am therefore articulating is not that the Constitution is a bad document. It is not. The Constitu-tion is one of the most important and impressive political blueprints created by mankind. What I’m expressing is that in 2011 there is a profound and potentially ruining relationship of two historical ma-trixes. America is trying, and fail-ing, to apply a 21st century world to a framework constructed in 1787. I am proposing that the Constitu-tion should be a living document, which can morph and adapt to its time harmoniously, instead of being a dead weight to the progress of America.

This idea of deconstructing outdated concepts from texts is not a new or revolutionary notion. It should not terrify or bring suspi-cion to politicians and people alike. Such refashioning of texts is vital to the progress of societies.

Take a look at the Bible. Chris-tians still believe in the universal values represented in the Ten Com-mandments, but do many truly believe in selling their daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exo-

dus 21:7? In words far better than I

could ever hope to express, Thomas Jefferson wrote “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discover-ies are made…institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times’.

The U.S. is in great risk of falling behind the times. Their institutions are not advancing with their people. This year New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman observed that when he wrote ‘The World Is Flat’ in 2005 ‘Skype was a typo, Twitter was a sound, and 4G was a parking spot’. And that was just six years ago.

The Constitution has overseen 224 years of development and discovery.

Its time has come to prog-ress with the human mind. To completely rip up this document would be both myopic and tragic. It merely needs to adapt to this historical matrix.

A Constitutional MandateNick cassella

Dictionaries, by their own definition, are the touchstones

of our vocabulary, allowing us to source any word at the flick of a page. They are densely packed with etymologies, translations, pronunciations, providing endless possibilities for those seeking an intellectual edge to their conversa-tion.

More importantly, they reveal the journey of our vernacular, from then to now. However, the dictionary has acquired a rival which threatens to override its sig-nificance, rendering it an archaic practice: the internet.

Those with access to this inconceivable plethora of informa-tion can simply type in a word to Google, and within seconds its definition is revealed. I often find myself guilty of such convenience; too lazy to walk the extra metre to my dictionary to labour through its pages. The internet remains a truly thrilling and terrifying notion to me: thrilling because of its possibilities; terrifying because of its omniscience. To resort to a cliché, it is a blessing and a curse.

Not only does it threaten the use of dictionaries, it also places the future of physical novels, the ink-written and printed word, in jeopardy.

Perhaps the internet’s astro-nomical rise was the catalyst in the Oxford English Dictionary’s decision to include the first graphic image into its new edition. The love-heart, <3, has become a ubiquitous feature of ‘the social network’. Some may assert that it breaks up a mo-notony of words, injecting a slice of individuality and colour into a mundane sentence.

Yet, it remains neither truly colourful nor unique. Its mean-ings are multifaceted: as a cheap declaration of ‘love’, an example of wordless excitement, affec-tion, gratitude, joy. Cheap merely because it is not verbal, instead acting as a very public and empty expression. This should not prevent its use online; it should merely indicate the love-heart’s anomalous position amongst written words.

This abbreviation of an argu-

ably significant word, ‘love’, is not the first. Other recent acronyms such as ‘OMG’ and ‘LOL’ have also been added to the OED. All of these terms are synonymous with social networking sites, thus becoming representative of the hi-tech generation.

Whilst the love heart may not be the symbol of the 21st Century zeitgeist, it encapsulates a certain element of modern times. Abbrevi-ations reflect our age to an extent. As Stephen Fry recently stated in the Radio Times, language is “en-tirely your own and that of your clan, your tribe, your nation and your people”.

Vernacular is at the centre of our world, forming the basis of our expression and communica-tion. It changes through us. Yet, to place an unpronounceable symbol amongst spoken words feels wrong. Dictionaries are not sacred tombs but they are important arte-facts in our lives.

Whilst they are not necessarily necessities, they are indisputably valuable in the pursuit of under-standing the aetiology of language.

A love-heart will hardly illuminate the foundations of dialect.

Although criticising the inclu-sion of graphic imagery within dictionaries seems needless, it is a practice which can only grow. It reminds me of the Eleventh Edi-tion of the Newspeak Dictionary in ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, the perfect culmination of language in which no word is obsolete. Language is dumbed down following the era-sure of numerous adjectives and verbs, rendering humans as ver-bally unconscious and incapable of individual expression.

The introduction of <3 to dictionaries resembles the eradica-tion of complex thought, since it is essentially a ‘destruction of words’ (to quote Orwell) in favour of a simpler ocular approach. Perhaps this is merely the progression of the English language; perhaps in a hundred years our own dialect will be superseded.

Yet, my mind continues to rebel against the heart sign. There is no meaning or emotion in someone saying ‘I <3 you’ whilst clumsily gesturing the love-heart symbol

with their hands. All romance is drained from the image, leaving it dry and hollow.

The underlying issue is that the boundaries between cyberspace and reality have become increas-ingly blurred. Speech is now punctuated by ‘OMG’ and ‘totes’, whilst technology is slowly replac-ing books. It is this loss of the corporeal which riles me most.

The heart-shaped graphic is entirely ocular; it has no sound, no senses, no physicality or imagina-tion which words and language possess. Words are associated with objects, with all of our senses, not merely sight. They conjure images of their own which do not require special graphic references in dic-tionaries.

The inclusion of the <3 is clearly an attempt to provide the Oxford English Dictionary with a dose of ‘youth culture’, stemming from a paltry desire to highlight the mod-ern relevance of (supposed) words. Ironically, it fails to understand the real meaning of ‘dictionary’: to un-veil the beauty and significance of our spoken and written language.

I </3 Newspeaksophie FraNkliN

10 Viewpoint The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Governance versus scholarshipAllen FArrington

An article in the last edition of the Saint, titled “Elite Versus

Common”, confirmed a fear I have held for some time now. The truth of the terrifying and bizarre field of Republican Presidential candidates needed no verification. Nor was it the existence of socio-economic antipathy in Britain; as a working class Scot, frankly I enjoy a bit of wealth-bashing.

The emergence of a crop of top American politicians who actively attempt to distance themselves from the profession and its hallmarks – political awareness, genuine desire to help the public, the ability to speak persuasively and engagingly – is a strange if not new phenomenon in the land of Reagan and Schwarzenegger.

However a similar and wholly uncommon generation of seem-ingly untrained politicians has emerged in Britain, and acutely in Scotland, for which we neither asked nor desired. Sitting at the crossroads of economic doom, en-vironmental catastrophe and the uncertainty of independence, this was a fear which we can no longer hide from.

In contrast to the Republican field, our parliaments are filled largely with career politicians, holding quality degrees from Ox-ford, Cambridge and elsewhere. They are not unintelligent. But

what they often suffer from is a chronic inability to communicate, to listen to the public, to compre-hend our thoughts. Ken Clarke was derided for failing to foresee fury at his plan to lower sentences for criminals, including rapists, who plead guilty in court.

Just yesterday, Home Secretary Theresa May managed to misun-derstand an immigrant’s deporta-tion case to the point of ridicule, proclaiming at the Tory party conference that the man was given permission to remain in the UK because he had a pet cat – in fact, he was married to a British woman, and the Home Office had failed to follow it’s own procedures when attempting to have him deported.

Mistakes are only natural, of course, but such sensationalist ‘misspeaking’ hints at a politi-cian hopelessly uninformed of her own department’s workings; or more concerning, an ideologi-cal zealot. May was at the time campaigning for the removal of the Human Rights Act.

Nick Clegg’s trouble engag-ing with the public is all too well documented. Ed Miliband last week had to deflect criticism coming from Labour think-tanks, which suggested the most com-mon description that the electorate applied to him was not ‘strong’

or ‘trustworthy’ – but ‘weird’. His response? “I don’t give a damn.” A man with a PPE degree and a career spent in the media and the Labour party should know how to present himself and handle criticism to a level befitting his experience.

He then embarrassingly claimed to know, but struggled to name, the three contenders in the looming Scottish Labour Leader-ship election. Herein lies a far more serious issue.

Now in its thirteenth year of devolved power, the Scottish political realm is almost entirely void of talent. We are desperately in need of professionals, men and women who have both the education and the experience to make a real difference to Scottish lives. Besides Alex Salmond and a few others in his party, we are represented largely by a silent and unimpressive cast.

All three major opposition party leaders resigned after an

election empty of ideas and char-acters.

Labour’s Iain Gray and An-nabel Goldie of the Conserva-tives remain five months later as temporary leaders, in the absence of any obvious candidates to replace them. We are sleepwalking through a recession and towards independence, as the SNP appear to be the only party of serious politicians.

They have rarely put a foot wrong, but when they have, the

rudderless opposition have failed to apply pressure, and failed to slow down Salmond’s juggernaut. Holyrood needs passionate, informed debate, for the benefit of Scotland’s future; but a feeble class of politicians threatens to prevent this from emerging.

Americans may be facing the possibility of a new president less qualified, less capable and less interested in them.

But Westminster and Holyrood are increasingly populated by the satirists dream: bumblers and nearly-men, who have seemingly succeeded to the glory of office despite an aberrant disregard for the lives of normal people, the machinations of politics and the key tools of the trade – passion, charisma and knowledge. We live in the age of the casual politician.

OnlineThis Week:

Come on prude boy, can you give it up?- Carla McGaharan analyzes the Rihanna obsession

The perks of a ‘McArts’ degree- Jill Whitehead defends the school of Arts

Universities are for everyone- Buhle Zuma replies to David Earnshaw

Only at www.thesaint-online.com

The views expressed in Viewpoint do not represent the views of The Saint, but are individual opinions.

Vapid politicianslewis CAmley

The previous edition of the Saint featured an insightful

piece by Nick Cassella in which he exposed the hypocrisy evidenced by politicians who strategically distance themselves from politics, with his particular case study be-ing the upcoming GOP presiden-tial primaries.

I believe however, that Mr. Cassella has misjudged the details of this particular political contest, and that there are some very inter-esting practical points to be drawn from this confusion.

The Parliamentary democracy we are used to in Britain is thor-oughly different in its arrange-ment of power and responsibility from the Constitutional Republic model. Whereas the British execu-tive is drawn from the legislative body, the executive branch of the Federal Government is thoroughly distinct from the legislative branch. Not only do statesmen not hold multiple offices, they are expected to be an entirely different type of official.

To criminally condense Article II of the Constitution and Federal-ist 69, 70, 74 and 75; the President should be a leader, not a lawmak-er. The key to fulfilling the duties

of the office should be the comple-ment of the judgment required for effective leadership, and the experience of proper execution of this judgment. Outright intelli-gence should be, at best, a bonus, not a necessity, and definitely not an alternative.

This can be evidenced in a number of telling ways. George Washington was the unanimous choice to be the nation’s first presi-dent, and yet he had a minimal role in the drafting of the Consti-tution. He was not an intellectual, but a general; a leader; a man of judgment.

The unanimity of Washington’s approval is given even greater weight when considering his backing by such luminaries as Ben Franklin and John Jay, who, despite being brilliant intellectu-als, identified the suitability to the role of President of a man like Washington over men such as themselves. It is no coincidence that, in the history of the office, former generals outnumber PhDs 8 to 1.

The mistake Mr. Cassella makes is ignoring the history and thus the expectation that comes with this rather unique post. His view

seems tailored towards a critique of a campaign for a legislative role, in which case I would agree whole heartedly.

In fact, anyone tuning in to such a contest in the US will be treated to the Question-Time-esque ‘we’re all in it together’ drivel that we have come to expect in Britain, with just a little more gun-toting. Also, crucially, such leadership qualities evidenced by having served as a General, CEO etc. will be played up to a much lesser degree. It is far more likely in this arena to hear talk of PhDs, should the candidates possess them.

What Mr. Cassella fails to appreciate is that this entirely dif-ferent position requires an entirely different campaign strategy.

Rick Perry governed the state that created more than a third of the Nation’s jobs during the recession through regulatory cuts and simplified tax codes. Her-man Cain rescued a General Mills subsidiary from almost certain bankruptcy and turned a profit by his third year. Mitt Romney single handedly re-organised the Winter Olympics, turning an expected $400 million loss into a $100 mil-

lion profit. He also donated his salary for this post to charity.

Judgment and experience: its what they are all trying to sell.

It is important to realise that the ‘common man’ angle Mr Cassella seems so angry to have to listen to is not in and of itself a political selling point. It is implicitly both a direct alternative to an untested academic background and a reminder that these men (and women) have succeeded in the real world.

You may not know that Mitt Romney earned a joint Juris Doctor and MBA at Harvard, but that is probably because he didn’t tell you; it’s not that relevant.

For the role of executive office, there is real merit to being almost anything other than a career politi-cian, so long as you were good at it. The more of a career politician someone was, the less good at real stuff they were.

I quite like Mr Cassella’s analogy of a doctor who doesn’t know what he is doing, but I think it needs amending. Delu-sional democratic utopians aside, everybody knows that an elected politician’s job is to get re-elected. Fulfilling the duties of the office is

‘In contrast to the Republi-can field, our parliaments are filled largely with career politicians, holding quality degrees from Oxford, Cam-bridge and elsewhere’

also an important consideration, but when further employment is on the line, it is often the first thing to go. Apply this to the doc-tor analogy:

If you really want someone who will fulfill the duties of the office, would you rather be treated by a brilliant career doc-tor who suspiciously requires that you always come back for more costly treatment? (this is one of those doctors that you pay for, not the Obamacare types) or would you prefer a surgeon/nurse/sort-of-doctor, who none-theless has an excellent record of fulfilling the duties of the office, albeit in a slightly different field.

Granted, it is not at all a straightforward decision, and I am not suggesting otherwise, but a curious fact of American political life is that the average American is far more aware of these possibilities than the aver-age Brit.

If you hear a campaigning MP tell you how much of a common man he is, chuck a pie at his silk cravat.

If you hear it from a Presi-dential nominee, however, lower your pie; it might just be true.

Alice TAylor

Logging into love

In a world where online ‘poking’ and ‘winking’ act as substi-

tutes for actual conversation, it is no surprise that chatting online constitutes as a date in some cases. Being an arts student I cannot claim that my four hours of class a week are particularly taxing or time-consuming, yet I still find myself struggling to find the time to cook, do the washing up, buy loo rolls for the house etc. This is of course partly due to my typical student laziness and regularly having the day cut in half by waking up at twelve with a half-rubbed off lizard stamp on my face. In a world where even students struggle to perform fundamental yet simple tasks it is no wonder that busy professional male and females in the big bad world are unable to find the time to date properly. Cue online dat-ing websites.

There are bland ones, namely eHarmony and Match.com, ac-cepting everyone and anyone searching for ‘the one’. There are strange ones, such as Trek Passions, predominately for Star Trek and Star Wars lovers, and the specialised ones such as gorgeous-freeandsingle. This is for all those people who think Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’ song is genuinely about them, where your accep-tance is dependent on whether your face is attractive enough. Do these freaks of nature who have

received every attribute that we all would gnaw our right arm off for really need help in the dating department? By using a computer to find ‘the one’ are we accepting that our own little social bubble cannot provide us with a suitable match, or is it dating for the 21st century: another acceptable form of technology infiltrating and dominating our lives?

In order to answer this question I felt the need to take a leaf from Sex and the City’s Carrie Brad-shaw and embark on some practi-cal research. My first attempt was with the online dating standard eHarmony which, according to its website, is responsible for 5% of all marriages within the US. With such confident statistics I was keen to join this bandwagon.

The extensive questionnaire was more rigorous than I had anticipated; forcing me to con-front my flaws. How plain and ordinary would I rate myself? How overweight? Do I like to start arguments? Sadly but sensibly I’m reminded that honesty in this case is the best policy. I ploughed along this epic (as in lengthy, not brilliant) journey and once I felt like eHarmony knew me better than most of my family, I clicked confirm and my account was created. This was hungry work and I needed sustenance. It was slightly strange whilst perusing Tesco’s cold meat section to get

an ‘Ice-Breaker’ message from a complete stranger: ‘your profile made me smile’. I didn’t even have a photo up and my answers were basic and rushed due to my boredom and niggling chocolate cravings. Five minutes later I had a ‘Photo Nudge’, someone urging me to put a photo up. A quick and positive start, which was only made better when I saw one of my matches was a lifeguard... a big tick in the occupation box!

Uniformdating offered a star-tling comparison and is targeted at all those people who wear a uniform or like those who do. It took minutes to join and the overall feel of the website is more light-hearted, less of the feeling that you’re there due to past dat-ing failures. ‘Multi-Flirt’ enables you to click on a range of people that you would like to flirt with simultaneously, something that in reality would probably earn you a reputation pretty quickly. It targets young people seeking fun rather than the middle-aged looking for love.

For the serious individu-als there are sites which pride themselves on their dating success rates. Online socialising is dating for the 21st century; a fun way to interact with members of the opposite sex without any strings attached or demands on your time. Once boredom kicks in you can simply log off.

The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011 Viewpoint 11

The Fourth Estate J.H. rAmsAy

Old Trends

Can journalists contradict themselves, and still pro-

vide insight? Or should they al-ways choose a side, and remain consistent with that choice for the length of their careers? In my opinion, these questions form the core ethical controversy of the media today, whether in print or television.

Anyone who has ever had the fortunate opportunity to experi-ence Sean Hannity on America’s Fox News knows that opinion and bias will leak into news re-porting as surely as tea leaves color hot water.

Bias in news is unavoidable. Opinion is a human trait, and an abundant supply of news is a hu-man desire. By necessity, the two must always interbreed. But the trick is to balance bias in a way that does not ostracise the major-ity of one’s viewers or readers. Obtaining that balance is syn-onymous with supplying quality news.

Sean Hannity, Maureen Dowd, and Katie Couric are perfect ex-amples of this. These journalists offer specifically angled and eas-ily identifiable perspectives on current events, while remaining popular with a majority of their readers or viewers. While they never claim to be indifferent, or apolitical, they do speak to their audiences in a tone that can be confused for unbiased news.

Bill O’Reilley is not, and has never claimed to be, an objective reporter of news. He is a politi-cal commentator who infuses his show with a specific world view. However, his show does claim to relay “fair and balanced” news.

I consider these aforemen-tioned individuals to be failures in journalist ethics. They spin stories without fair considera-tion of the opposition. They are

limited by a single, unwavering, perspective.

In his revolutionary Transcen-dentalist poem “Song of Myself”, Walt Whitman asked, “Do I con-tradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself / (I am large, I contain multitudes)”.

Containing multitudes, or be-ing open to expressing multiple perspectives, is a lot to ask of a journalist. But I ask it of jour-nalists, nonetheless. I cannot ex-pect my news to be unfiltered by opinion. I can expect my news to be filtered fairly, however. And, in fact, I do. I’d much prefer my news to contain multitudes of different opinions, as opposed to a single narrow view.

An ideal journalist doesn’t take one side. He or she takes all sides, and expresses them with equal weight. I realize there are no examples of this to present you with. It’s an ideal that, like all ideals, is impossible. But I sin-cerely believe that this balance is still worth striving for.

Walt Whitman printed the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the poetry collection that con-tains “Song of Myself”, out of his own pocket, and anonymously. He believed he was as all but the new zeitgeist of America: he de-clared himself the messianic bard a fledgling country had been waiting for. Perhaps this level of self confidence sounds familiar to you.

I warn you to be wary of such confidence. Pay attention to what angle of a story you’re getting. And even more importantly, try to understand all of the angles you aren’t being given.

I’ll leave you with an invita-tion to a thought. Is contradiction always a negative force, or rather an attempt at covering every side of an issue?

The fashion industry loves a gimmick: Gaultier placed plus

size models in amongst the size zero norm; Marc Jacobs employs transgender models; McQueen has hired everyone from a pregnant skin head to an amputee for his shows. But one of the latest pas-sions has stirred up some of the most heated debate, and it all cent-ers around 10 year old Thylane Blondeau.

Thylane has become a fashion darling in the past few months. She has graced the pages of Vogue magazine as well as the cover of Vogue Enfants, something even experienced models would kill for. In August, images of Thylane stirred up incredible controversy, with her heavy make up and high heels deemed inappropriate for one so young.

But is it really so shocking? The natural instinct for a parent is of course to protect their child, and I would imagine few parents would consider their 10 year old ready for Vogue magazine, but flaunting the youth of a model isn’t out of the ordinary. Age has become almost a dirty word for the fashion indus-try, with only a few models finding regular work after hitting the big 3-0. With this in mind, agencies target girls of around 14, nurturing their ability before sending them off to earn their keep. The logical, if unfair, view is that there would be no point entering the industry at 18 if you knew it could be just a few years before you had to return

to the job centre. It is arguably true that 10 is far too young to be ex-posed to this industry, but Thylane is the exception, not the rule, and there are practical advantages for launching a modeling career in your mid-teens.

One of the common phrases thrown around when cases like this arise is “the sexualization of children.” Our society has become obsessed with the apparently ever looming threat of paedophilia, and as such we have become incredibly quick to condemn. In reality it’s unlikely that Vogue is the cho-sen material for those looking to exploit children, however this does bring up some real concerns.

In an industry with such pres-sure to be perfect, where the more successful a designer will be often rests on how shocking they are, it is more than likely that protecting the child is of little importance. There have been several high profile cases of drug addiction in the modeling world (just look at Kate Moss) and it is a dangerous, stressful industry by all accounts. However it isn’t fair to condemn all young models because of a potential danger. With new regula-tions regarding model welfare, from age limits to weight guide-lines, the fashion industry has become more concerned with the interests of the models themselves. While the potential is always there for a child to be mistreated, it is unfair to deny some talented indi-viduals their opportunity purely

because of what might or might not happen.

I truly believe a child should remain a child for as long as possible. I can’t imagine I would encourage my future children to enter the cut throat modeling world at Thylane’s age, and al-though I understand the practicali-ties of starting young it doesn’t necessarily mean this is right for everyone. There are some images of Blondeau which arguably do cross the line in to the realm of the inappropriate, but this is ultimate-ly at the discretion of the model, her parents and Vogue magazine.

My main problem is the ac-cusation that this is a reflection of a current trend. Many critics have suggested that it is a mod-ern development with MP Helen Goodman suggesting the images reflect “one of the most pernicious ills of our era”.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Actress and model Milla Jovovich began her career at age 9 and appeared in provocative images at the age of just 13; Even Brigitte Bardot appeared on the cover of ELLE aged just 15, back in 1950. Whether you agree with the use of such young models or not, and I think the issue depends entirely on the images in question, this is not a modern issue.

Using models who are 13 rather than 23 is not a reflection of a damned society, but rather a trend which has been consistent in the modeling industry for decades.

Jessica Brennan

Do you drink?Do you write?

Do you have too many opinions?

If you answered yes to all of the above, you’re practically already a

member of The Saint so come join us TONIGHT at 8pm at

the Westport.

Look for the blue Saint hoodies!

12 Viewpoint The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

As I begin to write this letter, I have just finished reading the polemic of Mr Chanan Reitblat, published in The Saint last week, that I might be able to most effec-tively craft a response to Reitblat’s text of misinformation, melodrama and outright lies.

Before considering the particu-lars of Reitblat’s letter however, I was first struck by the fact that an individual who had stated in court that he had been unable to eat, sleep or study after the incident on the 12th March, 2011, which he himself stated lasted no more than a couple of minutes, now seems perfectly happy to publicly discuss events, and presumably to ‘relive’ his ‘torment’. Mr Reitblat it seems is akin to one with an insatiable appetite, who, having devoured his pound of flesh, wishes to fur-ther feast. Secondly I was drawn immediately to the first outright lie of Mr Reitblat’s diatribe, that I had stated in his bedroom, after having entered to check on an intoxicated friend, that “Israel has no history”. This seems to be a new invention of Reitblat’s, as it was not men-tioned at Cupar Sheriff Court and is not to my knowledge raised in other media reports. Indeed, such a statement would be ludicrous, Israel of course, by virtue of it’s existence, has a history, albeit a history synonymous with dis-placement and oppression. This is a minor point, however, sets a tone for what I believe to be a pattern of rabid invention.

Mr Reitblat states that I called

him as an individual a ‘terrorist’, something which Sheriff Charles MacNair of Cupar Sheriff court held to be true. This was held however on the basis of uncor-roborated evidence. Of the four individuals in the room at the time of the incident, three gave evidence. Myself, Reitblat, and a friend of mine, Mr Reitblat’s roommate. Only Mr Reitblat stated that I called him a terrorist, his roommate, whilst admittedly intoxicated, declared that he had heard no such comments, whilst I maintain that all of my comments, and admittedly undignified physi-cal acts, were directed towards the state of Israel as opposed to towards Reitblat himself.

,My version of events does not differ drastically from those of Mr Reitblat. Having returned home drunk from a night out, I went to my friend’s room, which he shared with Reitblat, at the time an indi-vidual who I also thought to be a friend, in order to check on him as he was extremely drunk. Whilst in the room, a political discussion took place involving all four of us, regarding the conflict in Palestine, as attested to by my co-defendant in his police interview, by Reit-blat’s roommate at his testimony in court and by myself. Only Mr Reitblat denied that this had ever taken place. Having left Reitblat’s room I argued with a friend of mine regarding what had oc-curred, having been asked to move on, we went downstairs and fur-ther political discussion occurred

Last week this paper published a letter from Chanan Reiblat, the student against whom Paul Donnachie’s anti-Israel tirade was directed. Unfortunately, at the time of printing last week we could deliver no subsequent analysis, with the space occupied already by important topical comment on the outrageously irritating noise that babies make on planes and an article which enacted the (reductionist) reduction of politics to “bickering between different shades of welfarist liberal”. The Saint therefore appeared as some-what of a wet blanket, a forum for the voices of some students (not “all” because to present a true multiplicity of opinion would be impossible) with no voice of its own. But The Saint is a newspaper, not an online message board; we do have a politics, and understand that there is no such thing as objectivity in journalism. Part of that politics is the belief that there are various social and material perspectives to explore in any

incident, and confining discussion to moralising against individuals does not access these perspectives; does not even scratch the surface. Our political stance and ability to provide critical analysis was conspicuously absent in our news coverage of the Reiblat incident and his subsequent letter to the editor; thus, I respond belatedly to Reiblat:

The diacritcal thesis of Reiblat’s letter was that Donnachie was making derisive comments target-ing Reiblat’s own “ethnic, national and religious identity.” Firstly, the conflation of these terms is ridicu-lous (even as it appears in Scottish Law), like equating the criticism of someone’s political belief with that of a person’s gender. Israel as the Jewish State does not represent Judaism or the Jewish people, just as is the case with any other state. Judith Butler, who continues to be outspoken in mounting an effective and intellegent critique of Israel’s monopoly on Jewishness, responded in the London Review

of Books to “the presumption that it is the state of Israel that rep-resents the Jewish people.” She discusses how, problematically:

“the claim overcomes the distinction between Jews who are Zionist and Jews who are not, for example Jews in the diaspora for whom the homeland is not a place of inevitable return or a final des-tination. [...] Indeed, Israel’s prob-lem of how best to achieve and maintain a demographic majority over its non-Jewish population, now estimated to constitute more than 20 per cent of the popula-tion within its existing borders, is predicated on the fact that Israel is not a restrictively Jewish state and that, if it is to represent its popu-lation fairly or equally, it must represent both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. The assertion that Israel represents the Jewish people thus denies the vast number of Jews outside Israel who are not represented by it, either legally or politically, but also the Palestin-ian and other non-Jewish citizens

Responses to the Reitblat - Donnachie case

of that state.” Reitblat and his side start with, and cannot get away from, the assumption that a critique of Israel is ethnically mo-tivated, because Israel has come to be monolithically metonymic of Judaism and the Jewish people.

There is also a pronounced hypocrisy which undermines Reiblat’s arguement regard-ing Donnachie’s alleged ethnic “hatred” and discrimination; this position, in defense of Israel, attempts to obfuscate the State’s own assertion of ethnic homogeny – ethnic discrimination is a found-ing principle, and it is this idea which conditions the structural violence against non-jews living in Israel/Palestine.

Of course, none of this is in defence of Donnachie’s polemic, which, I maintain, did go too far once he proceeded to deface the flag in a purile manner. It was be-yond the realm of political protest, because it was beyond the public sphere, and effectively became an ad hominem attack in a private

within a communal area of John Burnet Hall, at no point was Mr Reitblat referred to, indeed, upon speaking to the assistant Warden of the Hall that night, I stated explic-itly that I had said nothing against Reitblat.

At this point it would seem prudent to discuss what I perceive to be the lack of any reason on the part of Mr Reitblat. I accept that my actions on the 12th March were in bad taste, although I maintain that an affront to a state, whether legitimate or otherwise, should not be considered as racist. However, Mr Reitblat was an individual who I considered to be a friend, within a social group whereby it was com-mon for friends to mistreat each other and each others property for the purposes of ‘banter’. In retro-spect I recognise such behaviour to be juvenile, and something which is firmly in my past. However, within John Burnet Hall last year alone I am aware of individuals being ‘tea- bagged’, people being sprayed with fire-extinguishers and large scale property damage, this was dealt with internally and through mediation. I come from an area with a very high rate of actual crime, for Mr Reitblat to claim, as he did in court, that he feared for his safety due to somebody who he had known since his arrival in Scotland drunkenly placing their hands down their jeans and stating that Israel is a terrorist state is ludicrous and disrespect-ful to those who have actually suffered due to criminals, and

who, in deprived areas, are often ignored by the Police. Reitblat’s evidence in court was truly Oscar worthy, and “impressed” Sheriff MacNair; his claims to have been unable to eat, sleep or study for a semester as a result of a short-lived incident which I apologised for the day after, as soon as I discovered Reitblat was offended and for which I was already subject to internal disciplinary ac-tions when he contacted the state, truly expose an individual with a love for hyperbole and overreac-tion. This incident should have been dealt with through internal University procedures, instead, disproportion has prevailed. If I was willing to lower myself to Reitblat’s levels of melodrama I could discuss my own feelings of despair as I have had my place at St Andrews taken from me due to an incident of drunken stupid-ity, I could discuss inadvertently resenting my friends as I see care-free Facebook updates of people enjoying University life whilst I work full time with my prospects of attaining a place at another University far from secure. I could also discuss the torment this case has caused to my family, my Mother was signed off work for 4 weeks with stress, my fam-ily has been literally torn apart by Reitblat’s malice and irrationality. I maintain that this affair should have been dealt with through mediation and the buying of a pint. Perhaps Mr Reitblat is just a particularly sensitive soul.

As for the future, I will not for a second allow a ridiculous and disproportionate convic-tion and expulsion to defeat me. Unlike Mr Reitblat, who has never stepped foot in the State of Israel and has no plans to do so in the future, I will be travelling to the region soon, whereby I will witness first hand the degradation inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli state, and will liaise with both Israeli and Palestin-ian activists who stand for Hu-man Rights. Mr Reitblat states that he does not believe that the State of Israel and Judaism can be divorced, for the sake of brevity I will say no more on the issue that the follow-ing; the State of Israel has been condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations, to name but a few bodies, Judaism has not. Mr Reitblat has been very keen to offer advice to myself and to those who sup-port the right to criticise a State without being branded racist, I would leave him and any-body who may be reading this with the following from Albert Einstein:

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”

environment, impotent of political clout. Privately held beliefs (about membership to, and support of, the state of Israel, for example) are influenced by, but surely not constitutive of the dominant ideol-ogy. Paul certainly had the right to make a critique of ideology, but he staged it in the wrong forum.

Due to the ubiquity of this issue, it is necessary that The Saint dem-onstrates a critical response; regret-fully, this current one is brief and overdue, but hopefully reasserts that our politics is not reactionary and we are not enthralled to moral-izing narratives which flatten the issues they describe.

Al Bell

Paul Donnachie replies to Chanan Reitblat

FeaturesEditor: Melissa Steel features@thesaint-online.com

Peter Aitken on the competition between the Union and the Vic

Continued on page14

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With a flagging reputation among the student body,

the Union has been working to re-establish itself as the place for students to flock to in the evening but, this year, the Vic has increased its stake in the Fresher festivities. Since the two venues are located al-most opposite each other, a rivalry might have been inevitable and ultimately, aside from the Lizard, there does not seem to be much other choice for cheap drinks, live entertainment and a thriving party scene in St Andrews.

At first glance, there does not seem to be much distinguishing the two venues but each offers their own discounts, drink and deals as well as events and acts that will, in their view, keep students coming back night after night, week after week.

The Union has a unique posi-

tion: part charity, part commercial venue. The Union recognizes that it also has a duty to the students as the initial hub of activity. Each year they run Freshers’ Week events, including long-standing staples like the Friday Bop, the Sunday ceilidh and the Foam Party, which entered the Union’s repertoire in recent years.

This year’s edition boasted a series of acts and performances that included big names like Radio 1 DJ Rob Da Bank, Canadian come-dian Craig Campbell and indie-folk singer José González, who was a big draw on the Saturday. Rounding off the week was the Sinners Sports Party and a new annual tradition; hypnotist Chris James. Director of Events and Services, Rollo Strickland, made a gamble, spend-ing more to bring in bigger names but, with every event selling out,

the Union raked in £50,000, more than they made for the past few years.

Opinions on the events seem to range, with most students finding the events fun and a great way to be introduced to the university scene, although some of the press seemed to get ahead of itself. Rob Da Bank in particular seems to be drawing criticism for being well advertised but then not living up to the promise. The Sinners party also seemed exclusionary to anyone not on a sports team which, being Freshers’ Week, was the Freshers. Overall, the reaction was positive. Strickland believes that, by making such a strong impression on the Freshers, the Union can count on a strong returning presence through-out the year.

While the Union made a strong showing, the Vic has been working

to transform themselves from ‘just another pub’ and into the new final destination. Making good use of its two rooms, the Cabin and the Café, they have put on Fresh-Fest; a mix-ture of acts and interactive events that differentiates them from their competition.

Fresh-Fest has been running for five years and each year the Vic has been able to make the stronger earnings. Calling on classics like a ‘Sloane Ranger’ party and a Rubik’s Cube party, they also brought in a Bacardi master-class mixer, turned their Café into a graffiti demo-zone and had a ‘Detox Day’ that in-cluded yoga classes and smoothie blending. According to supervisor Robert Webb, the Vic brought in more money than it did last year, having a turnover of nearly one thousand students most nights of the week. The profits are more than

they brought in last year, which is no mean feat for this popular venue.

Freshers have already found that, more often than not, they find themselves at the Vic over the course of a night out. While the Fresh-Fest events were not always a hit amongst the students, they enjoyed the atmosphere enough to want to spend the night there any-way. With a little more thought, the Vic could put on events that play to their strengths more and win over a larger portion of the students, giving them the final push to being proper rivals to the Union.

For both venues, Freshers’ Week and Fresh-Fest provide a great bump in sales but, after that, how do they keep students coming back? The Union, based on the success of Freshers’ Week, will continue to

14 Features The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

A blonde’s eye view

I am no doctor but, if this whole ‘getting a real job’ thing does not

work out, I might pretend to be one in a vulnerable South American country. Anyway, despite my lack of medical experience, I would venture a guess that St Andrews exhibits a phenomenon called ‘sanity by default’. Has the return to academic reading proven too much? Run away to the pub at 2pm? Ease your anxiety with the knowledge that, somewhere on The Scores, a gruesome, real-life version of Sebastian Flyte started on the Moet at 10am. The old ad-age, ‘somewhere in the world it is 5pm’ does not apply. Instead, we have ‘somewhere in St Andrews, there is someone worse than me. Now where was I?’

In a less extreme form, the condition manifests itself in find-ing comfort in the foibles you share with others. My own per-sonal experience of this has been a revelation related to The Gilmore Girls. Some people get dunked in a river to achieve salvation, others even see God on a piece of toast. This television is my equivalent of a religious experience. It follows the exploits of a single mother, Lorelai Gilmore, and her only child, Rory. They have an extremely close friendship based on neuroticism, old films and binge eating. I always found it reassuring that their relationship reflected my own one with my Mother. To my delight, I found many girls in a similar position in St Andrews. I say many; I mean two. What can I say, I am easily pleased.

One of the prerequisites to entering ‘Gilmore Girlhood’ (the elite club that involves the three of us shouting, “IT’S ALL JUST SO TRUE” at the screen and eating popcorn so awful it will one day give us cancer) is a role reversal. In the television series, it is Rory who often has to coax her mother to Friday Night Dinners at her grandparents’ house, usually with promises of martinis and a swift, painless death should it all become too much. Likewise, I had my own (albeit solo) Friday Night Dinners at my grandmother’s house. I remember the time my mother sheepishly asked me to convey the message that she had been offered a holiday-of-a-lifetime opportunity. The reason for her trepidation was that it took place over my eighteenth birthday. I am told that, in the real world, it would be me trying to sneak off on holiday. Nevertheless, I was happy to let her go but a protective grandmother may have something else to say on the matter. I tried to break it to her gently but I still felt guilty; like George in Of Mice and Men, stand-ing over Lennie as he delivers the coup de grace to someone who is only really guilty of perhaps lov-

Melissa Steel

The two venues almost face each other

Top right: The Raisin as it once was. Above: The Blue Stane today

Continued from page13

‘Daisy Drunkard’ reviews The Raisin’s recent transformation

bring in big names but will present a variety of acts that will appeal to different groups of students. Jeffrey Lewis, a big name in America who is known for anti-rock music and comedic comic books, is only the first of the big names that the Union is bringing in, having se-cured Mr. Scruff for the Saturday of Raisin Weekend and DJ Erol Alkan recently being signed to perform in December. With all these acts, it is easy to forget the Union’s drink scheme which offers some of the cheapest drinks; Tennents goes for £2 a pint, the cheapest pint in town, despite steady inflation, (three years ago, a pint went for £1.50) Boddingtons for £2.70, as well as bottles of Stella and Becks for only £2.20. Mixers now cost £1.80. If the plan is to go out for a simple pint then the Union is your best bet.

On the other hand, the Vic’s strength is in getting their crowds the ‘hard stuff’ for cheap. While a pint of Tennents goes for £2.70, with the next cheapest pint being Magners for £3.60, Jagerbombs sell for £1.50 Tuesdays-Thursdays, Messy Bombs for only £1 and

Vodka Mixers and Gin for only £1.25 Tuesdays-Thursdays. They snagged Mini-Mood, a DJ who became popular performing at 1 Golf Place, as well as Full Moon Parties, an event where the café gets stripped down and given a rave treatment. For a night of in-dulgence and revelry, the Vic seems like the right place to be.

At the moment, the Vic has the misfortune of only holding a pub li-cense. This only allows them to stay open until 1am on the weekends, leaving the Union as the ultimate destination more often than not but they plan to change that. With the Cabin, the Vic can apply for a club license which would allow them to stay open at least as late as the Union, giving them the ability to compete on an even playing field and possibly as the new place to end up at the end of the night.

Alexis Bledel as Rory Gilmore

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ing fluffy bunnies too much. It turned out my dread was totally uncalled for as my grandmother interrupted me with a diatribe about how my mother was right. In a rare moment of anti-consumerist zeal, she damned eighteenth birthday celebrations as the evil product of the loins of greeting cards companies and chocolate manufacturers. I was relieved but it would have been nice for her to show some con-cern. I mean, it is hard to fulfil your martyr complex if no one is there to tend to you on your metaphorical cross.

The television show also man-ages to spark as much hate for some characters as it does love of others. One friend of mine is famed for her ‘Dean rants’. Dean is Rory’s first boyfriend; an All-American explosion of clear skin and floppy hair. Rory eventually chooses him over his bad boy, Springsteen-knock-off, love rival Jess. What is so wrong with that? Everything, according to my dear friend. Usually, she cites his lack of personality and general unsuitability for Rory, as well as the fact he cheated on his then wife. In one particularly virulent monologue, she described the wrongs committed by Dean against Rory so passionately to a friend that he presumed they were real people the girl knew. He was very concerned about all the adultery and love triangles up until she had to clarify that none of the participants were real people.

All this is a testament to how entangled we can become in simple escapism, how intrinsic it is to developing and signifying our morality. If you are not con-vinced, just think of the ‘sanity by default’ idea; at least you are not as bad as that mad Features editor in The Saint.

Changing pubs

It is unfortunate that the Freshers of 2011 will never be

able to experience The Blue Stane as it once was- a loud drunken hodgepodge of students and locals- all vying for control of the jukebox and elbowing each other out of the way to get to some of the cheapest drinks and best banter in town. The Raisin, as the little pub at the end of Market Street was once called, was truly a unique experience.

The Blue Stane is, in compari-son, civilized. For those who need help remembering (since those nights out were best forgotten), “[the new management] com-pletely redecorated,” said Chris, a third year who fondly remembers the former Scream Pub. “Though [The Blue Stane] has more seating now and can handle more people

[than the Raisin],”he said. Rumour has it that the old

management wanted the Blue Stane to be more attractive to the local population. If so, they seem to have succeeded, one former regular commenting, “I like the Blue Stane now but I wish it was cheaper and more student-based.”

In order to alter the atmosphere of the pub, as well as perhaps change the clientele, new furniture was added and the pool tables were removed. These small aspects alone have proved student deter-rents. Alex, a third year, said that though she used to go to the Raisin multiple times a week, she has only visited the Blue Stane a total of three times (once for a meet-ing). “I don’t really go any more because the whole atmosphere has changed. It used to be a place you went [to pregame], and you would see a ton of people from halls. Now, though, it doesn’t feel like a student place,” Alex lamented.

Christina, another third year who used to frequent the Raisin, agrees with Alex; “I go to the Union more frequently now than

I used to, because I see people I know there… At the Blue Stane, I felt singled out [as a student].”

It seems that there are many things that a pub can do in order to make itself more attractive to students. One of the most impor-tant things seemed to be cheap drinks. “The prices have gone up a lot, so I prefer to head to the bars that have deals on drinks,” James, a second year, said.

All does not appear to be lost, however. On a recent Saturday both students and locals were seen comingling at the Blue Stane, watching football and drink-ing. Perhaps the real issue is St Andrews’ students love for tradi-tion, which makes us all a little sensitive to the town’s changes.

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Features 15The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Finding accommodation in St Andrews can sometimes seem

like a quest of mythical propor-tions. In our desperation, we students will often settle for any mould-ridden travesty, so long as it is within walking distance of town. Compound that with students’ inexperience renting properties and you have a landlord’s dream.

Freshers, cosy in their University accommodation, listen to horror stories of letting agencies posting mysterious ‘lists’ and students com-muting from Dundee. Ephemeral Freshers Week friendships quickly become permanent as first-years anxiously look for flatmates, convinced that by November they would need to start the awful accommodation search. Things become awkward when friendship groups splinter off into flatmates, leaving some feeling abandoned

Rooming with randomsAlyce Shu details the benefits of not living with your friends.

and more than a little lost. The truth is not living with

your friends can be a blessing and should be the least stressful part of the housing search. No matter how much you love your friends, being with them constantly will inevitably cause some annoyances as you realize you cannot stand the way he or she chugs milk from the container, drips water everywhere or blasts Celine Dion after returning from a night out. ‘Rooming with a random’ preserves friendships and creates new ones.

“You can actually make new friends in that situation. You learn a lot about how people behave,” said David Cihelna, a second-year Management student who, after scrambling for a flat in May, found “a great flat in a prime location.”

“I love my living situation!” said Cihelna enthusiastically. “The

people I met I confronted with a fun approach and it paid off.”

Second-year medic, Liz Wootton, found herself in an even more dire situation that turned out to be ideal. The Fife Council’s new HMO policy left her homeless in the middle of the summer and she spent from July up to the week before Freshers fran-tically driving up to St Andrews for numerous unsuccessful flat view-ings. Luckily, she secured a flat but needed a flatmate. She posted an ad online and received 27 replies.

“You think the whole situation is going to be awkward but it’s really not at all,” said Wootton. Beyond the perks of learning about her roommate’s Lithuanian culture and meeting a whole new circle of friends, she has found living with a flatmate who was initially a stranger very comfortable and convenient.

“There’s no need for conversa-

tion if you are really tired, nor do you have to worry about telling them or their friends to be quiet if you want to study or sleep,” mentioned Wootton.

Like Cihelna and Wootton, this year I am ‘rooming with a random’ but she has since become my friend. Normally, I am the type who rummages through your fridge when I meet you for the first time but, with my flatmate, I have been conscientious. Nobody is more tolerant, polite and clean than a flatmate you do not really know.

“Since we just met we can also base our friendship on the axioms of our living situation so we are used to cleaning, cooking, not leaving trash around etcetera because that’s the only way we know each other until now,” echoed Cihelna. “It’s great.”

While my flatmate and I are still conscious of being tolerant, polite

and clean, we have grown more and more comfortable with each other. We’ve bonded far beyond the initial push of financial necessity.

Would I have met my roommate under ordinary circumstances? Maybe, but our social circles are completely different and, despite St Andrews’ ostensible small-ness, most of us know a relatively small proportion of its approxi-mately 7,500-strong student body.

So when the housing craze arises in January, why not take comfort in knowing that even in this limited housing bubble, you have still got possible options. And Freshers, before you clamp onto your new ‘BFFs’ for the long, living together haul, why not imagine the possi-bilities of making some new ones?

It might make life interesting. As Cihelna said, “Well, it was quite fun to find a 28” shisha in your living room when you first move in…”

16 Features The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Going up

Going down

The library-walking into the new section of the library feels like spraying on deodorant; fresh and clean.

Internships-autumn leaves have still not fallen, but the Careers Centre promptly re-minds us that the scramble to find internships for next sum-mer has already begun.

Summer reading-say goodbye to the Danielle Steel and hello to the daunting classmarks.

The decision has been made to close all remaining pay-to-use

facilities at Craigtoun Country Park, a recreational facility lying roughly 2 miles South West of St. Andrews. After much discussion over low income throughout the year, demanding costs and a decrease in visitor numbers, all of the expensive facilities such as boating and the railway train that were in place over summer have been scrapped.

Problems were first noticed in February this year; when the park switched to free entry. Despite this, alongside a cafe being open from the 25th of June to the 28th of August and also MRW railways LTD, from Yorkshire, opening a miniature railway train costing £1.50 per train journey, Fife Council have stated that there was no distinc-tive change in visiting numbers. Consequently, moving towards colder weather during the autumn and winter months, all pay-to-use facilities such as crazy

golf, putting, trampolines, bouncy castle and rowing around the Dutch village are all gone now.

To many local residents, the gradual reduction of amenities within the park has been viewed with some sadness. Many stated that they would often take their children or grandchildren there on days out. Furthermore, it is also unfortunate considering Craigtoun is a historic part of Fife. Originally part of the Mount Melville house built in 1902 by the Younger brew-ing family, it was only in 1947 that Craigtoun was bought by Fife County Council and classified as a Country Park in 1976.

Nonetheless, it is not a great surprise that most students draw a blank when they hear the name ‘Craigtoun Country Park’. Surely that is an eight thousand strong market they are potentially miss-ing out on; especially considering St. Andrews’ limited green space. Obviously there is the beach which provides an excellent outdoor space, however, apart from that,

St. Andrews Botanic Garden and Kinburn Park, there is definitely nothing to rival Craigtouns’ forty-seven acres. Furthermore, one local resident told me that the University, many years ago, actually held balls

and events in the park. No doubt this boosted income and visiting numbers.

It seems more likely that the main reason has been, like else-where in the country, monetary restraints placed on Fife Council. The cuts have definitely been felt nationwide. Unfortunately, parks and cultural spaces such as Craigtoun have suffered as a result. Interestingly, St. Andrews’ Tourist Board noticed a decline in visiting numbers this year but did not see such substantial funding cuts in other local tourist attractions.

For anyone interested in visiting Craigtoun Country Park, do not be put off by the lack of boating, railway and cafe facilities. There is still a Dutch village, floral gardens, summer displays, glasshouses, picnic areas, a summerhouse, play-ground equipment and pond to be enjoyed on one of St Andrews’ surprisingly warm autumn days. To get there, leave St. Andrews on the B939 and follow the signs for around 5 minutes.

Where do you STAND?Zoe Mackie on the fight against genocide—and student apathy

Cocktails-with the return of University students, pubs in town are putting their thinking hats back on and getting creative, whip-ping up a rainbow of new drinks--including our very own ‘Saint Blue’ cocktail!

Flip flops-it is October, we are in Scotland…the only place those flip flops belong in is the shower room of the Sports Centre!

As students, we earn the reputation for being the

most politically motivated group within society. However, when it comes down to it, how aware are we of one of the most monu-mental injustices taking place in the world? Today, there are eight on-going areas of genocidal conflict and massacre throughout the globe; yet the action taken by international governments leaves many students disillusioned. How deep does this apathy run in St Andrews?

The student body may vocally support human rights, yet they are more inclined to study the cause and effect of genocide than campaign for its prevention. The horrifying statistics are too impersonal and easy to overlook, but the deaths of over 200,000 people since 2003 in Sudan should not be viewed purely as a case study but as an incentive to get involved and prevent further tragedy. Bennett Collins, leader of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND) St Andrews, says that “to fully combat genocide the situation needs to be dealt with before it can arise”, which is only possible through a combi-nation of awareness and action on the part of the international community. In this light, it is disheartening that British and American governments can be seen to prioritise domestic interests over foreign affairs; when questioned, Barack Obama stated that one of his prime

concerns was the lack of action against the crisis in Sudan.

However, to this date, he has only appointed J. Scott Gration as a special envoy for Sudan and no further direct action has been undertaken. STAND wants to remedy this; encouraging mem-bers to use their political power to make international leaders liable for their perceived passiveness towards crimes of humanity.

The organisation works specifi-cally to prevent and counter the ef-fects of genocide. Since its creation in 2004, it has expanded across the international community to create a united front against genocide in all areas of the world. In 2009, Bennett Collins founded the first chapter of STAND in the UK. Bennett’s intention is “to motivate the students of St Andrews to take action against genocide”.

The society has three main functions: raising awareness, fundraising and activism; all with the intention of creating a political will against genocide to persuade leaders to take action and to hold governments accountable for their inaction. Through the use of speak-ers, documentaries and campaign-ing the St Andrews branch of STAND seeks to burst the ‘bubble’ and challenge the apathy many students demonstrate to current affairs.

‘Will you help us STAND?’- The latest campaign to emerge from the society promotes the creation of a united civilisation against genocide and encourages members to inform their peers of

the situation by actively inspiring them to participate.

It is up to the international community to protect civilians from genocidal violence but this is unachievable if the population remains apathetic to the various conflicts destroying swathes of communities.

STAND demonstrated at the Freshers’ Fayre how campaigning can appeal to the modern gen-eration through the use of a ‘flash mob’. This method exemplified how the involvement of one per-son alone can make a difference, as they join together with other like-minded individuals, helping

to spread awareness of genocide and promote action within the international community.

From this, it is obvious that many students in St Andrews are concerned about their fellow man.

However, can the student body join together worldwide to create a society that actively works to prevent genocidal conflicts or do we remain half- hearted in our attempts preferring to use the impersonal statistics as a labora-tory-style case study?

Will your conscience allow you to remain indifferent to genocide or are you prepared to take your own STAND?

Disappearing heritageKelly-Marie Satchell investigates the future of Craigtoun Country Park

Student cuisine-the recipes for food we cook at home never include Tesco Value baked beans as the key ingre-dient...

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Craigtoun in its picture postcard days

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Features 17The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

A dumpster dinnerFrancesca Vaghi explains the unusual ‘Freegan’ diet

Can actions that are seemingly innocuous, such as our eating

habits, be transformed to create a political message? Freegans cer-tainly believe so.

The Freegan movement began in New York City in the 1990s. The ingenious mutation of ‘free’ and ‘vegan’ into one word suggests the straightforward approach to the diet adopted by followers of this ideology; people who consume free food, preferably not derived from animal products. If you are think-ing the ‘free’ component of the idea is tricky, think again. Freegans, in fact, have transformed dumpster-diving into an ecologically friendly activity, laden with political significance. Freegan philosophy revolves around the premise that wastefulness dominates Western capitalist culture. It is said that more than half of the food produced in the US does not get consumed, as confirmed by a study done at the University of Arizona in 2004, and

Freegans highlight the relevance of this problem by living off the half that doesn’t get consumed.

Adam Weissman, a key spokes-man of the Freegan movement, has been subsisting off discarded

products retrieved from New York grocery store dumpsters for years. He is an icon of the movement be-cause he is living proof that anyone can be a freegan; these individuals have careers, homes and families.

Regardless of the fact that the fundamentals of freeganism imply that people shouldn’t be part of the capitalist system (and should thus be jobless) and that currencies should be eliminated, most prac-titioners of this trend follow Mr. Weissman’s footsteps.

Freegans in the US advocate low-income or no-income lifestyles which, in their view, provide the way to confront the detrimental ef-fects of capitalism, like poverty and environmental destruction. Yet, is this a realistic concept?

Less extreme, but still highly political, is the message sent by groups such as Food Not Bombs. Founded in 1980, this group was formed during protests against the Seabrook nuclear power plant, near Boston, that same year. The aim of this movement’s leaders is to make meals out of food produce that cannot be sold on the market, and would otherwise be dumped; these are then shared with street

dwellers, including anyone from homeless people to businessmen or university students. By doing this, they are promoting solutions to issues such as hunger and poverty through which the general public can be empowered. Regardless of the shifts in political atmosphere that has happened since the groups’ founding, it is still active at present, and is still advocating for a peace-ful and improved future for people around the world.

The scale of such initiatives is difficult to measure, particularly due to their controversial motives. That the world could do with a little more consideration from our part is no last-minute headline. Whether or not more people are prepared to bury their heads inside a dumpster to improve the world’s condition is an entirely different issue. It seems, however, that it is easier to follow some extremes, whether wasteful or frugal, because society seldom promotes moderation.

Burlesque confessionsRachael Smith talks nudity and naughtiness with Chelsea Dagger

Chelsea Chelsea I believe that when your dancing slowly sucking your sleeve that all boys get lonely after you leave…

The Indie rock band The Fratellis have made her into a world-

wide icon; an urban myth, even. Yet, she was born and bred in Glasgow where she still works at the Burlesque venue, Club Noir. ‘Chelsea Dagger’ talks about her career and how she first discovered Burlesque dancing, hits back against critics of the art and discusses her life in the aftermath of the song that made her famous.

So, how did you get into bur-lesque dancing and do you have a background in performing and dancing?

I first started performing at Club Noir six years ago, aged 26, after being introduced to Tina Warren and Ian Single through a friend. I have always loved old Hollywood films with glamorous leading ladies, fabulous costumes & over-the-top musical numbers, so, when Tina and Ian asked if I would be interested in performing at their Burlesque club, I jumped at the chance to be involved. I started dancing from the age of four and began drama classes soon after. Although I was very shy, I loved being on stage and dressing up - we had a ‘dressing-up’ case in our house full of old clothes which I loved!

Would you encourage young girls to think about Burlesque dancing as a future career option and, if so, why?

I’m not sure I would encourage girls to take up Burlesque danc-

ing just for the sake of it. I really love what I do and I think that’s important in any job you do. Also, not everyone is going to like what you’re doing so you have to be prepared to face some criticism.

What do you say to critics that compare Burlesque dancing to the level of sleazy strip clubs? And what would you say is the differ-ence between burlesque dancing and stripping?

I think the main difference between strip clubs and Burlesque clubs is the audience. Generally, strip club audiences are heav-ily dominated by men, whereas at Burlesque clubs there are more women. With Burlesque, the em-phasis is not necessarily on nudity. The costumes and the way in which the acts are executed - the art of the tease - are what’s important. So much time, effort and research go into creating and devising the acts and costumes. For me, personally, burlesque is not just about getting naked (in some acts I don’t even take any clothes off) but it’s about

feeling glamourous, feeling em-powered and most of all having fun!

I have never once been ap-proached by or received a compli-ment from a man after a perform-ance, only from women and that means a great deal more to me. We live in a world which is very much obsessed with body image, where women are self-conscious and quick to criticise one another, so I think it’s extremely refreshing to work in an environment where women support and encourage each other. I love the fact that there are women of all shapes and sizes performing

in Burlesque clubs - skinny, curvy, young, old - anything goes!

You have become famous in your own right as the inspiration for The Fratelli’s song ‘Chelsea Dagger’ which has been heard throughout the world. How has this changed your life? Have you become a celebrity now? are you still working at the same bur-lesque club in Glasgow or do you have bigger ambitions for your talent?

I definitely don’t consider myself famous! But I do think I’m extremely lucky to be doing some-

thing I love.Performing at Club Noir has giv-

en me some amazing opportunities to work with amazing like-minded artists and I have definitely become a lot more confident in myself and as a performer. I love working at Club Noir because there is so much artistic freedom in creating acts and making costumes so I can really challenge myself. At the moment, I can’t imagine doing anything else! Performing really is my passion whether it’s dancing, acting or burlesque and I hope to continue entertaining audiences for as long as they still enjoy it!

Chelsea Dagger will be perform-ing with Club Noir in Dundee on Saturday 22nd October at Fat Sam’s Live, 9pm-2.30am. Tickets are £15.50 and available from http://www.ticketweb.co.uk, or call08444 77 2000

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Chelsea’s performances (right) are reworkings of dances by Fifties star (and authoress!) Gypsy Rose Lee (book far left) and Queen of Burlesque, Bettie Page (mid-dle left)

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18 Week in Pictures The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Kate Kennedy Opening BallPhotos: Celeste Sloman and Sam McCulloch

Photography Chiefs: Celeste Sloman and Jake Threadgould

In Pictures 19The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Reader’s Photos:Stripes

Team Photos: “ Time”... Suggested by Rachel Obordo

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Next week’s theme for Readers Photos is “Autumn.” Please submit your entries along with theme suggestions to pictures@thesaint-online.com by Friday 21 October

You set the theme, we take the photos!

We set the theme, you take the photos!

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Photo: Celeste Sloman Photo: Nefeli Iliou

Photo: Larissa Gumuchdjian Photo: Maria Faciolince

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20 Students’ Association The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

A couple of weeks ago I was asked what, as Dorep, I

planned to oppose. The ques-tion surprised me. My take on this job has always been: if I’m in a position of having to oppose something then I should raise my game in future. Perhaps it’s not the way to grab headlines but I’d much rather be helping to explain decisions of which I have been a part, and therefore genuinely benefit students, than writing condemnations. Unfortunately that’s not always possible and sometimes it is necessary to come out and say something’s plain wrong (tui-tion fees!). There’s also a danger of becoming so desperate to be on that inside track that you lose sight of why you want to be there in the first place. NUS Scotland President Robyn Parker has, for me, been far too ready to parrot the SNP’s line and I believe students across Scotland will suffer as a result.

One of the greatest tragedies of the English and Scottish

governments’ respective deci-sions to raise tuition fees is that it has set students and university management against each other. It has fostered a view of student representation as oppositional. Many people on both sides seems to think that decisions must be made either in students’ interests or the interests of the institution. For one to “win” the other must “lose”. For me, this means everyone loses. Greater student representation is never won at the expense of the institution. Involving students in decisions from the start can only benefit universities. Student interests such as widening access (which makes universities more di-verse and has been statistically proven to improve quality), employability and provision for extra curricular activity benefit the university as a whole.

Obviously representation must always be a two way

street and both sides must be prepared to engage (everyone has a chance to do so this week by nominating themselves to

be a class rep!). It is a tragedy when students feel they must take extreme action to make an institution listen (it’s also an extremely foolish tactic). But it is equally a tragedy when man-agement takes the attitude that student representatives are in some way adversaries and their ideas come from a particular interest, rather than a genuine concern for the health of the en-tire university community. This is a situation that we must all strive to avoid. Both sides must engage. Both sides must be pre-pared, not to compromise, but to see the bigger picture.

An excellent example of St Andrews’ success in this is

our ethical investment policy. Students pushed for this for years. It was a campaign based on engagement, making a good case and improving awareness, not on theatrical gestures, and it was better for it. But ethical investment has no direct ben-efit to students or any form of “loss” to management. It does, however, benefit St Andrews as a whole. The campaign was successful and St Andrews now does not invest our endowment in companies with question-able morals. This puts us at the forefront of the sector in ethical standing. It also impacts on our community atmosphere. This is good for our reputation but also for our view of ourselves. It allows us to genuinely claim that St Andrews is a place that supports open debate, progres-sive ideas and a community open to all.

But an approach based on engagement and dialogue

is only worthwhile as long as it remains productive. Both students and management have good reason to celebrate achievements like ethical in-vestment but this is a chang-ing world: it’s not enough to celebrate past achievements. We must continually engage, include and innovate and we must do it, not as students, staff and management, but as one university and one community.

THE SABBSThe Saint has asked the people who YOU elected as sabbatical officers to write fortnightly pieces keeping you up to date with what they are up to, what the Students’ Association is doing and the nationwide issues currently affecting St Andrews students. Over the summer the sabbs also blogged for our website. You can read more at www.thesaint-online.com

Disclaimer: the views expressed on this page are those of the sabbatical officers and as such are independent from the views of The Saint.

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the importance of ethical inveStment

The Students’ Association would like to emphasise that our recent email concerning fees was to clarify our position not question

the integrity of The Saint or Niall Scott.

Arts& Culture

arts@thesaint-online.comBallerina 2.0 by Celeste Sloman

The Saint • Thursday 13 October 201122 Arts & Culture

Style

Opening the latest issue of your favourite fashion glossy, only to be greeted by an on-slaught of advert-after-advert-after-advert is always a shock. Having admired the issue’s latest dreamy cover girl (whose complexion and piercing eyes leave you in somewhat of an effervescent state) and planned which of the enchantingly titled ‘MUST READ’ articles to delve into first, my mood plunges when I have to flick through at least ten pages of the latest ad campaigns before I even see a contents page.

Editorial is now a critically weak cordial in a very over diluted glass of advertising squash where opinion and comment is some-times hard to taste. I do not buy my maga-zines to see what I can’t have, I buy them to engage with intelligent and beautifully crafted writing and to see photoshoots where the clothes look good enough to taste. I’m left with a similarly bad taste in my mouth on Saturday nights when Garry Barlow and Dermot O’Leary’s faces disappear every twelve minutes for an ad break.

But back to the print side of things - admittedly, magazine editorial and pho-tography are not playgrounds for dress-up and wish-lusting, but in fact a boxing ring of big names and bigger prices. It is estimated that the September issue of American Vogue generated over 90 million dollars in advertis-ing revenue this year. It is therefore no coin-cidence that Mui Mui’s latest It bag, splashed across the three page fold-out advert (that reportedly costs from $150,000 to place), also

happens to be the magazine’s must have item of this month.

Editors, like the designers, have busi-nesses to run and would be stupid not to glamorize the products that are keeping the publication financially afloat. But advertis-ing is a game and a very expensive one that threatens creativity and editorial freedom. The individual voices of critical fashion jour-nalists are faint amongst the booming shouts of the ‘MUST BUYS OF THIS SEASON’ that dominate every other page. What’s more, if you are going to buy a magazine of this kind, it is likely that you will have your own tastes and are not looking to be told what to like or who to wear. Yet trend focused publications are portrayed as style bibles whose teachings (‘BUY THIS’, ‘WEAR THESE’ and ‘YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE TO FEEL LIKE A REAL WOMAN’) should be followed with financial accuracy and finesse. But let’s be honest, neither my financial situation nor my awareness towards the manipulation tactics at play would allow me to participate.

Aware of this, I look to the opinion col-umns, usually buried somewhere close to the end of the 400 pages that offer commentaries with gentle and unpatronizing nudges in the right direction.

Whilst I take issue with the domination of advertising campaigns (by my reckoning, 250 of Vogue’s 445 pages were adverts in the October issue), I understand their financial weight and also therefore, their fixed posi-tion in any magazine of this kind. Whilst they

detract from viewing pleasure and make the publication twice as heavy, we must learn to love not loath these adverts, which in reality keep the magazines in print.

That very creativity and sparkle I talked of craving in editorial is visible in Mulberry’s latest ad offering for Autumn/ Winter 2011/ 2012.

The double page spread pulls you into an autumnal scuffle of life sized birds and per-

plexed looking models who together nestle in what seems to be a giant bird’s nest with floral wallpaper. The layering of textures that combine twigs, velvety birds’ feathers and the shimmering metallics of the models’ dresses and bag buckles, fuse to create something that is both imaginative and reminiscent of a high fashion shoot.

In this instance I am captured. Engaged, not by the £2,100 Tillie Duffle Waxy Sheepskin coat (as gorgeous as it is) but instead by the same creative thought process that makes reading an editorial so satisfying. So clever is Mulberry’s campaign that I’m sold on all elements: bag, dress, coat, boats but most importantly, the brand.

This is intelligent advertising. The kind that is an acceptable interruption to your browsing.

Adverts are to be consumed with the same I-wish-I-could-have longing as the items featured in the shoots… at least in the adverts they are polite enough not to include the gigantic price tags or those ‘PRICE AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST’ notes that make the crude reality of wanting, a bit of a joke. In another sense, the captivating ad-verts are bold testament to the brand, almost like a business card, whose design element is taken to the extreme. Either way, magazines without their advertising would mean me without my magazine. And for that reason, I am willing to flick through 250 pages to get the gold.

Ruby Munson-Hirst

This is not an advert

“Editorial is now a critically weak cordial in a very over diluted glass of advertising squash where opinion and comment is some-times hard to taste

”

Do advertisers exert undue influence on the content of fashion magazines? Does it matter? By Ruby Munson-HiRst

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Arts & Culture 23The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

The Cinematic Legacy of Steve Jobs

On Wednesday, 5 October, Steve Jobs passed away aged 56. The visionary CEO of Apple has left a lasting impression on the way we view and use technology in 2011, helping to bring both the smartphone and tablet computer to the mass market, as well as completely revolutionising the way we consume and purchase music with the iPod and iTunes Store.

Those who question the direct influence he had on his company’s products and ser-vices need only look at the numbers. As the New York Times noted, ‘Only nine Microsoft patents carry the name of Bill Gates […] and little more than a dozen Google patents carry the names of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’; the United States Patent and Trademark Office attributes 317 of Apple’s patents to Steve Jobs.

But while Apple was the company he built from nothing, and the focus for much of his innovation and passion, Jobs has also left an indelible mark on cinematic history, through his crucial involvement with what is now one of the most consistently brilliant film studios in existence: Pixar.

Originally an internal division of LucasArts, responsible for creating computer graphics software for animators, a downturn in the business’ fortunes meant that there was no longer room in George Lucas’ production empire for the team headed by Ed Catmull. A buyer needed to be found for ‘The Graphics Group’ and Jobs, recently relieved of his du-ties at Apple, snapped up the small company for just $5 million, investing another $5 mil-lion into the newly founded Pixar Animation

Studio.This was 1986, and though the graphics

and animation software, along with their powerful Pixar Image Computer, were still the focus of the fledgling studio, Catmull had sold Jobs on his dream: to make the world’s first computer animated film. Under his watchful eye, Pixar began to create short films, invariably overseen by employee John Lasseter. While ostensibly just demonstra-tions for the software the studio was selling, the quality of Lasseter and co.’s output was already extremely compelling; not only in terms of technology, but also direction, storytelling, humour and charm. It’s almost twenty-five years to the month since Pixar’s first short Luxo Jr. was produced and it’s ev-erything that the studio’s features are today, compressed into a little over two minutes: heart warming, beautifully animated and funny. We’re still reminded of these humble beginnings every time we see a Pixar produc-tion, as the titular Luxo lamp hops across the screen.

Further success with short films such as Tin Toy and Knick Knack convinced Jobs that Catmull and Lasseter’s dream was achievable and, in the early 1990s, he helped oversee the sale of Pixar’s hardware division, and the signing of a monumental deal with Disney to produce three animated feature films.

With the release of Toy Story in 1995, the studio’s vision, which Jobs had bought into nearly a decade earlier, finally came to fruition.

The rest is history. Pixar have since gone on to become one of the great film studios

in cinema history. They’ve produced, in my opinion, the greatest movie trilogy of all time, won six Academy Awards for Best Animated Film and their work consistently performs outstandingly at the box office.

So how much of this success can be as-cribed to Steve Jobs? Well, in a sense, all of it. Investing $10 million of his personal wealth into a young, relatively unproven company, operating in a field that didn’t even exist yet in its current form, showed incredible vision and belief.

That, combined with the support and pa-tience he gave the creatives such as Lasseter, allowed Pixar to flourish and produce the high quality films it has become known for today (Cars 2 notwithstanding).

However, the significance of Jobs’ contri-

bution to Pixar is best judged by listening to those at the studio who worked closely with him from the beginning. Following his death, Lasseter and Catmull, now Chief Creative Officer and President of Pixar respectively, paid their respects to a ‘very dear friend and the guiding light of the Pixar family’. In their words, ‘[Steve] saw the potential of what Pixar could be before the rest of us, and beyond what anyone ever imagined… He is why Pixar turned out the way we did and his strength, integrity and love of life has made us all better people’.

It’s these same qualities that live on in all of Pixar’s work. Steve Jobs may now be gone, but his ethos, his industry and his vision will endure, through the films of his company, for decades to come. That is his cinematic

legacy.

An elegy to the Apple CEOs groundbreaking involvement with Pixar. By Ross Hamilton

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The Saint • Thursday 13 October 201124 Arts & Culture

The CriticsINDIE

OM&M have only been together for a little over a year; they’re a six-piece band hailing from Iceland and they’ve just released their de-but album (available in Iceland only). They’ve had a few demos floating around for a year or so and with this first release they certainly manage to live up to the understat-ed hype of the indie underworld.

The craft and care that has been poured into this album is clear from its impeccable production and pol-ished sound. The jangling guitars and resounding brass arrangements bellow out of the speakers while the back and forth vocals keep ev-erything chugging along harmoni-ously. The strongest section of the album comes with the triumvirate of ‘Sloom’ ‘Little Talks’ and ‘From Finner’. Each song builds up to a delicious climax that leaves you craving the next song while still in awe of the previous.

Like a less embellished Arcade Fire; a more earnest Mumford & Sons; OM&M create powerful and thoughtful music, the type of music that is just as entrenched in story-telling as it is in providing a won-derful aural experience.

Lewis Wade

Of Monsters and Men

LABEL

My Head is an Animal

If this new release from Sweden’s Ryan Adams rekindles his fans’ af-fections with his first record since 2009, with a name like Ashes and Fire, it’s all too tempting to indulge in allusions to a resurrection phoenix-style when listening to his thirteenth studio album. So, I shall. But if you’re expecting a record ablaze with the twist and shout of the alt-country troubadour’s previ-ous outings then prepare yourself for a swooning.

Ostensible flames are doused throughout the album as Adams’ shows off his perfected literary prowess by conjuring imagery of water in contrast to fire typified in a lyric from the title track - “Drowning in a river of tears, a river she cried / left her with a heart made of ashes and fire”. The mood of the album is typified by this conflict of fiery angst and streams of melancholy. Musical arrangements of strident guitar strums jive with a tinkering

of blues piano. Elsewhere slow slinks of slide guitar soar through crescendos of strings and organ resounding the ongoing clash between the momentous and the modest.

For all its lyrical and musical achievements, the album does however lack that cocky swagger for which Adams’ is notorious and it has to be said that some songs have the twinge of a cheesy movie soundtrack about them. However, Ashes and Fire has its merit in expos-ing a mature and introverted side to this singer-songwriter whose vocals pine rather than snarl. The Phoenix has risen but it has yet to take flight.

Steven Jenkins

Ashes and Fire

Ryan Adams

Pax-Am/Capitol

FILM

With Manchester Orchestra’s previous two albums, the band has certainly proved that they can de-liver. Mean Everything to Nothing re-iterated their strengths, building on debut album I’m Like a Virgin Losing a Child’s simple, powerful sound.

However, their third album, Sim-ple Math, sounds like a melting pot of different elements encompassing everything from children’s choral voices to angry metal sounds. De-spite the fact that their band name implies a somewhat orchestral sound, they have never included string instruments and this album is certainly not the time for such fruitless and unnecessary attempts. “Might” and “April Fool” sound like identical angry songs, and the beginning of “Apprehension” re-minds of a watered down version of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Did I Let You Know”. The combination of children’s voices and passionate lyrics on “Virgin” comes off as ma-

cabre and violent, befitting a horror movie soundtrack.

Regardless of the disappoint-ing songs, the album redeems it-self through the calming tones of “Deer” (reminiscent of their song “I Can Feel A Hot One”), “Pensac-ola’s” upbeat rhythms, and their title track “Simple Math”, which provides a pleasant enough melo-dy. With gratifying melodies and lyrics, “Leave It Alone” and “Leaky Breaks” are definitely the best tracks on the record. Adam Hull’s strong voice does not disappoint, and the depth of the lyrics makes the al-bum a much more personal affair. Given that the work of all talented musicians will eventually evolve and show growth, Manchester Or-chestra should incorporate a sound that feels natural to them instead of integrating all the possibilities onto a single record.

Geneveive Y.

Simple Math

Manchester Orchestra

Favourite Gentlemen Re-cordings

ALT-COUNTRYINDIE

The seventies are making a comeback in fashion, and now in the cinema as well. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the latest seventies-style film to hit the big screen. The master of espionage, John le Carr’s, book had previously been adapted into a mini-series in 1979 starring Alec Guinness, but this is the first time it has been adapted to film. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, known for his vampire film Let The Right One In, directs this high-quality Cold War thriller.

The film starts with a bang even before the opening credits when intelligence agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is shot in a cafe in Budapest on his quest for a Soviet mole. A year passes and we meet George Smiley (Gary Oldman) a former British intelligence officer

who comes out of retirement at the request of his former boss (John Hurt) to uncover the infiltrator. There are five suspects, given the codenames Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poor Man, with Smiley himself being the Spy.

As he tries to uncover the dou-ble-agent, Smiley reminisces about

the past through a series of flash-backs. He is aided by Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke) a former head of personnel; and by Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy), an agent who has his own demands: he wants to be reunited with his Russian lover Irina, a military attaché’s wife who

An Old School Espionage Thriller

has given him vital information about the mole.

A lot of work has been put into this film, and it shows. The cinema-tography is exceptional, the style of the period is well portrayed and the Alberto Iglesias score, which brings to mind Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for Inception, sets the

right mood.Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s

greatest strength is its first-class cast. Gary Oldman is a chameleon of an actor, as convincing as George Smiley, an older man, as he is as Sirius Black or Commissioner Gordon. The supporting cast are no second string either: high profile actors Tom Hardy and Colin Firth are excellent as always. The absence of women is very apparent, though a feminist poster can be seen late in the film. There is however one important female character Irina (Svetlana Khodchenkova), Tarr’s lover. The Russian actress is a newcomer but has a quality that promises a bright future for her.

The film’s slow pace works well, giving it the feel of Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, with the majority of the movie being a puzzle that only forms a solid picture in the end. But while there’s not a lot of humour to be found, and its pacing and highly complex plot will not be for everyone, for fans of the period and the genre, Tinker Tailor comes highly recommended

Saeunn Gisladottir

Dir. Tomas Alfredson

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Photo: Supplied

Arts & Culture 25The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Books

I won’t be ashamed about my admiration for this book. It’s an un-familiar and precious indulgence to review something I genuinely enjoyed reading. In 2008, The Brit-ish Beekeepers Association (yes, it exists) warned that all bees could be extinct by 2018 if the situation was not rectified. The Bees, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s new collection, has a familiar refrain; it goes a bit like this: I’m truly sorry man’s dominion/ Has broken Na-ture’s social union. That was Robert Burns addressing a mouse in the late 18th century, and it’s a song that, for clear reasons, we’re com-pelled to keep rewriting. However, I wouldn’t want to be crude with this comparison, since Duffy’s po-etry breaks free of anything that we might conceivably call ‘Eco-Poet-ics’. The range of its tones is char-acteristically wider, deftly blurring the supposed boundaries between the public and the private or the lyric and the song.

This quality of an ever-widening versatility of poetic vision is clearly what has landed her in the position of Poet Laureate. Yet the significant stance this book takes, the first since her appointment, is not one of ‘liv-ing up’ to the title she has earned, but of paying the necessary amount of attention to it: very little.

The dust jacket announces that the book is ‘a work of great ecologi-cal…power’ and that ‘the bee sym-bolizes what we have left of grace in the world.’ This is accurate, but also a necessarily reductive adver-tisement. In the first poem of the collection, ‘Bees’, we get this: Here are my bees, Brazen, blurs on paper, Besotted; buzzwords, dancing Their flawless, airy maps.

It is metaphor that liberates Duffy from the pieties of what could be a strictly ‘ecological’ per-

The Birds and the Bees

Adoring VenusLorn MacintyreSelf-Published

The BeesCarol Ann DuffyPicador

spective. ‘Bees’ not only symbolize ‘what we have left of grace’, but are also shape-shifting metaphors. Bees are ‘blurs on paper’ (poems), they are ‘the batteries of orchards’, their ‘honey is art’ and the poet is the ‘beekeeper’, extracting what is essential from the buzz of the hive. In poems like ‘Hive’, there’s a kind of solidarity expressed between the swarming populations of a beehive and those of the human world. ‘The hive is love’, ‘honey is art’, the hive is ‘a little church, a tiny mosque’ —the metaphors keep altering, but they all sug-gest the familiar ways in which poets deal with the natural world they’ve been describing since Virgil and before. They also suggest just how versatile the bee is as a species worth comparing to our own; how the Bee becomes a kind of muse for Duffy. Yet, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that this is an en-tire collection of poems about bees. Bees are a persistent presence and a guiding metaphor, but they don’t blindly curve the arc of the collec-tion. A poem like ‘Big Ask’, a kind of high flying rhetorical question and answer session, hazards lines like ‘When did the President give you the date?/ Nothing to do with Barack!’ and somehow manages to be biting, satirical and memorable

“Adoring Venus may purport to portray the psychological effects of the ageing process and the consequent obsession with youth, it fails to be anything more than a salacious fantasy.”

The University Novel is dead. Previously boasting Nabokov and David Lodge among its many ex-ponents, the genre, long consid-ered moribund, now seems to have met its timely end. The University Novel typically features an insti-tute of higher learning as an im-portant part of its setting, as well as students and academic staff as its main characters; and so there is something sad about the fact that St Andrews, in its 600 year history, has never played home to a Uni-versity Novel worthy of renown. The publication of Adoring Venus, self-billed as ‘the first mainstream contemporary novel to be set al-most entirely in St Andrews’, does little to placate this sadness, but rather, leaves you wishing that, like the genre as a whole, this book had been put out of its misery.

When the novel opens, the pro-tagonist, Professor Alan Mackilli-gin, is preparing himself for his wife’s death. The first chapter con-tains not only a description of the relationship between Mackilligin and his wife, shown through the use of flashbacks, but also shows the effects of bereavement on the ageing art historian. Yet, whilst the issue of bereavement appears throughout the novel, forced in as a clunky leitmotif, Mackilligin does not dwell on his wife’s death for too long, as within the first chapter, he

encounters Rebecca, an 18-year-old undergraduate who, in a prime ex-ample of overwrought symbolism, ‘reminded him of Vivian’. The nov-el continues to describe, with crude precision, the relationship between the academic and Rebecca, from the ‘rupture of her hymen’ during their first clandestine meeting, to its eventual demise.

From Thomas Mann’s A Death in Venice to Alan Hollinghurst’s The Folding Star, the literary canon is replete with novels that explore the topos of the cross-generational relationship. Yet, while Adoring Venus may purport to portray the psychological effects of the ageing process and the consequent obses-sion with youth, it fails to be any-thing more than a salacious fantasy. The focalization of the third per-son narrative through the central character and the tiresome overuse of rhetorical questions, may be a clumsy attempt to give insight into Mackilligin’s emotions and fears, thus creating pathos and sympathy for the bereaved protagonist. But it fails, largely because this insight conveys not the image of a fragile man, but rather that of a preten-tious, selfish sexual predator more concerned with the loss of his erec-tion, than the loss of his academic career.

If the portrayal of Mackilligin makes for uncomfortable reading,

the representation of women in the novel is downright offensive. Re-becca is portrayed as unbelievably naive, and completely uninformed about current affairs, even need-ing Mackilligin to explain climate change.

Worse still, is her willingness to submit to the control of her ageing lover and to take the place of his late wife. Any attempt to focalize the narrative through Rebecca, or to report her speech, sounds un-realistic, as she uses an outdated lexicon and subscribes to the social mores of a bygone age, where ‘den-ims’ (or jeans to you and me) come to be a contrived symbol of sexual deviance.

She serves as nothing more than a two-dimensional character that represents entrenched, outdated gender stereotypes.

Should the genre be resurrected, St Andrews deserves to be the set-ting of a University Novel, but one that achieves verisimilitude in de-picting the cultural idiosyncrasies of the historic town, rather than untrue and offensive stereotypes. It deserves a novel that is more in-terested in dramatizing the real-life goings-on of the students and aca-demics, rather than indulging in lu-rid delusions.

This novel, I fear, will not enjoy the orgiastic success the author de-sires. It is, quite frankly, dreadful.

all at once. Elegies for parents, po-ems about poems, poems about Dorothy Wordsworth, ‘The Woman in the Moon’ and ‘The Human Bee’ are all in this very mixed bag.

While it may seem a strange or strained comparison, there’s a bit of Robert Frost in Duffy’s collection. An element of what you might call ‘dark pastoral’ is under the surface of many of these poems, animating its metaphorical stances. Our ongo-ing and helpless existence in the fate of extinction around us might be its actual subject.

The Bees ends with a fable-esque journey toward a ‘Rare Bee’, which ends with the ‘gesturing, dy-ing bee/on the bier of a leaf’. Some-times the darkness isn’t under the surface at all, as in poems like ‘The Dead’, which observes ‘us in our taxis, them in their hearses.’ That kind of striking, quotidian observa-tion, however, looks like nothing when you’re hit with the last line: ‘We float on our gondolas along the green canals/ and do not die.’ To me, this felt like a pair of brass knuckles to the forehead; which is to say, scrap the piece of powder blue, gilded paper lingerie that is the dust jacket of this book—you’re in for something much darker than you might think.

“The significant stance this book takes, the first since her appoint-ment, is not one of ‘living up’ to the title she has earned, but of paying the necessary amount of attention to it: very little.”

David Swensen

Chris Cuthbert

26 Arts & Culture The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Hamming it up

I like one-man shows. There is something minimalist and unfussy about them which appeals to my borderline fascist hatred for stage clutter. So I approached the Top Edge Company’s one-man slice of Fife with anticipation. However, I am going to be brutally honest here. If I had not studied Macbeth for three years, in two separate subjects, plus played the pivotal role of ‘English Soldier Three’ in one very bad school production, I cannot say I’d have known what on earth was going on. I am full of admiration for any actor that at-tempts to do Shakespeare solo, as it were; however the final result was less than spellbinding.

David Keller certainly did a con-sistent job of separating his Lady

burkha-like, during important monologues.

Keller’s strongest moments were his stillest, maintaining eye contact and intimacy with the audi-ence. ‘Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood…’ acquired an intense eeriness, his only movement a faint fluttering of his hands to simulate wings. There were other strong moments; Keller absolutely came into his element as the grotesque Porter, rather ironi-cally his speech on equivocation (delivered as an absolutely smashed Scotsman with the phlegmy growl of a chain smoker) was the most coherent 5 minutes of the 70 minute piece.

However, I found Keller’s treat-ment of the women in ‘Macbeth’ jarring; the witches were firstly frolicking schoolgirl lassies danc-ing with a ragdoll Macbeth – I half expected Keller to start cartwheel-ing – and then elderly crones with Disney villain laughs. Lady Macbeth was both petulant and queasily sexualised; though admit-tedly any male middle aged actor

You’ll need:3 sweet potatoesOlive oilMayonnaiseSriracha½ a lemonSalt and pepper

Macbeths from his Donalbains us-ing a variety of accents including, bizarrely, one token Irish murderer; but overall it felt more like wit-nessing a very advanced episode of schizophrenia than a coherent plot. While arguably this shows the equivocatory nature of the play and the many ‘faces’ of Macbeth in his tendencies towards dark and light, it did little for audience concentration.

Keller alternately strode (as Macbeth), minced (as Lady Macbeth) and skipped (as all three witches) across the stage in the alarming choice of tight black leg-gings, his toenails scratching the floor atmospherically. Sitting in the front row, his feet were directly in my eye-line, so this aural addition was gratingly obvious. His ten-dency to deliver lines to the back of the stage was also unhelpful as, frustratingly, key moments such as the ‘Out damn spot’ and ‘Is this a dagger I see before me’ were lost due to bad blocking. Not to men-tion the disastrous directorial deci-sion to cover his face with a shawl,

THEATRE

FOOD

In last weeks article I included a footnote about a grocery store called Matthew’s Foods in Dundee, but it definitely doesn’t deserve to be banished to the end of an article. Having just returned from a year abroad in Hong Kong, its incred-ible stock of Chinese pantry basics, strange fruits, and frozen dump-lings are as nostalgic as they are useful to my student kitchen and budget. This place makes Morrisons look expensive, selling giant bags of spices and tins of coconut milk for little over 60p, as well as cheap woks and kitchen essentials. Most importantly, they’ve got an impres-sive display of various chili sauces, including sriracha (the one with the rooster on it). Buy the big bottle and don’t be afraid to put it on most things, namely pizza, fajitas, and sandwiches, as well as in soups and sauces. Don’t, however, put it on a chocolate finger, as my flatmate did. Find Matthew’s Foods at 17-19 Gellatly Street, Dundee, which is a two minute walk from the bus sta-tion, or if you are coming from the shopping centre, about a minute away from KFC.

These sweet potato chips with sriracha mayonaisse are surpris-

ingly simple for sounding relatively complicated. Don’t expect the same crisp fluff of a chippy’s chips; sweet potatoes are high in sugar which mean they’ll go more cara-mel-y than crispy, but that makes the contrast of the sharp chili burn of the dip even nicer. Equally good as a side dish or a snack.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Peel the pota-toes, and slice into chip sized chunks. They’ll shrink as they cook but not dramatically. Put your sliced potatoes on a baking sheet and toss with salt and pepper, and enough olive oil to coat, but not so much

People like Jazz clubs. They may not listen to Jazz very often, but something about a small room filled with candle-lit tables, spread in front of a four piece band on a spot-lit stage just makes us feel a bit cooler. So, to walk into the Byre theatre and see a small table by a single candle was to be confronted by a familiar ethos, although a bit strange that the only table in Lorna Reid’s Jazz Café was the one perched on the stage next to the microphone.

The performance that followed was entirely in keeping with the setting, with Lorna Reid’s relaxed, almost melancholy voice lending a casual, placid quality to most of the genres she spanned during the evening. Accompanied by Graeme Stephen on the Guitar and Christ Grieve’s nimble work with a muted trombone, Reid sang a range of jazz and blues standards, country and rock, along a few songs of her own writing, and even the

odd Tom Waits cover. Reid’s voice seemed most comfortable with what she affectionately referred to as two of their ‘café classics’: ‘Little Girl Blue’ and ‘Autumn Leaves’, with cool, ambling vocals the musical equivalent of the flickering candlelight emanating from the onstage table. The latter number provided the talented Stephen some leeway to show the audience his considerable prowess as a Jazz guitarist, and during the encore, Stephen and Grieve traded fours in an upbeat rendition of ‘All of Me’, finishing the performance on a musician-pleasing high note.

The Jazz Café has its roots in Reid and Stephen’s performances in Edinburgh’s jazz clubs, and the trio’s onstage rapport creates a comfortable, easy atmosphere. The combination of Reid’s subdued jazz-diva inspired style, and the varied programme of familiar songs create a setting befitting the show’s title.

All that JazzLIVE MUSIC. JAZZ

Lorna Reid’s Jazz CafeThe ByreSaturday October 8th

Lorna Reid is touring ETC

that it pools in the bottom of the tray. Roast for about 45 minutes, or until crisped and golden. Next scoop out as much mayonnaise as you’d like to eat into a bowl. Stir in a generous amount of sriracha (I’d start with a 1 pound coin sized blob) and the juice of half a lemon.

Crack in some pepper and taste for salt, but you probably won’t need it as pre-made mayonnaise is generally pretty well seasoned.

Sweet Potato Oven Chips with Sriracha Mayonnaise

Cuts like a knife...but not so right

would find an evil seductress with lines such as ‘Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall’ quite a pill. Let’s just say there was a lot of flirtatious shawl caressing that was more Eddie Izzard than femme fatale.

While the cluttered set (one ac-tor, one stepladder, one hat-stand, six chairs) inflamed my intolerant OCD mind, there were some inspired uses of props. Throwing down a pack of King cards neatly yet dramatically illustrated the unbreakable line of Banquo’s heirs, and the one-man sword fight finale between Macduff and Macbeth was intelligently choreographed and very effective.

Sliced to the core. The sense of going back to basics; back to the true, black, bloody heart of the play. No, this was more a slightly incompetent dissection by a shaky-handed fresher medic. A more pertinent title would perhaps have been - Macbeth: Chopped up and haphazardly rearranged.

Laura Francis

Macbeth: Sliced to the CoreThe Byre TheatreWednesday, October 5th

“As the grotesque porter.... his speech on equivocation was the most coherent 5 minutes of the 70 minute piece”

Hayley “A.” “M.” Morgan reprises her food column, formerly titled “Hungry Hayley” by some idiot

Arts & Culture 27The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

ESSAY | Videogames

In setting out to write this feature I wanted to look at, well, a good videogame, a bad videogame and an app. All right, that was fairly self explanatory – however! There is a deeper premise at work. It is my wish to show people that they are playing videogames (not “interactive textual experiences” as in J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore videogame) more than they might think. As such, the first part of my reviews shall be: Relic Studio’s Warhammer 40,000: Spacemarine for most current gen consoles. One man’s tale of getting dressed in metal, wielding equipment clearly designed for deforestation and having genocidal pseudo-religious bonding experiences with “battle brothers”. It couldn’t get more fetishistic than this folks.

Beyond this, as it tickles me so that not everyone knows that they play videogames on an almost daily basis, I will review two, hmmm, fairly recent offerings from the world of videogames ($65 billion dollar world though it may be). The first is a game that I think is ontologically ‘good’. It’s fun, engaging and presents a future for the medium. For me, that game is Ghost Trick on the Nintendo DS. Finally, in my App section, the section intended to shock normal people into realising they are, in a rather cultish way, “one of us”, is the Topshop iPhone app, “scavenger”. It’s not spelt that way, but not being a moron, I refuse to debase myself by giving in to their “hip” defacing of the written word. Oddly, if Scavenger hadn’t been in my ‘app’ section, it would probably have been my choice for the ‘good’. An ARG (augmented reality game) with real world benefits, I can recall no better balancing of the social and goal oriented aspects of game play.

That said, let’s move on to the reviews proper. Charting a super-human experiment to sustain reli-gious hegemony, Spacemarine is an

engaging confrontation with per-ceptions of power, belief and what it is to be right. Well, that’s what it could have been. Spacemarine is actually a disappointing, childish, power-fantasy romp. Charting the exploits of its protagonist Commander Titus, the game does a great deal to remain faithful to its source material but sacrifices vision for mass appeal. Although, if I’m being honest, that might as well be emblazoned, Auschwitz-style, over the door of every game studio.

For those of you who are unini-tiated, Spacemarines are a race of superhumans in a dystopia, 38,000 years in the future. This may sound like fairly safe stuff but the real hook of the Warhammer 40k uni-verse (notice the lingo) is its barmy use of Christian themes and im-agery. You see, a Spacemarine is a clone of a figure known as The Em-peror. Essentially, Space-Jesus, with a penchant for men in uniform. However, the Emperor was mortal-ly wounded by one of his clones in an essential plot point. As such, the Spacemarines run amok across the universe laying waste to heretics with an extremist fervor matched only by Richard Dawkins.

The game is fun – really fun. It flows well and there are enough breaks between and variation in the combat to stop it from going completely stale. The problem is: this has all been done before. Re-turning briefly to the story, I will drop an humongous non-spoiler by telling you that the race of aliens you think you’re fighting are actu-ally not the real bad guys who actu-ally show up and reveal the hidden secret super weapon that’s buried somewhere in the planet. I would say every Halo but instead I’ll just tut and say, “Try harder. Please.”

The saving grace of 40k: Space-marine is that although it’s all been done before, it’s never been done like this. It’s slicker than 90% of games out there, less tied down by

mechanics than Gears of War but sacrifices being truly interesting as a result. There’s no Bioshock style confrontation with your own moral compass, but what there is, howev-er, is a great deal of visualizing ev-erything your 13 year old brain was working so hard to do when paint-ing those models. If you didn’t col-lect Warhammer, this might not be the game for you. If you still do, this game might not be for you enough. If your heart skips a beat when you hear the word “chainsword”, you already own this game.

Moving swiftly on, Capcom’s Ghost Trick. To anyone who is a ded-icated fan of art house DS games (just me then) it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Capcom have deliv-ered another cracking game. After all, Capcom were ballsy enough to take on Okami for a second time, even after its financial flop proved that creativity in games should be kept away from any large sums of money that anyone is likely to miss. Ghost Trick plots the story of Sissel (maybe), waking up moments after

he has been shot (perhaps) as he at-tempts to find out who killed him (or something). If you noticed my hilarious use of ellipses, what I’m getting at here is that this game is a mystery game. It’s not so much a whodunit in the old fashioned sense because you couldn’t ever guess from the beginning but it uses a similar tone to raise the dra-matic tension between the set piec-es of dialogue.

The game play is, well, mini-mal. It’s somewhere between con-nect the dots and Cut the Rope but given the intricate story line, a simple play mechanic stands as a wonderful counterpoint. Essentially, you are a ghost and so to move you must pos-ses objects, some of which, you can manipulate. Your only advice is given to you by a desk lamp called “ray” and the game features memorable minor characters such as a dancing security guard, an overworked politician and, of course, Rocket, the reason everyone in their right mind now owns a Pomeranian.

I’m not going to try and explain Ghost Trick any further than that. It’s quite simply incredible. Tricky enough to keep moderate gamers enter-tained and accessible enough to not alienate people that just want to know what hap-pened. It’s also cut so neatly into easily digestible sections it’s as if playing it anywhere other than public transport is somehow wrong. Capcom have recognized that people will play a narrative based game in the same, 20 min-utes on the way home, way they read a book – and it works. The fact that the game quite consciously reflects on the inherent but unac-knowledged Buddhist mentality of modern Japan is just a bonus.

Which brings me to Scavan-ger. Oh, all right… SCVNGR (Is it

The Good, the Bad and the App

just me, or does it look like a shop code for vinegar?). The premise of Scavenger is collect points by tak-ing pictures of things in TopShop which are given different values. For instance, a picture of your fa-vorite dress will earn you 9 points while your favorite T-Shirt will only earn you thee. Putting it sim-ply, Scavenger is less of a game and more of a quite obvious market re-search survey. However, in making you act (that is, play) the program takes on a more frivolous attitude as opposed to simply showing you

pictures and asking for your favor-ite one. It becomes really interest-ing though, when you consider that playing the game has real world benefits. The overarching goal of Scavenger is to earn yourself a dis-count on clothes in TopShop. Play for long enough, you can get a 20% discount. If you’re a student, that means 40% off whatever you want to buy.

However, as Hamlet said, “This TopShop app better not be taking me seriously”. I love that Scaven-ger is being used to amass market information. It makes such a poten-tial area for games to expand in to and be used other than as enormous wastes of money and science. That said, I was playing Scavenger, on a friend’s iPhone and I wasn’t tak-ing pictures of my favorite things, but the most ridiculous things I saw. Perhaps that is why I had so much fun with Scavenger, but it spells a dismal future for this kind of symbiosis continuing. If Grand Theft Auto proved anything about videogames it’s that people are, es-sentially, jerks. I just hope TopShop know what kind of information they’re going to get from this new group of consumers, especially when playing Scavenger is such a great way for boyfriends to pass the time while their girlfriends do… whatever women do in TopShop.

My outfit consisted mainly of feather boas and lingerie

Rocket - if you do not love him by the end of your first playthrough, I fear you have never loved

Commander Titus attempts a one-man Sweeney Todd

Conor MCeown attempts the record for the longest essay ever written about videogames

The Saint • Thursday 13 October 201128 Sport

Sport in picturesSnapshots and soundbites from the Dunhill Links Championship - photos by Hillevi Gustafson; interviews compiled by Richard Browne, Hillevi Gustafson, Clare Mulley and Kate Reid

On the website

Alan Little The 1st XV Captain recounts his team’s unfortunate defeat to Dundee, as a combination of awful weather conditions and untimely mistakes cost Saints dear.

MEN’S RUGBY v DUNDEE

Read these and more online at: www.thesaint-online.com

Richard Browne and Hillevi Gustafson The view from the course, as told by the student media present as the championship progressed. You can also find plenty of extra photos of the event and participants.

DUNHILL DAILY

ANDY GARCIA: “Just sublime... golf is the greatest game in the world. The spirit of the people here, their appreciation and understanding of the game, is really special.”

TICO TORRES:“The main thing is to have fun here, it’s not a job for us, it’s an honour... [on people in St Andrews] As far as golf, these are the best fans in the world.”

SHANE WARNE: “I’ve been up here a few times - it’s the first thing pencilled in to the diary. It’s always great fun, to play with friends and new people who share the same passion for golf.”

JAMIE REDKNAPP:“Apart from that putt on the 18th [at Carnoustie], which I’ll probably never, ever get over, it’s been a good day. Playing with the world number one and two, it can’t be better than that.”

HUEY LEWIS:“I love the event so much, I look forward to it every year.”

RORY McILROY:“I’ve become so comfortable on [the Old Course]... the town has a great atmosphere and a great buzz.”

MICHAEL DOUGLAS: “[On St Andrews] It’s a magical place. It’s been a great motivation for me, [as] a cancer survivor re-covering.”

COLIN MONTGOMERIE:“I’ve been coming to Carnoustie for thirty years, and I’ve never seen it like this!”

SIR STEVE REDGRAVE:“It’s just the sense of history there, coming round the last few holes, it’s just spectacular.”

SIR BOBBY CHARLTON: “It’s a great challenge, the whole thing’s just lovely. I’m always de-lighted to be invited. We love com-ing up here, it’s the heart of world golf.”

CHRIS EVANS:“[In St Andrews] the big stars can just relax and everybody has a really nice time... just happy to be here, ev-erything else is a bonus. It’s the best golf host town in the world.”

HUGH GRANT:“I’m a very bad golfer... but I cling to hope. My favourite is the Old Course... I like a hard mistress. [look-ing ahead?] Less humiliation, that’s all I can hope for.”

Sporting World

Sport 29 The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

Whistleblower Sport Editor Richard Browne wonders if it’s just the ‘Luck of the Irish’...

CARLOS TEVEz’S RECEnT troubles with Roberto Mancini and the Manchester City were offered relief from the unlikeliest of sources - a second-tier north-ern Irish league club. Limavady United, from County London-derry, faxed City the night after their Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich, in which Tevez appeared to refuse to come on as a substitute, with an offer to take the wantaway striker on loan for the rest of the season. Sadly, City ignored the offer.

A footballer making headlines for the right reasons is Jone Samu-

A selection of the funny, bizarre and downright odd from the sometimes very strange world of sport...

pending retirements of the likes of Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara. But in Sean O’Brien and Johnny Sexton they have two stars of the future.

They have benefited from a golden generation and a coach - Declan Kidney - who was fi-nally able to winkle a Six nations Grand Slam out of them.

The golfers? Darren Clarke - 2011 Open champion - had one suggestion: “It must be the Guin-ness.” Before you go rushing to your local to test his theory and lower your handicap, he did add this: “We have many fine cours-es and a very good youth pro-gramme”. Less exciting maybe, but probably more accurate.

Rory McIlroy pointed to the accessibility of golf in northern Ireland, with people from work-ing-class backgrounds getting into the game as well as those from ‘the elite’ and, he said, “Be-cause it’s such a small place, you get to know people.”

Sound familiar? Tricky as it might be to think of a small place where there’s plenty of golf be-ing played, you happen to be in it. Great courses, two strong Uni-versity Golf Clubs and the oppor-tunity for beginners to give it a go at a very reasonable cost.

Alasdair McDougall’s third place in the pro-am competition of the Dunhill Links was as up-lifting as it was impressive. We like our heroes local, and he’s about as close to that as it gets, unless next year’s Union Presi-dent decides to take on the pros and wins.

But for now, congratulations Ireland on having the nerve to beat the rest of the Brits at hitting a white ball round a field. Lets face it, after all the mess they’ve had to put up with, it’s only fair.

In a couple of weeks I fully expect to be moving across the Irish Sea and hailing the Wonder-ful Welsh after their 37-3 spank-ing of new zealand in the World Cup final. Now that would take a hell of a lot of luck.

THE SAINT: How well have you done in attracting freshers and new members into the club?Tori Linton: We’ve tried to change the way the club is run to get a lot more social members involved. Previously we just had one train-ing session for non-team members and two social sessions, but those weren’t getting good attendance, it just wasn’t working out very well. This year we decided we wanted to get social members more actively involved. So we’re having more coaching available, but it’s all student coaching to build relationships between more advanced players from the team with coaching experience along with social members, so everyone is friendly and knows each other much more. We really want social members to feel a part of the club; most of the members aren’t on the teams, so we want them to be able to participate with us as well.

Catherine Phelps: At the end of the day there are so many good tennis players at St Andrews, but many don’t have the time to devote to it or they didn’t really know it was there until halfway through the year when it was too late for trials. We’re just trying to make more cohesive groups, so there’s a built-in framework so people can move up to the teams, and so far socials have been going really well – it’s been really fun.

TS: What was it like being a part of last year’s success?CP: It was a really, really great year. I think all of the teams did phenomenally well and a lot of players straddled two sides – it was fun to have all-round success, and last year I think we did a bet-ter job of getting boys supporting girls, etc. It’s part of what’s so fun about the Tennis team; we’re a mixed team. Hopefully we can do well enough so we can start travelling wider and extend our range.

The Saint spoke to Tennis Club President Tori Linton and Vice-President Catherine Phelps about the changes taking place at the club and their hopes for the season ahead.

Saint Sport Interview: University Tennis Club

THE DUnHILL LInKS CHAMPIOnSHIPS which I was fortunate to be at was ultimate-ly decided between three men: Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy and (eventual winner) Michael Hoey. What do they have in com-mon?

Well, at the trophy presenta-tion, the speaker felt the need to clarify that this was in fact a European Tour event, not the northern Irish national champi-onships.

Admittedly a Scot - George Murray - performed admirably over the week and finished level with McDowell on eighteen-under. But there was no doubt which nation had come to form at this event.

While it’s probably best not to mention the northern Irish football team’s recent results to anyone of the green persuasion, they and their neighbours in the Republic have done outstanding-ly well in two of the last month’s big events.

The Dunhill Links is one, the Rugby World Cup is another. The biggest result of the tourna-ment so far (though Tonga beat-ing France gives it a run for its money) was Ireland’s 15-6 win over many people’s favourites for overall victory, Australia. They have cruised into the quar-ter-finals; nonetheless Wales will certainly prove a test.

[I set myself up for that one, didn’t I? Wales proved a test al-right, a World Cup-ending test at that. Moving swiftly on...]

As for Scotland, losses to Ar-gentina and England continued our best-known tradition. Burns night and Hogmanay pale in comparison to our unparalleled record of international sporting failure.

[Though I must make the point that if rugby matches only lasted 75 minutes, Scotland would have this competition sown up.]

Back to the Irish. What is it they’re doing right? Their rugby side will be sorely hit by the im-

elsen of Odd Grenland. With his team leading opponents Tromso in a norwegian league match, the Tromso goalkeeper came up for a last-minute corner, only for Samu-elsen to score with a header from in-side his own half into an unguarded goal. The 57-metre effort could make the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest headed goal in the history of football.

In the world of rugby, Canada captain Pat Riordan has issued a desperate call for help. Reacting to his side’s 23-all draw with Japan, he said: “The tie is a bit like kissing your cousin. It’s great to kiss them

but it’s your cousin.” The men in white coats are on their way, Pat.

Ireland full-back Geordan Mur-phy restored my faith in rugby players the next day with some tasty humour. Before his side’s crucial match with Italy, he said that the way to deal with prop Martin Castrogiovanni was to leave baskets of chips in the corners of the pitch - “The amount he eats, it should distract him quite nicely.” Murphy would know, as he co-owns an Italian restaurant with his Leicester team-mate. In the end, the chips were down for Italy, the Irish winning 36-6. RB

TS: What’s coming up for the club in the next couple of months?TL: We’ve got our main season coming up – the BUCS leagues as well as the Scottish League. So the teams will be travelling around a lot across Scotland in the next couple of months, as well as down to nottingham in Reading Week. We’ll be looking to more indi-vidual tournaments in the spring semester. A lot of matches; if you come down to the Sports Centre on Wednesdays there’s always matches to watch!

TS: What do you think the teams can achieve this year?CP: Well, the Women’s 1sts got second in Division 1 last year, and the year before we made it to the quarter-finals of the play-offs for the Premier League. So the dream is to make it to Premier Leagueand I think we might be able to do that this year, it’s really exciting. Then our 2nds just moved up into Division 1 – they just need to stay fighting in there!

TL: The Men, they finally made it up into Division 1, they made their breakthrough – so they

just need to stay up to the height

they got to last year, and we’ve got a couple of really great fresh-ers that have definitely bolstered the first team.

TS: And finally, do you think Andy Murray will ever win a Grand Slam?CP: [Laughs] You’re speaking to two Americans here! My heart is still set on Andy Roddick, but I think for Andy Murray this is his year. If he supports us, we’ll support him!

MOODY McDOWELL: Graeme not amused with his tied-third finish at the Old Course.

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“It’s part of what’s so fun about the Tennis team; we’re a mixed team. Hopefully we can perform well enough this year so we can start travel-ling wider and ex-tend our range.”

FRESH: Tennis Club looking to have another successful season with its’ new recruits

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THE WOMEN’S 1STS got their season off to a great start, putting nineteen goals past Aberdeen 2nds without reply.

After last season’s suc-cess (reaching the BUCS Premier play-offs), the team will hope to continue their winning run against early frontrunners Glasgow 1sts.

LACROSSE Women hammer Aberdeen

AU Clubs in brief

THE 1ST TEAM were just edged out by local rivals Dundee at the start of the month, going down 33-31.

There was better news for the 2nds, who opened their campaign with a 32-25 win away to Glasgow 1sts. But the 3rds couldn’t follow that example, losing out 29-17 to Strathclyde 2nds.

NETBALLMixed bag for Saints teams

HAVING OPENED THEIR season with a 1-1 draw at home to Stirling, the Men’s 1sts travelled to Edinburgh Napier. The subsequent 13-1 win put them top of the BUCS Scottish 2A league.

The Women’s 2nds have also played twice, a 6-1 win over Aberdeen 2nds and 1-0 loss to Edinburgh Napier.

HOCKEY Men’s 1sts score lucky 13

THERE WAS A rude awak-ening for the Men’s 1sts on their return to the BUCS 1st division, suffering a 12-0 whitewash to Stirling 2nds. The team will be hopeful of improving against weaker sides in the league.

The Men’s 2nds drew 6-6 with Aberdeen 2nds in their opening match.

TENNIS Tricky start for Saints sides

THE 1ST xV were not able to get their season off to an ideal start, succumbing 28-11 to Dundee 1sts.

The Men’s 2nds did rath-er better, picking up a com-fortable home win over Ab-erdeen 4ths, 25-0. That put them top of the BUCS Scot-tish 4A league, with Heriot-Watt 2nds up next.

RUGBY Dundee too strong for Saints

Strife for Scots and English anguish: RWC round-upBen Reiss

AfTer fOrTy minuTeS of Saturday’s match (on the 1st of October) between england and Scotland (which finished 16-12 to england), Andy robinson must have been allowing himself to think that it was possible Scot-land would succeed in qualify-ing. england were 9-3 down (soon to become 12-3 shortly af-ter the break) and Scotland were playing well.

Their back-row were power-ful at the breakdown while their backs looked dangerous. Dan Parks and Chris Paterson had brought all their long experi-ence to bear and were marshal-ling players and kicking well. Scotland were particularly domi-nant in the tight, stealing eng-land’s ball in both line-outs and scrums.

However, for the first time in this World Cup england managed to maintain their discipline and the penalty count was in their fa-vour. Jonny Wilkinson couldn’t capitalise on this though, and his kicking percentage is now the worst among the remaining teams standing at just 45%. This will be a worry for martin John-son when england face france in their quarter-final as the french halfbacks are kicking well.

As the game wore on, Scot-land’s old frustrations came back to haunt them. Although their backline is obviously hugely tal-ented and their forwards were giving them a solid platform to play off, the Scottish backs just couldn’t manage to find that kill-er ball to get through the english defence in the first half.

in the second they were pre-sented with two golden opportu-nities; the first of which nick da Luca inexplicably spilled metres from an unguarded england try line and the second of which was snuffed out by some excellent defensive work from Tom Croft. it is telling that both opportuni-ties came from kicks and neither

from good handling.And for all that england were

behind for much of the match, they actually played reason-ably well. Alex Corbisiero and Louis Deacon helped to shore up the pack when they came on as substitutes and at no point did the team panic, except for two slightly wild drop goal attempts from Wilkinson, who is obvious-ly struggling.

They defended stoutly and kept in touch with the Scottish

score through penalties and a drop goal. Then, when an oppor-

CRUSHED: Scotland’s hopes of making the quarter-finals were shattered by England, but the English then fell to a rejuvenated French side in their next match.

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tunity came to score in the 75th minute, Toby flood managed the killer pass that seems to elude Scotland at crucial moments and found Chris Ashton who dived over from close range.

Scotland played with their customary passion, buoyed by the knowledge that this was es-sentially a knock-out game, and made england work hard for their victory.

However, they never looked like pulling away and with the talent england now have in their back three, twelve points never looked like quite enough and Scotland were left rueing in par-ticular their loss to Argentina.

The quarter-finals:The first of last weekend’s

quarter-finals saw a resurgent Wales side take on an ireland team that appeared to have thrown off its’ wretched pre-World Cup form by beating Australia and thumping italy to top their group. This promised a thrilling game and both teams were happy to oblige.

right from the off Wales were

thunderous in defence, their low tackling from one to fifteen (but especially from their hugely im-pressive back-row) taking away the legs of irish attackers and nullifying the threat of ball-carri-ers like Sean O’Brien and Stephen ferris who found themselves be-ing knocked backwards for the first time in this tournament.

With ball in hand they spar-kled as well. Shane Williams’ early score came from a length of the field attack and with Jamie roberts back to his powerful best, ably supported by Sam Warbur-ton and the sniping mike Philips, Wales looked threatening every time they attacked.

ireland did their best to fight back after the early score with a Keith earls try but they never looked like scoring after that. Wales, on the other hand, always looked dangerous as the hugely impressive rhys Priestland or-chestrated their moves and two further tries meant they won their Celtic clash comfortably by 22-10.

The second game on Saturday failed to live up to the high expec-tations set up by Wales’ perform-ance. england played much as they had during the pool stages, slow of thought in the forwards and slow of hands in the backs.

The only difference was that france had the quality to unlock what had been the tournament’s stingiest defence and ran in two tries before the break, leaving england trailing by 16 points to none. This looked like it was go-ing to be too much of a gap for the english to make up, and so it proved as france ran out 19-12 winners.

They were not helped by mar-tin Johnson’s selection strategy. His five to two split between forwards and backs (and the se-lection of matt Banahan as one of the backs) meant they had no-one to come on and really threat-en the french in attack. Too often they simply ran across the pitch or straight into french tacklers

where the superb Thierry Dusau-toir was usually on hand to win the breakdown.

Without a genuine open-side flanker, england always strug-gled to support runners and france made it through to the semi-finals, although their per-formance never reached the lev-els that Wales managed and the Welsh will be confident of over-coming them next weekend.

The first Sunday game was a very different affair, close and tense for the whole eighty min-utes. Australia met South Africa and the whole game was error-strewn and messy. in a state of affairs that mirrored domestic Southern Hemisphere rugby, players were keen to throw the ball around but frequently passed forward or knocked on. Quade Cooper, the Australian fly half, had a particularly torrid time both when passing and kicking.

South Africa had most of the territory and possession but solid Australian defence (once again anchored by a brilliant open-side flanker, David Pocock) ensured they only shipped nine points while scoring eleven, largely thanks to a battering try from their captain, James Horwill.

The final game of the week-end was also the only one that pundits were willing to predict as new Zealand came up against Argentina. it was widely expect-ed that the All Blacks would win and so they did, 33-10. yet Ar-gentina fought hard and proved they were not just there to make up the numbers, even taking the lead in the first half and keeping within five points of new Zea-land at half time.

However, the home nation’s quality and fitness told through-out the second half and in the end they ran out reasonably comfort-able winners, although the score-line did flatter them somewhat. They will also be worried that their second-choice fly half, Co-lin Slade, has joined first-choice Dan Carter on the injury list.

“Against France England played much as they had during the pool stages, slow of thought in the for-wards and slow of hands in the backs”

Sport 31 The Saint • Thursday 13 October 2011

All Saints: 1st XI too strong for 2nds in cup clashST ANDREWS 1STS 4ST ANDREWS 2NDS 0

Jeff Morrison

FOR ThE FiRST TimE in recent memory the two top football teams at the University found themselves drawn against each other in a competitive fixture - the second round of the Peter Omand Cup.

The 2nd of October was an overcast day and you could not help but think that a storm was on the horizon. The 1st Xi had won the first round of the cup 4-3, while the 2nd team had been given a bye. Could they prove that they deserved it against the supposed favourites?

The match got off to a quick start, with both teams looking to make an early impact. After only a couple of minutes James Fazack-erley of the 1sts had an excellent long-range shot that was matched by a great save from murray Rankin in goal.

it seemed to many that this could be a sign of things to come; however, the 2nds showed great determination to stay in conten-tion. The opening fifteen minutes were very evenly matched, with the 1sts perhaps having more possession, but the defensive partnership of Finn Thomson and Will Fergusson working well to shut them out.

The breakthrough came mid-way through the first half. A hope-ful looping ball was played for-

ward over the 2nds’ defence and caused confusion and indecision between Rankin and Peter Gilfil-lan. Kieran mcGrath took advan-tage of the mix-up and squared the ball to Guillermo Royo-Villanova, who side-footed the 1sts into the lead. After all of their hard work, the 2nds had been undone by a costly mistake.

it would have been easy for the 2nd team to give up, but they showed spirit and fight to get back into the match. Their chance came just three minutes after con-ceding, in the form of a penalty. Adam heron was adjudged to have pushed macDougall in the area after a teasing cross and the referee pointed to the spot.

Penalty-taking duties were handed to mcQueen and he stepped up confidently. However, it wasn’t to be, as Ally Cummings made a superb save down to his left to push the ball away. had the 2nds’ chance just passed them by?

The remainder of the first half was relatively quiet, with both teams cancelling each other out. The only real chance arose from a corner for the 1sts, as James Cot-ter attempted a spectacular over-head kick only to miss the ball completely and fall heavily to the ground.

At half time it was still all in the balance. The 1sts perhaps had greater spells of possession, yet they were more than matched in terms of desire and commitment. Both teams had certainly given a good account of themselves and the following forty-five minutes

would be interesting.Like the first half, the second

got off to a speedy start, with the 1st team keen to extend their lead and the 2nds trying to get the all-important equaliser. The first real chance of the half came when mark Smith showed good feet to pass a defender and get a snap-shot away that he just pulled wide.

The match by this point was getting more heated as both teams got frustrated, highlighted by two tackles in quick succession. The first, a two footed tackle by Mc-Grath on John more that resulted in just a yellow card. The second, more getting revenge by tackling Fazackerley, who had already glided past three players.

midway through the second half, the 1sts introduced Lennart Fleck into the action in an attempt to get that second goal. Just three minutes later that goal came. The right back marc murray had tried to play Smith through down the right but it looked to be over-hit and easy for the keeper to gather. however, Rankin didn’t take it cleanly, it broke to Smith and he turned and lobbed it in to the far side of the net with a sublime fin-ish.

Being two goals down seemed to confirm the 2nd team’s exit from the competition, but they did not lose heart and continued to demonstrate their unwavering commitment. They showed good movement when in possession and worked tirelessly when with-out it.

Yet it was not enough. The

third goal came with ten minutes left – the best-worked goal of the match, through Jamie Whitelaw up front. There was a good in-terchange between murray and Smith, again on the right, before murray set Whitelaw free. Af-ter a good touch, he slotted into the bottom left corner, giving the keeper no chance.

With the match coming to a close and the result beyond doubt, the 1sts turned the screw with a late goal to make it 4-0. Smith delivered the ball from wide on the right, and though he’d claim it was a shot, many believe it was

a cross; it looped over the keeper into the top left corner of the net. it was a cruel ending for the 2nds, who had fought so hard through-out the game.

All in all, this much-anticipat-ed fixture did not fail to live up to expectations. In what was a large-ly tight affair, a handful of errors and some individual skill ended up separating the teams. The 1sts will be hoping to progress further in the competition and bring the trophy home, while the 2nds will have to take the positives from this match and push on for the rest of the season.

Saints survive scare to pick up precious winST ANDREWS 1STS .3HERIOT-WATT 2NDS 1

John Stackhouseand Harri Thomas

AFTER A DiSAPPOiNTiNG DEFEAT to Edinburgh Napier last week, St Andrews Foot-ball men’s 1sts were looking to bounce back against Heriot-Watt 2nds with a solid victory.

They managed to achieve this in a hard-fought encoun-ter and were able to hold on to a well-earned victory despite a late scare at the death from the away side. An entertaining game in which both sides had their chances ended in what was a fair result.

The match opened in a scrap-py fashion; however, it was al-ready evident after ten minutes that St Andrews were the strong-er side. The breaththrough came in the 12th minute when Saints’ ian mackie managed to get on the end of a low corner to the near post which he successfully directed beyond the keeper ’s grasp.

A period of mixed posses-

sion between the teams ensued until Saints’ Adom heron was fouled in the box after a crisp passing move by Saints. mark Smith stepped up to the penalty spot and sent the goalkeeper the wrong way with a powerful shot into the top right-hand corner.

Worsening weather condi-tions and rising tensions be-tween the teams did not prevent St Andrews from tightening their grip upon the match and they came close to scoring a third after two successive cor-ners.

however, towards the end of the half Heriot-Watt hit back with some threatening attacks, one of which ended in a last-ditch goal-line clearance from the Saints’ defence.

The early exchanges of the second half proved to be a more even affair. The weather also improved, allowing both sides to play more attractive football and the keepers at both ends were tested several times as both teams tried to get on top of the game.

As the half progressed Saints once again began to dominate and were looking much more confident on the ball with an

improved pass completion rate. Their persistence paid off

in the 71st minute when Saints were controversially awarded a penalty after striker Guillermo Royo-Villanova was allegedly brought down by Heriot-Watt’s goalkeeper on the edge of the box.

The inevitable protests by the visitors were waved away by referee Derek millborough, and mark Smith duly stepped for-ward. Unfortunately for Smith his second penalty proved less impressive than his first and the goalkeeper was able to parry the ball, albeit into the path of Saints’ George Welton, whose shot nonetheless went wide.

As the match entered its closing stages, there was an-other twist when Heriot-Watt launched an assault down the left wing and a low cross from their winger was converted from five yards out by their number nine, whose shot bounced in off the far post to take the score to 2-1.

A mix-up in the away de-fence almost resulted in the Saints putting the result to bed when a stray backpass was picked up on the edge of the

box by Kieran McGrath, whose well-judged pass across the box evaded the onrushing goalkeep-er ’s grasp and landed at the feet of captain James Fazackerley, whose shot was blocked by an excellent slide tackle by a He-riot-Watt centre back.

There was a final scare for the Saints in the 89th minute when a Heriot-Watt free-kick from 30 yards out on the left hand side looped off the boot of one of their strikers and over

backpedalling Saints’ goalkeep-er Ally Cummings’ head, only for the ball to hit the crossbar.

The Heriot-Watt number seven was the first to react, but his headed effort from only two yards out went horribly wide and his embarrassing miss was greeted with derision by the Saints supporters.

To add insult to injury, only seconds later Saints’ substitute Lenny Fleck was able to beat his man on the edge on the box and pull the ball back to his captain Fazackerley, who buried a pow-erful shot beyond the keeper ’s despairing dive into the top-right hand corner to finish the game.

Speaking to the Saints’ cap-tain after the match it was evi-dent that he was satisfied with the result despite the shaky start.

The Saints manager added that it had been a good game but one in which the players had made it harder for them-selves than it needed to be. he was pleased with the Saints’ at-tacking promise but felt that, defensively, work needed to be done. he also added that the result sets the Saints up nicely for next week’s difficult derby encounter with Dundee Univer-sity 1st team.

“Substitute Lenny Fleck was able to beat his man and pull the ball back to captain James Fazackerley, who buried a powerful shot beyond the keeper’s dive to finish the game”

AT A STRETCH: The Men’s 1sts were made to work hard for their victory, but ultimately their ruthlessness in front of goal saw them run out comfortable victors

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NortherN IrelaNd’s MIchael hoey clinched his first major european title at the alfred dunhill links champion-ship last weekend, having pro-duced a composed final round of 68, with three birdies in the last four holes on the old course at st andrews.

the 32-year-old led the com-petition from start to finish, scor-ing below 70 in every round and eventually finishing 22 under par - two shots clear of countryman rory McIlroy.

this victory added to the re-cent success of other Northern Irish golfers McIlroy, darren clarke and Graeme Mcdowell and also set a few tour prec-edents. this marked the first time Northern Ireland has pro-duced five winners in a season; Mcdowell’s eighteen-under-par score made it a one-two-three finish for Northern Ireland and marked another tour record.

the alfred dunhill links championship is a popular tour-nament celebrating links golf and is played over three of the world’s most prestigious courses - Kingsbarns, carnoustie and the old course.

In addition to the individual competition, a wide range of amateurs partner the profes-sional players during the tour-nament in a bid to win the team competition. celebrity amateurs this year included tim henman, Johan cruyff, chris evans, don Felder, Michael douglas and hugh Grant.

the fine weather which graced the various links on thursday and Friday led to some very low scoring, with 2010 open cham-pion louis oosthuizen shooting six-under-par to share the lead with hoey. hoey, who earlier this year won only his second euro-pean tour event at the Madeira Islands open, was in great form, holing a magnificent forty-foot putt for an eagle two on the 18th at st andrews.

elsewhere, fellow Northern Irish national Mcdowell finished just one off the lead, while crowd

favourites Padraig harrington and colin Montgomerie ended the day on four under.

hoey continued his excellent performance on day two of the tournament, with a 66 at Kings-barns to share the lead at the halfway point with englishman tommy Fleetwood. Fleetwood, a professional for just under a year, seemed to really take advantage of the fine weather, shooting a superlative nine-under-par round in the sun at Kingsbarns to take his tally to a joint-leading twelve-under.

at carnoustie, oosthuizen also continued to chase the lead, recapturing the same form which saw him triumph in the open fourteen months ago with a round of 67. scottish professional Marc Warren carded a solid round to finish the day tied fourth and last year’s winner Martin Kaymer was one shot further back at nine-under after two rounds.

the third day of the tourna-ment witnessed an Irish takeover of the leaderboard, with hoey continuing to lead the pack. de-spite the unfavourable weather conditions hoey managed to ex-pertly manoeuvre the infamous carnoustie links with a superb round of 66 that included five birdies and an eagle.

this left him on top at eight-een-under, three shots ahead of Mcdowell and five ahead of other Irishmen harrington and McIlroy. englishmen luke don-ald and simon dyson (the 2009 winner here) also impressed, as both shot seven-under to equal the old course record set by McIlroy in the 2010 open cham-pionship.

on the final day hoey’s lead came under substantial pressure from McIlroy, leading to a dra-matic finish on a foggy and damp old course. McIlroy quickly closed the gap at the top of the leaderboard with a brilliant six-under-par front nine, which in-cluded pitching in for a stunning eagle on the third.

however, he failed to take ad-vantage of this dream start and increase the pressure on hoey, who stormed to the title with three birdies in his last four holes

Inside Sport:More photos and quotes from the 2011 dunhill links championshipp 28

Hotshot Hoey defies resurgent Rory to clinch Dunhill Championship

Patrick Hamill after pinpoint approach shots at 15, 16 and 18.

Meanwhile, the alfred dun-hill links team championship was won by english pairing Nick dougherty and BBc radio dJ chris evans who scored an as-tonishing forty-under-par round to win by three strokes. hoey and William Farish Jr. came second, while Joost luiten and fourteen-year-old st andrews schoolboy alasdair Mcdougall finished in joint third place.

after his victory, a jubilant and emotional hoey said: “I came over to watch the dunhill cup in 1993, 1996, and 1997. I watched Phil Mickelson, John daly, Nick Faldo, all of the guys. I just thought ‘oh, the way they strike the ball, how good do they hit it, I would love to play here’. and now I’m playing here and winning the alfred dunhill links as well. It doesn’t get much bet-ter.”

a stunned and delighted chris evans spoke of his admi-ration for the professionals par-ticipating in the tournament, re-serving special mention for his own team-mate: “I couldn’t have wished for a better partner than Nick. he actually requested to play with me, which I really ap-preciated, and he is just a great bloke.

“I’m pleased we won for him and, despite not getting to the fi-nal day in the individual tourna-ment, he still shot 20 birdies over the four days which just shows how well he played.” he then paid homage to the final day’s setting, adding, “thanks to st andrews, the best golf host town in the world.”

the final day of the competi-tion was a fitting end to a com-pelling week of golf for both fans and players and an especially significant one for Michael hoey, for it has seen him climb to 14th in the race to dubai money list and from 271st to 98th in golf’s world rankings.

For a full list of individual scores and a tournament leader-board, go to http://www.alfred-dunhilllinks.com and click on the live scoring link at the bottom of the page.

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PRIZE PUTT: Northern Irishman Michael Hoey sinks the decisive birdie putt on the 18th hole at the St Andrews Old Course to pip compatriot Rory McIlroy and secure the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship (above), with the trophy presentation seeing him pick up his reward for playing four days of outstanding golf (below).