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WaspRepor ter
Exam I ssue
Fear, joy, power:
How crowds affect us
Britains child army
Blood on the tracks
Editorial
Speaking ( ) Recycling: Work in progress 3
( ) Total recall 4
( ) Preach your children well 6
Writing ( ) Advertisements 8
( ) Britains child army 10
( ) Advertisements 12
reading Blood on the tracks 14
Mind to mind 16
Fear, joy, power:
How crowds affect us 18
Breaking the chains 21

= text on CD
CD
z
Research shows that we
are obsessed by celebrities.
We do not just spend more
time than ever talking about
celebrities, we also regard
them as role models. They are
said to form our new social
conscience. Wendy Carlisle and
Mark Chester talk about the
possible negative effects that
new forms of celebrity charity,
for example inter-country
adoptions, may have.
Hello everyone,
Sitting exams is a stressful and nerve-
racking business, especially when you cant
prepare for a test by learning facts by heart.
Language exams are a notorious example of
tests for which preparing is often diffcult.
How do you know youre ready for an oral
exam or a reading comprehension test?
Practising is the only thing you can do.
This Exam Issue of WaspReporter is specially
designed for you to practise your language
skills and prepare for your fnal tests.
In the Speaking Section of this Magazine
youll fnd a text about recycling in London
and Berlin. There are also texts about a
personal black box recorder, and home
schooling in the United States. Hopefully
these subjects will give you enough input
to put a presentation together or hold a
debate (see Student File).
The advertisements in the Writing
Section should provide ample possibility
to practise your writing skills. And for your
fnal exam at the end of this school year you
can prepare yourself with the help of the
texts in the Reading Section.
Having worked through this issue, you
will hopefully feel more confdent about
sitting your exams. And dont forget:
practice makes perfect!
Johan Graus,
Editor
Contents
( ) InternationaI HeraId 1ribune
j
Speaking
Why recycle? It is costly, time-consuming and takes more effort than
simply chucking all the waste into a single bin.
Nonetheless, over the last two decades, recycling has become the
norm in the Western world. Citizens pay higher taxes to cover the
costs; municipalities enforce recycling regulations and refuse to pick
up the garbage of households that do not comply.
As for the actual process, the International Herald Tribune decided
to board a garbage truck in a few cities to see frsthand what
happens once people stash their trash in a recycling bin.
What emerges is a global work in progress.
Beth Gardiner
LONDON Richmond upon Thames, a wealthy, park-
dotted borough of west London, has made recycling a
priority as Britain struggles to shed its reputation as one of
Western Europes worst recyclers.
Residents leave cans and glass in black plastic boxes
along the streets; paper goes into reusable blue bags. Two
crew members gather the recycling into big red bins that
they hand into their truck, while a third sorts it into the
right container. A different truck collects small green bins
flled with kitchen waste for composting. Plastics are not
picked up yet but can be left at drop-off centres.
The crew I accompanied picked up paper, bottles, jars,
and cans and went on to a sorting centre in Richmond. All
the material is sold to recycling companies. Glass goes to
a plant in Harlow, northeast of London, to be made into
new bottles and jars. Paper heads to Wirral, near Liverpool.
Aluminium cans are sent to Cheshire and will again hold
beer and soda.
Britain exports about half of its plastic waste. Much is
sent east on the same ships that deliver Chinese imports
to Britain. Because Europe sells far less to Asia than it buys,
cargo vessels have little to carry on the return journeys,
and they take waste material to Asia at discounted rates.
Destinations include India and South Korea, as well as China.
Londons 33 boroughs pay for their own recycling, some
with help from the national government. Richmond earns
enough from selling
its recyclables, about
600,000 a year, or
$1.17 million, to cover
about half the cost
of collection and
processing.

andreas tzortzis
BERLIN Germans separate their trash with an
earnestness and conviction that often confounds
newcomers. There are bins for paper, compost, and general
trash, and three bins for glass clear, green, and amber.
Since the mid-1990s, there has also been a yellow bin for
plastic, metals and packaging. Seven bins in all.
On a chilly morning, I accompanied a crew picking up
yellow bins in east Berlin. The bins were ftted onto the
back of a Mercedes-issue truck operated by Alba, a private
recycling company. At the press of a button, the bins tipped
into a compactor. Milk cartons, yogurt cups, aluminium
cans, and bottles spilled out.
We took the load to an Alba plant on the outskirts
of Berlin Germanys most modern recycling facility.
Computer-guided infrared scanners separate the tons of
recycled material; it is then compacted into different types
of bales: plastics, metals, packaging, and material that can
be used for alternative fuel.
Recycling companies pay up to e 200 a bale for the
material. Glass is melted down and reshaped into bottles
and jars. Paper and packaging gets reprocessed, much
going to the Berlin newspaper market. Plastic is ground
into little lentil-sized pieces that can be used for new
products, from license-plate holders to coat hangers.
Consumers foot the bill for this by paying a little extra
for recyclable packaging. But they seem happy to do so.
In this nation of recycling pioneers, 9 out of 10 Germans
claim to separate their trash, according to a 2004 study by
the Allensbach Institute. And 65 per cent think it is bad if
a neighbour, even a newcomer, doesnt use the yellow bin
properly.
Much plastic waste gets
exported to Asia Residents sort trash
into 7 different bins
Recycling: Work in progress
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Exam Issue Volume 6 Exam Issue Volume 6
q
1otaI recaII
Are you hopeless at putting names
to faces? Or do you just wish you
could remember what you got up
to at your last birthday party? The
solution could be to record your
entire life digitally
By ian taylor
Youll never forget another wedding anniversary. In fact,
youll never forget anything, ever again. Thats because
in the next few decades, youll be able to store all your
memories on a device which is small enough to wear
around your neck.
A bit like a personal black box recorder, the gadget will
remember anything you keep in digital form. It might carry
the footage your father took on the day you were born.
Your electronic school reports. Your health records and your
bank statements.
This is not the future according to some starry-eyed
science fction writer. Its what a group of UK scientists
realise has already begun. Memories for Life (M4L) is a
network of researchers that have spent the last two years
swapping notes on what to do with the growing bulk of
information we keep in digital form.
5hrinking memory
This is all happening right now, says Prof Nigel Shadbolt,
the M4L networks principal investigator. Theres more and
more information going digital and the technology to store
it is shrinking at the same time.
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( ) 88C focus
y
recognition technology. Or you might be carrying some
kind of sensor that beams out what you want me to know.
Similarly, elderly people suffering with short-term
memory loss could have a device that remembers their
daily routine and gives reminders whenever theyre needed.
Artifcial memory devices offer huge potential for the
healthcare sector. Electronic diagnosis systems can already
put human doctors to shame. All they need is enough data
about a patient. Clearly, were moving into a world where
health information and biosignals are being collected,
Shadbolt says. Thats happening now for athletes in
training, or people carrying certain medical risks. But in
the future, we can imagine everyone routinely collecting a
lifetime of biophysical data.
Collecting data, then, will not be a problem. Storing it
should also be easy. But the way this information is used
whether its medical, business-related or completely banal
raises a number of questions about managing such vast
databanks. Copyright gets very murky when digital data is
published en masse. And the dangers of identity theft are
heightened when theres so much personal information
out there.
Theres also the issue of privacy. If everythings
connected, just who will have access to your digital
memories? And should you be allowed to keep digital
memories of others? The police could even follow digital
footprints when hunting criminals, presenting digital
memories as evidence in court.
oure being watched
Its clearly a sensitive issue. In 2004, LifeLog, a US research
project not dissimilar to Memories for Life, was shut down.
It too had begun investigating the plausibility of recording
everything about a person in digital format. But there was
outrage. Civil liberty campaigners pounced on the project,
claiming it toyed with technology that Big Brother could
use to keep tabs on everyone.
To ensure that M4L is not derailed by similar concerns,
the network is actively discussing how privacy and rights
can be protected. One man to ask would be Gordon Bell.
He has more digital memories than anyone else on Earth.
Since 1998, the senior Microsoft researcher has diligently
recorded his entire life for a project called MyLifeBits.
All his photos and documents are scanned and
saved, and conversations are taken down on a recorder.
His computer retains all emails, web pages and instant
messages, and even his mouse and keyboard activity
is remembered. Around his neck, Microsofts prototype
SenseCam automatically takes photos throughout the day
to provide a visual record.
The trouble is, when youve got that volume of
information, how do you trawl through it and pick out
whats useful? Or sentimental? So the biggest technical
challenge for Bell and the entire M4L movement is
management. And of course, we need tools that let us flter,
or even forget the most banal information. Anything that
will make your digital lives easier to organise, retrieve and
re-present for ourselves and others. Because, if nothing
else, digital memories will give us the chance to leave a bit
of ourselves behind.
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Speaking
1he memory machine
Researchers in the US are developing brain implants to help store
memories
While the Memories for Life network contemplates how we
record our lives as digital data, others are investigating a more
direct fusion between memory and technology. Researchers
in the US are developing a silicon chip designed to replace the
region of the brain responsible for creating memories.
The implant would interact directly with neurons in
the hippocampus, the part of the brain where short-term
memories are reprogrammed for long-term storage. When the
hippocampus is damaged, as in stroke cases or Alzheimers
disease, patients lose the ability to form long-term memories.
The chip could bypass the damaged tissue, process the
electrical signals itself and restore some long-term memory
function.
Thats the goal of Prof Theodore Berger working at the
University of Southern California. By studying the neural
circuitry in the hippocampus, he and his team have devised
mathematical models for the way neurons process electrical
signals. The models allow the chip implant to accept a signal
and process it in the same way as healthy tissue.
Berger has already proved this can work. In 2004, his team
used the chip with slices of rat brain kept alive in nutrients. The
implant stimulated neurons in the tissue and electrical output
patterns were then compared with the real thing. They were 95
per cent accurate.
Now the plan is to replicate the results in live rats, and then
in monkeys. Eventually, Berger believes it will be possible to
replace damaged human hippocampus tissue with an implant.
But he admits the process is complex: We will have to use a
chip small enough to be surgically and strategically placed in a
particular location of the brain.
fIND DU1 MDk
www.memoriesforIife.org
Background info and papers trom the M4L network
http://tinyurI.com/yuwzbq
Gordon Bells MyLifeBits project
www.neuraIprosthesis.com
Theodore Bergers research into brain implants
www.bbc.co.uk/radioq/ memory/
BBCs Memory Experience
!
_
Moores Law states that the number of transistors you
can pack on a computer chip doubles every two years. Its
held true for the last four decades and shows no sign of
letting up. In 20 years, a device the size of a sugar
cube will be able to store a lifetime of video
images, Shadbolt says.
Of course, people wont necessarily want to
record every waking moment on video. But for
the M4L crowd, the very prospect raises endless
potential for other applications. The goal now is to
develop actual products that make innovative use of
our digital memories.
DiIing sociaI cogs
Theres also talk of innovative education tools
and virtual reality replays of sporting events
or birthday parties. Yet some of the most
obvious ideas are those designed to give
real memories a little electronic back-up.
I want to build a memory aid, says
Prof Wendy Hall, another M4L networker.
Something that will tell me who you are
when I meet you. I might need a picture
of you, so the device can spot you via face-
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Exam Issue Volume 6 Exam Issue Volume 6
&
6 Exam Issue Volume 6
Christian conservatives want to empty Americas classrooms. They want kids educated at
home, where they are free to use the Bible as the ultimate science reference book and so
shape the next generation of conservative leaders
By amanda gafter
Patrick Henry College looks like a typical American liberal-
arts college. Its curriculum is far from typical, however, and
anything but liberal. Witness the beginning of this lecture
on faith and reason. As the speaker takes to the podium,
several students silence their cellphones. One puts down
his copy of The Wall Street Journal and takes out his Bible.
They bow their heads and pray to Jesus, then stand up and
sing a hymn. Eventually, the speaker addresses the crowd.
The students are all evangelical Christians and
most of them were schooled at home before arriving
at Patrick Henry a college created especially for them.
They are part of a large, well-organised movement that
is empowering parents to teach their children creationist
biology and other unorthodox versions of science at
home, all centred on the idea that God created Earth in
six days about 6000 years ago. Patrick Henry, near the
town of Purcellville, about 60 kilometres north-west of
Washington DC, is gearing up to groom home-schooled
students for political offce and typifes a movement that
seems set to expand, opening up a new front in the battle
between creationists and Darwinian evolutionists.
Ironically, home-schooling began in the 1960s as a
counter-culture movement among political liberals. The
idea was taken up in the 1970s by evangelical Christians,
and today anywhere from 1.9 to 2.4 million children are
home-schooled. 72 per cent of home-schooling parents
interviewed said that they were motivated by the desire to
provide religious and moral instruction.
For these parents, religious instruction and science
are often intertwined. This bothers Brian Alters of McGill
University in Montreal, Canada, who studies the changing
face of science education in the US. He is appalled by some
home-schooling textbooks, especially those on biology that
claim they have scientifc reasons for rejecting evolution.
They have gross scientifc inaccuracies in them, he says.
They would not be allowed in any public school in the US,
and yet these are the books primarily featured in home-
schooling bookstores. Alters worries for the students who
learn from such texts (see Book learnin). If they go on to
secular university, home-schoolers are in for some major
surprises when they get into an introductory biology class.
Home-school parents are able to teach their children
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( ) New 5cientist

this way thanks mainly to a group called the Home

School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), a non-
proft organisation based in Purcellville like Patrick
Henry College (PHC), which the HSLDA founded.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, the practice was
largely illegal across the US. The mechanism that
was causing home-schooling to be illegal was
teacher certifcation, says Ian Slatter of HSLDA.
HSLDA was founded in 1983 to defend the rights
of home-school parents and fought to remove
requirements that parents be certifed to teach their own
children. Through an impressive run of legal battles and
political lobbying, they managed to make home-schooling
legal in all 50 states within 10 years. Consequently, there is
virtually no government regulation of home-schooling. This
lack of regulation may be skewing science education in US
homes, says Alters.
vangeIicaI interns
Until recently, most home-schoolers chose to go on to
secular universities, because such institutions tend to be
more academically rigorous than Christian colleges. Now
evangelical home-schoolers can also opt for a college like
PHC. The school was founded in 2000 to prepare leaders
who will fght for the principles of liberty and our home-
school freedoms through careers of public service and
cultural infuence.
It worked. By 2004, PHC students held
seven out of 100 internships in the White
House, a number even more striking when
one considers that only 240 students were
enrolled in the entire college. Last year, two
PHC graduates worked in the White House, six
worked for members of Congress
and eight for federal agencies,
including two for the FBI.
Home-schoolers are drawn to
PHC partly because of its political
connections and partly because,
unlike most Christian colleges, it
boasts high academic standards.
Besides the focus on creationism, much of the curriculum
is dedicated to rhetoric and debate, preparing students to
fght political and legal battles on issues such as abortion,
stem cell research and evolution.
A strategy for the renewaI of society
The growth in the home-school movement seems set to
continue, as home-school advocates are pushing hard
to convince parents to keep their children out of public
schools. Weve won all the legal battles now, thanks to
HSLDA and groups like that, says E. Ray Moore, author of
Let My Children Go: Why parents must remove their children
from public schools now. Its time to shift from defence to
offence, he says.
Moore is the director of Exodus Mandate, based in
Columbia, South Carolina, an organisation that urges
Christian parents to pull their children out of public
schools. Exodus Mandate has spent the past few years
trying to win over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC),
which has more than 16 million members. If the Southern
Baptists got on board and said home-schooling and
Christian education is the preferred method of education,
that would be transformational, Slatter says. It would
easily double or maybe triple the number of home-
schoolers overnight.
Moore says, If we could get up to 30 per cent of
public-school students into home-
schooling and private schools, the
system would start to unravel
and at some point implode and
collapse. The government would
be forced to get the states
out of the education business
altogether. It would go back to
the churches and the families.
Its a strategy for the renewal of
society.
Not all home-school parents
have a religious agenda,
however. There are probably
some wonderful home-school
parents, some of whom may
be evolutionary
biologists
themselves. But I
have a feeling after
talking to a lot of
home-schoolers
that this is the
minority, says Alters.
Indeed, evangelical
Christians do
dominate the home-
school movement. Its
disconcerting, to say
the least, he says.
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Exam Issue Volume 6
8ook Iearnin
Biology is not the only science being rewritten in home-schooling textbooks. Other sciences
are also being modifed to suit the creationist perspective that God created Earth about
6000 years ago.
Chemistry textbooks, for instance, argue that radiometric dating is unreliable and
therefore not a concern for those who believe in a 6000-year-old Earth. And geology books
claim that the Grand Canyon in Arizona a gorge carved by the Colorado River, exposing 2
billion years of Earths history was formed rapidly during the worldwide Biblical food.
Even astronomy is being rethought to explain how starlight from billions of light-years
away has reached the Earth in only a few thousand years. Books like Taking Back Astronomy
by Jason Lisle suggest possible explanations: maybe God created the light already en route;
or maybe the Milky Way sits in a large gravitational well where the time-stretching effects of
general relativity can explain the anomaly; or the creationists favourite maybe the speed
of light was much, much greater in the past.
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Preach
your chiIdren weII
Speaking
8 Exam Issue Volume 6
( )
g Exam Issue Volume 6
Writing
TRAVEL ADVISERS
Seasonal Summer Employment
Dublin Tourism Centres
City Centre and Dublin Airport
Hours of Work
33.75 hours per week based on 5 days,
6.75 hours per day, working on a roster basis.
Duties
Servicing customer enquiries
Operating room reservations service
Sales of tours, literature, publications, maps etc.
To undertake other work/duties to be allocated as
required
Preferred Qualications
Good standard of education
Excellent interpersonal / customer services skills
Fluency in one continental language (French/
Italian/Spanish/German) is desirable
A good knowledge of Dublins tourism products
Computer literacy
Flexibility in working patterns
Fluency in English is essential
If you are interested in this position and possess the
qualities listed above, please contact us by email on
jobs@dublintourism.ie or post to:
Te Human Resources Department
Dublin Tourism Centre
Suolk Street
Dublin 2
Please specify dates in which you are available to
work and preferred location.
Lively Teens wanted for Tonight with Trevor!

ITV LIVELY, OUTGOING TEENAGERS WANTED
Lively, outgoing teenagers aged 1518 are needed to
take part in a primetime ITV1 programme.
The programme will involve the teens learning a little
bit about personal nance (bank accounts, credit cards
etc.) and then trying to save their parents some money.
Were particularly looking for parents who are worried
about their kids spending habits and feel their children
need to learn the value of money.
If youre interested in nding out more then please get in
touch, including a few details about your family.
( ) Writing Advertisements CIassied ads
Waiter
Waiter wanted for weekends during summer holiday. You will work
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Room assistant
Alexandria Hotel London requires room assistant for 6 days for summer
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Disc jockey
Disc jockey wanted for New Wave Southampton Vacation Club during
holiday season. Age 16-24. 1 week on trial. Your work hours will be from
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Please contact Suzy Bedford for more details at SuBed@hotmail.com.
Shop assistant
If you like fashion, here is your thing! Trendy young women wanted to
work as shop-assistants in modern boutique at Welsh seaside resort for
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o Exam Issue Volume 6
8ritains
chiId army
Stricken by Iraq and low morale, the British army is on a desperate recruitment drive.
Its new targets? Poorly educated teenagers and young schoolchildren
By Stephen armStrong
On a stormy winter day, 38 schoolchildren gather at
Fulwood Barracks in Preston. They are mainly Year 11 pupils
aged between 14 and 16 and they have been bussed over
from a poorly performing comprehensive in a deprived part
of a nearby town for an encounter day with the Duke of
Lancasters Regiment.
The four teachers who have come along with them
seem apprehensive. Many of these kids, they say, can be
unruly; others are quiet but dont perform well in class.
Warrant Offcer Nick Froehling, however, is young, friendly
and easy-going. Within minutes he has the children doing
rife drill, shifting model SA80s from shoulder to arms
length and back down to at ease although Froehling
doesnt say At ease. He prefers the order Chill.
During the day, the pupils learn how to use a climbing
wall, negotiate an obstacle course and complete a one-
mile run. At the end, they receive a presentation certifcate
signed by Lieutenant Colonel J. Pitt, commander of
regional recruiting in the north-west. Congratulations
on successfully completing the one-day Army Personal
Development Course, it says. On the back theres a list of
local recruiting offces, and it comes with a DVD, recruiting
brochures and a glossy teen magazine called Camoufage.
By the time they leave Fulwood Barracks at least two
pupils Luke and Cara have decided to become soldiers.
An army that actively recruits 14-year-olds is something
usually associated with some of the worlds more troubled
states. The truth is, however, that shorter gaps between
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tours of duty, concerns over equipment, resentment at the

poor state of accommodation and rising military death tolls
in Iraq and Afghanistan are producing a retention crisis in
the British military. In 2006, 14,000 personnel left the army,
with just over 12,000 recruited to replace them. This years
recruitment target 8,500 soldiers looks unlikely to be hit.
Dther options
With troops pouring away, the pressure to fnd
replacements is intensifying. The time-honoured pools of
unemployed young men from Thames-side and Merseyside
and Tyneside are becoming less and less keen on joining
the armed forces. Employment levels are high, and there
are plenty of options to work through before they turn to
the colours.
Its diffcult, explains Warrant Offcer Chris Jones,
senior army recruiter in the north-west, whose Liverpool
offce used to reap a bountiful harvest for all three arms of
the military. Youve got the Big Dig going on in Liverpool
all the building work for the City of Culture and that
means kids who might have thought about joining us can
get 250 a week cash in hand. Nowadays, the government
is paying kids 40 a week to stay at school until theyre 18,
which is proving a real problem as well.
Although the army refuses to publish fgures on the
social background of recruits, it is clear that the young,
unskilled and unemployed are still at the core of its target
demographic. Sitting at the army desk in Liverpools glass-
fronted careers offce, a recruiting sergeant explains that
half of the applicants who walk in off the street have
diffculty flling in the form. Others try to fake their parents
signature giving permission to join. Theres a lot of kids
coming in because their home life is a mess, the sergeant
says. They want the army to give thema bit of discipline and
a bit of support because their home life doesnt offer that.
At the same time, a constant streamof stories about
bullying at training camps such as Deepcut, bizarre Royal
Marine initiation ceremonies and post-confict problems
suffered by veterans is hurting the appeal of a life in uniform.
This may explain why last years introduction of a US-style
bounty scheme to entice combat troops into the force
performed so badly. Infantry soldiers have been offered a
1,300 bonus if they encourage someone to enlist. The MoD
admits the scheme has not hadan enormous response.
Changing standards
As a result, the army is throwing open its doors to people
it wouldnt have considered fve years ago. Last month,
the maximum recruitment age was raised from 26 to 33,
allowing older entrants to sign up. Meanwhile overseas
recruitment, mostly in Commonwealth
countries, has produced more than
6,000 soldiers, drawn from 54 nations.
Coupled with the 3,000 Gurkhas, this
means one in every ten soldiers is a
foreign national.
The army would prefer to get its soldiers young and
British, however, and in the past 18 months it has had
a rethink of its entire recruitment campaign, turning
the focus away from the school leaver and on to the
schoolchild.
The head of the services recruitment strategy is Colonel
David Allfrey. He is the man with Britains schoolchildren in
his sights, and he has a plan to reach them. When he talks
about recruitment, he uses the kind of up-to-the-minute
marketing jargon that you would expect to hear from a
management consultant.
These days, our youngsters are incredibly discerning,
Allfrey says. They make decisions based on a much broader
tapestry of information than was offered to any of us. We
have to cut through branding clutter with real effciency.
Our new model is about raising awareness, and that takes
a ten-year span. It starts with a seven-year-old boy seeing a
parachutist at an air show and thinking, That looks great.
From then the army is trying to build interest by drip, drip,
drip.
The core of this policy involves ramping up the
Camoufage youth information scheme. Introduced in
2000, the scheme is designed to hold and develop the
interest of those who have made contact with the army
but are too young to join. Camoufage members, who start
at 13, get the teen mag Camoufage mailed to them every
quarter. It is packed with pictures of helicopters looping
the loop and fashion shoots with cute kids from the Royal
Military School of Music wearing army T-shirts and camo
gear. They get books, a kitbag, access to a members-only
website with military games, survival tips and screensavers.
They also get Christmas cards from the recruiting offcer
and when they leave school there is an invitation to pop in
to see Army Careers for a chat. Since the scheme started, it
has processed 271,000 youngsters; 18 per cent of this years
army intake were originally Camoufage members.
Its a big push, with a lot of money behind it although
the exact amount hasnt been announced yet. If it fails, the
army may have to adjust its standards again.
In 2005, the US military was regularly missing its
recruitment targets. In 2006, it had to double the top
enlistment bonuses for recruits from $20,000 to $40,000,
loosen medical standards, forgive more minor criminal
offences, raise the age limit for new recruits from 35 to 42,
and accept more people who have not fnished high school.
What changes will desperation force on the British
army, whose ten-year recruitment strategy begins with a
seven-year-old boy?
The names of the children have been changed.
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Exam Issue Volume 6
Theres a lot of kids coming in
because their home life is a mess
Writing
z Exam Issue Volume 6 j Exam Issue Volume 6
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Tel: +44 118 959 4914
Fax: +44 118 957 6634
Email: Email us on volunteer@gap.org.uk
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BBC Jobs
There are placements available in
just about every area of the BBC
across the UK. And theyre not
just for school children either. So
whatever your age and whichever
area youre interested in, chances
are well have something thats right
for you.
All placements are unpaid and can
last anything from a few days to
four weeks. Competition is erce,
so before you apply youll need to
consider what you can offer and
what youd like to achieve. Are you
good with computers? Have you
worked in hospital radio or written
articles for your local or college
magazine? What do you hope to
gain from the placement? What are
your ambitions for the future? These
are the kind of questions you should
be asking yourself.
BBC News
BBC News is on Television, Radio
and New Media, informing people
whats happening in the UK and
around the world. Theres news as
it happens, analysis and interviews
with people behind the headlines.
The aim is to produce journalism
of the highest possible editorial
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following departments:
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Breakfast
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By coming in on work experience,
youll be joining a very busy
team of staff, so youll need to be
willing to muck in, help out, and
generally make yourself useful
and sometimes this means being
assertive to get yourself noticed. To
be successful you will need to show
a genuine interest in and knowledge
of national and international news,
and in particular BBC News output.
BBC News welcomes enquiries
and applications from minority
ethnic and disabled people who are
currently under-represented.
BBC Recruitment
PO Box 48305
London - W12 6YE
careers@bbchrdirect.co.uk
q Exam Issue Volume 6
8Iood
on the tracks
[1] 21-year-old Bradley Chapman had been planning to
emigrate to Australia from his home in Grays, Essex, to train
to be a psychiatric nurse. But on a Friday night a few months
ago, shortly after 11 p.m., he and his friend Daniel Elgar, a
19-year-old postman from Southend, were spotted spraying
graffti at a London Underground depot between Barking
and Upney stations in east London. They had apparently
scaled the 3m-high palisade security fencing, and were
planning to spray-paint the side of a train. According to the
British Transport Police (BTP), security guards spotted them
and shouted, at which point the two men dashed out across
the tracks, only to be struck by a westbound District Line
train. The driver reported feeling a tremendous jolt and
immediately brought the train to a halt. Both men died at
the scene from massive multiple injuries.
[2] Keith Elgar, Daniels father, described his sons
death as just a pointless waste of life. We are just a normal
family. We have got a memory now of Dan just on a dark
grimy railway track...
kespect
[3] What drives a young man, much loved by his family
and friends, with plans for his future and, in Elgars case,
a fve-month-old son, to risk everything to spray a few
looping letters on a train? It is not as if his handiwork will
be seen by thousands. London Underground has a policy
of not allowing carriages that have been vandalised to
run until they have been cleaned; new graffti-resistant
paints applied to trains mean that most tags can be easily
removed with no more than a high-powered jet of water.
[4] Why do we do it? says Twisted, a London-based
writer who knew Chapman. Its about respect. Obviously
theres the adrenaline from painting in a tube yard, they are
really hard to get into these days. There are no kids painting
tube lines; its adults only really because its so hard. Its
probably similar to breaking into a house or something; its
such a big mission. Finding it, breaking in, painting, getting
away scot-free...
Crafti o
[5] The history of graffti can be traced to New York in the
late 1970s, when a handful of writers began painting their
names on the sides of trains and subway walls around
Manhattan. Thanks to the relative lack of security, the
citys subway was soon wallpapered with tags, though the
writers soon learned to disguise their identities: Demetrius
Panayiotakis, an early pioneer, called himself Taki183 in
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1he Cuardian
y
reference to his address on 183rd St in Washington Heights.
Though the scene diversifed as it spread across the world,
and has expanded to take in some well-known art world
names, to purists, painting on trains will always be grafftis
highest calling.
kisky business
[6] Its a really dedicated thing for people to go out
and risk their lives to do something entirely for free that
nobody will ever see, says Amoe, a 21-year-old writer from
London. In that sense, theres nothing like graffti that I
cant see. (It is not even the done thing, among absolute
purists, to post pictures of your work on the Internet.)
[7] The problem, of course, is that that risk can be much
greater than a simple boyish thrill. The frst person to die
in a graffti-related incident on British train lines was John
Koporo, 11, whose clothing was caught on a train passing
through Kilburn Park station in 1987 and who was dragged
to his death. The following year Gary Baxter, a 16-year-old
called Rase, slipped while feeing security guards and was
killed on live rails.
[8] Fiasko, another tagger, describes one of the risks he
took when he was still writing. One time when doing back
jumps I fell off the top of a fence and ended up hanging
from the top of it next to a tube train which had just pulled
in. The passengers must have had a shock seeing someone
suspended upside down looking in through the window at
them.
PIaying tag
[9] The BTP has had a dedicated graffti squad since the
1980s; it wont disclose the number of offcers working
solely on capturing writers, but teams will frequently
work for months, using profling, covert surveillance, even
handwriting analysis, to track taggers or entire crews.
London Underground spends 20m and 70,000 hours each
year removing graffti on the network. Over the Christmas
weekend alone last year, 63 graffti attacks were reported
nationally. Reported offences in 2005/6 were up 28% on the
previous year.
[10] The BTP estimates there are around 200 serious
graffti vandals around the country. It estimates that it
would cost 38m to replace every tube window that has
been damaged by etching. For damage valued at more than
5,000, a convicted graffti writer can be jailed for up to 10
years.
[11] And yet, despite the recent tragedy and the
polices best efforts, determined taggers insist they will
not be deterred. Some suggest the tragedy may even spur
writers on to take more risks. A lot of people are getting
very angry, says Twisted. I think the whole graffti scene
sees that it could be a game, but some people now will
call it war. Some people will do stuff to wind the police up,
writing stuff like, This Aint Over BTP.
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Exam Issue Volume 6
1agging by numbers

Age of John Koporo, hit by a train in 1987 at Kilburn Park. His tag
was Evil and he now features in a YouTube video clip.
g6g
Tracy168 is credited with the frst piece of train graffti, in New York.
j,qyq
The number of recorded serious graffti attacks on the UK rail
network had more than doubled since 2001.
j%
Percentage of 10-25 year-olds surveyed by the Home Offce in 2004
who admitted to writing graffti.
zom
London transports annual
bill for removing graffti.
yoo
Police reward to members of
the public prepared to identify
prolifc graffti artists. One
campaign, Name That Tag, concentrated on 12 offenders who
tagged hundreds of trains and buildings.
zoo,ooo
Amount reportedly paid by flm star Angelina Jolie for a work by
graffti artist Banksy in a Los Angeles sale. Another of his pieces
entitled Mona Lisa fetched 57,600 at Sothebys.
S
Two graffiti writers were
killed after breaking into a
tube depot. Esther Addley
enters the dangerous world of
the taggers who believe that
respect is worth the risks
We have got a memory
now of Dan just on a dark
grimy railway track...
Its probably similar to breaking
into a house or something,
its such a big mission
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reading
Sceptics have always been quick to dismiss the idea of telepathy communication using
the power of thought alone. But now new brain scanning technologies are being used to
investigate the phenomenon with some fascinating results. Robert Matthews investigates...
6 Exam Issue Volume 6
Most of us have experienced it at some point thinking of
a friend weve not heard from for ages, who then suddenly
phones up. Its an eerie phenomenon, one that seems to
hint at a kind of telepathic link between minds separated
by space and time. But many scientists dismiss such
ideas as ridiculous. Some were not impressed when the
British Association (BA) recently devoted part of a Festival
of Science to a debate over research suggesting such
telephone telepathy might be real.
The BA found itself publicly criticised by top scientists
and even the Royal Society. You cant rely on any of
these experiments, said Professor Peter Atkins of Oxford
University. The samples that people use are very tiny, the
effects are statistically insignifcant, the controls are not
done in a scientifc way. Prof Atkins went on to admit that
he had not actually seen the new fndings but insisted
it made no difference: There are no serious reasons for
believing there should be an effect of telepathy.
But not all scientists agree. Some argue that evidence
for the reality of telepathy has been steadily accumulating
for decades, with experiments at respected universities
suggesting human minds really can communicate directly
with one another.
Some of the most impressive evidence has come from
so-called ganzfeId experiments, in which one person
attempts to transmit an image picked randomly from a
set of four to another person sitting in a specially isolated
room. The probability of guessing the right image by
chance alone is 25 per cent. A recent meta-anaIysis study,
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88C focus

also showed an increase in activity and in the

very same parts of their brains, despite not seeing
any fashes at all. The size of the effect found was
impressive, and the team calculate the odds of
getting so big an effect by fuke alone are less than 1 in 100.
Kittenis stresses that the results of this one study
are far from conclusive: We need to look at multiple
studies conducted by different investigators in different
laboratories, and see if theres any consistency in the
fndings. Even so, We may be on to something really new
here, or we may have fallen victims to some error in our
methods, he says.
A bIow to sceptics
Sceptics still believe that the real explanation will indeed
turn out to be ESP Error Some Place. But such easy
dismissals have been dealt a blow by the fndings of similar
experiments carried out at the University of Washington
in Seattle. Professor Todd Richards and his team put 30
pairs of people through EEG tests like those carried out
by Kittenis and his colleagues. This involved studying
the changes in brain activity in those with apparently
impressive telepathic abilities using sophisticated
functionaI magnetic resonance imaging (fMkI). This brain
scanning method reveals areas of mental activity with
great precision and detail. It also provides an independent
test of the results found using EEG.
The best-performing couples identifed by the EEG
screening process were isolated from each other, and the
sender was exposed to random sequences of fashing
lights. But this time, the receivers brain activity was
continuously monitored using the fMRI scanner. The
results, however, were the same as those found by the EEG
experiments: the receivers brain showed signs of activity in
the visual processing areas despite not being exposed to
the fashing lights.
Like the Edinburgh team, Richards and his colleagues
stress that more results are needed before conclusions are
reached. They also believe the fndings may be due to what
they call an anomalous phenomenon rather than a mere
experimental artefact.
What can this anomalous phenomenon be? Some have
suggested it may be linked to quantum mechanical effects
such as bioIogicaI entangIement a suggestion many
physicists dismiss. Others will simply dismiss the fndings
as junk science. Still others will always claim that there
must be something wrong, that the explanation is Error
Some Place.
For the time being at least, the researchers carrying
out the tests and their more enlightened critics are
in agreement: the early results hint at something
extraordinary going on, but extraordinary claims
demand extraordinary levels of evidence. Theres
no single theory that can accommodate all the
facts, says Kittenis. We still know too little, and
there is still so much work to be done.
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Exam Issue Volume 6
Iargon buster
CanzfeId
From the German term total feld, this is a method of
looking for telepathic abilities. An individuals senses
are put into a relaxed state by, for example, having their
eyes covered with pink light flters and listening to
relaxing sounds before telepathy tests are carried out.
8ioIogicaI entangIement
Where particles in an organism maintain a connection
even when they are separated.
Meta-anaIysis
A statistical technique for combining the results
of lots of small studies to reveal how strong the
evidence is overall.
functionaI magnetic resonance
imaging (fMkI)
A medical scanner which uses strong magnetic
felds and radio waves to affect the behaviour of
atomic nuclei in biologically-important molecules.
Mind to mind

he had been shocked to the other

participants, and whether the effect
would show up as physiological
changes and variations in brain activity.
Tests on 11 people revealed that both the EEG patterns
and physiological responses did indeed seem to respond
whenever Tart was shocked. The results prompted other
researchers to try to replicate the fndings. These additional
experiments suggested that such unconscious telepathy
was strongest between subjects who have strong
emotional ties.
xciting resuIts
While intriguing, these early studies failed to impress
sceptics, who dismissed the experiments, claiming the
results must have been erroneous. But now advances
in technology have allowed much more sophisticated
techniques to be used to study the phenomenon in detail.
At the University of Edinburgh, Dr Marios Kittenis
and his colleagues have been using the latest EEG
techniques to fnd out more about the claims of telepathic
communication between people in close relationships.
Pairs of such people were given time together to relax and
decide who was going to act as the sender and who would
be the receiver. They were then taken to two separate
rooms to be wired up to EEG machines capable of detecting
activity in specifc areas of the brain. Then random fashes
of light were beamed at the person acting as the sender.
And as expected, this triggered EEG activity in the visual
cortex, the region towards the rear of their brains known to
respond to visual stimuli.
Altogether more surprising were the effects on the
brain activity of the people acting as receivers. Their EEGs
which combines the results from over 3000 tests up until
2004, revealed a guessing success rate of 32 per cent a
small but highly statistically signifcant increase on what
you would expect from chance alone.
Such results fy in the face of assertions that
experiments in telepathy are based on small numbers and
produce insignifcant effects. Yet they have still failed to
convince sceptics that telepathy is genuine.
8rain scans
Now scientists at research institutes on both sides of the
Atlantic are coming up with fresh evidence for telepathy.
They use medical scanning techniques to examine directly
the ebb and fow of activity within subjects brains. The frst
results from these studies point to something extraordinary:
correlations in the brain activity of people when they
attempt to communicate their thoughts to each other.
Some researchers believe this new evidence could be the
breakthrough the feld of parapsychology has long needed.
Hints of the kind of correlations now being uncovered
frst emerged in the early 1960s, in experiments conducted
by the pioneering parapsychologist Dr Charles Tart at the
University of California. Those taking part had electrodes
placed on their bodies and heads to detect changes in
blood volume and skin conductance. Their brain activity
was measured by an electroencephalogram (EEG).
Meanwhile, in a separate room, Tart was wired up to a
device that gave him mild electric shocks at random. The
idea was to see if he could mentally transmit the fact
reading
8 Exam Issue Volume 6
fear, joy, power
how crowds affect us
[1] At 7.23 a.m. on a Wednesday the station concourse
is full of commuters, all sharp elbows and long faces.
Someone with a wheeled suitcase clips my foot and shoots
a withering look. I smile. I know something they dont.
In one minutes time this crowd will be transformed. On
the strike of 7.24 a.m. commuters will watch as 300 of
their number press play on their iPods and start to dance
as if no one is watching. We will be oblivious, we will be
united, we will have lousy coordination but with each track
we will be sloughing off our urban alienation to become
we; changing from workaday isolated commuters into
intentional community. Flashmobbing, where a group of
strangers meet at a prearranged location, is a recent trend,
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g
has no political overture, no agenda nor any leaders, but
that doesnt mean it has no point. Our point is communion
a shared experience in a landscape of strangers.
[2] Professor Stephen Reicher, a social psychologist
at the University of St Andrews, would make a distinction
between the crowd at 7.23 a.m. and the one at 7.24 a.m.
just as he would between crowds on a train platform
and crowds on a football terrace, shoppers on Oxford
Street or worshippers at Mecca. The frst is crowd in
the physical sense only, where you are jammed, against
your will, up against strangers, he says. The second is
crowd in a psychological sense. People who physically
and psychologically I feel an affnity with, so there is none
of the repulsion you might feel with commuters on the
train. Here proximity is actively valued. There is a common
purpose and solidarity, whether that is found among the
silence of strangers in the aftermath of the London bombs,
or in the encores of an appreciative audience upstanding
and euphoric as the actors take their curtain calls.
Hypnotic inuence
[3] Many of us feel uneasy and even frightened in large
groups, and crowds generally get a negative press. The
dominant, traditional view is one of mindless, marauding
mobs and irrational thugs. Social psychologist Gustave Le
Bon maintained that crowds exert a hypnotic infuence
over their members, one that through collective
suggestibility can compel us to act irrationally or even
violently. But social psychologists have since acknowledged
that crowds are not intrinsically irrational. Different crowds
have different norms, says Dr John Drury, senior lecturer in
psychology at Sussex University. They are not bad, just as
they are not necessarily good. Each has their own ideology.
keasons to be cheerfuI and fearfuI
[4] What happens when we enter a crowd is that we
identify with the group, aspire to its norms and naturally
adopt its behaviours. Even a small cocktail party fnds
us doing this wearing a certain dress, modifying our
conversation to chime with the crowds. We do not feel we
have lost ourselves or lost our control, because membership
has been freely elected and is desirable. There has simply
been a subtle shift in the location of that control from
the individual to the social, says Drury. The groups social
behaviour has become our guide.
[5] However, many of us fear crowds. They test us on
many levels psychologically, morally, even chemically.
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Exam Issue Volume 6
Crowds can be uplifting and unifying,
but they can also be claustrophobic and
overwhelming. Tanis Taylor asks why they
have such a powerful effect on us, and two
readers describe their experiences
I had an overpowering sense of being
looked after and secure
ANNA HARPER, 26, LIVES AND WORKS IN CENTRAL LONDON,
WHERE SHE IS PA TO A SOLICITOR
[7] On the day of the funeral, there was an incredible
silence and stillness across London. Everyone was subdued.
Although there were so many people gathered, no one was
aggressive and there wasnt any elbowing or shoving that
normally occurs in the city. Instead, there was a sense of
calm and a reverence I had never seen anywhere before.
The hush as people communicated in low whispers or stood
silently watching added to the solemnity. I was standing
near Westminster Abbey, and the atmosphere, particularly
as the procession approached, was intense. We were more
emotional than the mourners attending the funeral.
Strangers were openly crying and comforting each other. At
frst I felt I didnt have the right to feel that way, but seeing
others grief made me more emotional. Everyone felt the
same we gave each other the freedom to show emotions
that usually we would conceal from strangers.
Massive comfort
[8] It was the same with Earl Spencers speech at frst
people didnt know how to react, and then we heard the
clapping start behind us, and after that everyone joined in.
There was a sense of release; that we could all show how
we really felt. Afterwards, no one seemed to want to leave.
We lingered, talking to each other about the day. Curiously,
I felt comforted to be surrounded by so many people I had
an overpowering sense of being looked after and secure.
It was like being with an extended family, rather than in a
crowd of strangers.
PkINC55 DIANA5 fUNkAL, 6 5P1M8k gg

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zo Exam Issue Volume 6
There are some very real precedents for mass hysteria,
says Dr Cynthia McVey, senior lecturer at Glasgow
Caledonian University. And there are suggestions that
this hysteria is transmitted via subliminal emotional,
psychological and even chemical detectors such as fear
pheromones. In one episode, girls in a US high school
believed they could smell gas and fainted like dominoes.
Physically there were no symptoms, but there may have
been a very palpable, chemical contagion at play. Biology
aside, it takes real fortitude to keep your head while those
around you are losing theirs. We look to our peers for
guidance.
1he crowds that bind
[6] We shy away from crowds more than we used to;
our legislation discourages it and our schedules prohibit
it. Yet to be validated and be united is a human impulse.
After all, there is no substitute for physical and intimate,
psychological and sensual camaraderie, whether standing
shoulder to shoulder in silent grief, or with voice uplifted
alongside those of strangers in united celebration or song.
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CkDWD5 CA1Hk
A1 MCCA
Even surrounded by thousands of people, I felt calm
FAREZ RAHMAN, 34, IS A FREELANCE PROGRAMMER
WHO LIVES IN LONDON
[10] I visited Mecca for the frst time two years ago,
and I was immediately in awe of the situation and
the number of people present. When I go to the
mosque at home, I just see people from my own
community, but here the whole world was part
of that community, and that was exciting. There
was a real sense of unity. The crowd became most
emotional when they approached the holy site
known as the Kaabah some people were crying;
others, like me, were content to stand back from the
Kaabah, while others were pushing past each other
to get to it. Yet, despite this, there was a deep sense
of calm, and once I had recited my prayers I sat in the
crowd for several hours. Even with all those people
around me, it was calming, away from lifes usual
stresses. You feel you are a member of that group,
and I felt a stronger connection with my religion by
seeing I was part of this huge community. Yet I also
felt strongly aware of myself, not depersonalised
or cut off from reality as you can sometimes be in
a crowd. When I look back on that day, I remember
feeling a connection to something deeper, more
spiritual.
Why the many are
smarter than the few
[9] Until recently, the intellectual abilities of the crowd were
held in poor contempt. But, argues James Surowiecki in The
Wisdom of Crowds, a crowds response will be far from the
lowest common denominator. Given the right circumstances,
groups are remarkably intelligent. A group can reach a wise
decision even when most of its members are not especially
well-informed or rational. Crowds, by dint of their diversity,
lateral knowledge and innate frictions are programmed to
make better collective decisions than the experts, posits
Surowiecki. There is a deep-seated wisdom accessed in crowds
that works. Assemble a bunch of randoms, argues Surowiecki,
ask for a real solution and you will get a clarity of answer born
of disagreement and contest. Assemble a bunch of experts
and you will get consensus, compromise and sycophantic
specialisms.

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CAPE COAST, GHANA Britain abolished
the slave trade 200 years ago. Its landmarks
are an abiding legacy of cruelty
By Mary Evans
The dungeons can still shock, two centuries after their last
inmates were freed. Damp and smelly in the tropical air,
immersed in virtual darkness, this is where slaves were
kept, often for months at a time before being led down a
tunnel through the door of no return to ships riding in the
surf, ready to begin their appalling voyage over the ocean.
The dungeons were excavated in the late 19th century, a
mass of caked excrement was removed, together with the
bones of birds and animals on which the slaves presumably
fed. On such misery was founded a global trading system
that in its heyday, in the mid-18th century, was taking
about 85,000 Africans a year across the Atlantic to work on
sugar and tobacco plantations that made Europe rich.
Cape Coast Castle was the grandest of the slave
emporiums, at the centre of the trade. But in present-day
Ghana, then called the Gold Coast, there were over 30
more slave forts, built and maintained by almost all of the
European trading powers of the day: the Swedes, Danes,
French, British, Dutch and Portuguese.
The triangular trade as it was known, whereby slave-
ships left European ports for west Africa with rum, guns,
textiles and other goods to exchange for slaves, and then
transported them across the Atlantic to sell to plantation-
owners, and then returned with sugar and coffee, also
fuelled the frst great wave of economic globalisation.
By the mid-18th century Britain was the biggest slaving
nation, and ports like Bristol, Liverpool and London thrived
as a result.
So integral to the British economy was the slave
business that there were few men and institutions of
wealth who did not want to invest in it, from the royal
family and the Church of England downwards.
Conscience speaking
Given how entrenched the slave trade was at the time, it is
remarkable that a campaign to abolish it which began in
1787 succeeded only two decades later. It was 200 years ago
that a bill to abolish slavery got through its second, decisive
reading in Parliament.
Ultimately it was the shame and degradation that the
slave traffc brought to those involved, perpetrators as well
as victims, that proved its undoing.
Some even call the slave trade a holocaust. Up to 20m
Africans were taken across the Atlantic between the 15th
and 19th centuries. The slaves were not meant to be killed,
or even worked to death (though many did die); there was
no effort to wipe out a race. Still, as the writer William St
reading 1he conomist
8reaking
the
chains

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By the mid-18th century Britain
was the biggest slaving nation
zz Exam Issue Volume 6 zj Exam Issue Volume 6
Clair points out, in one way the analogy with Nazi death
camps works in the organised fctions, hypocrisies and
self-deceptions that enabled otherwise reasonably decent
people to condone, to participate and to beneft.
For most Europeans the existence of the slave trade,
and slavery itself, was barely known. In England there
was no slavery, so there was no particular reason for most
people to face the ugly truth.
The means by which sugar lumps arrived on tables in
polite society were carefully hidden. The young offcers
of the African Service who volunteered to man the slave
forts and oversee the dungeons were children of the age
of enlightenment. They saw themselves as well-endowed
with all the refned feelings and sensibilities that could be
expected of a gentleman.
But there was still a pervasive feeling that those
involved in the trade were doing something deeply
wrong. This sense of guilt was to prove the Achilles heel
of the slave trade in Europe. The task the abolitionists set
themselves was to expose the reality of the trade to an
ignorant public. They thought the moral sense of ordinary
people would do the rest, and in part they were right.
An essay that mattered
But lighting the spark of conscience needs brave individuals
like Thomas Clarkson, the moving spirit behind the
founding of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of
Slavery in 1787. He had been a student at Cambridge
University two years before. He entered the universitys
Latin essay contest, set by a vice-chancellor who was also
an early abolitionist. The title was: Is it lawful to make
slaves of others against their will? After two months
research, he not only won the prize but also dedicated the
rest of his long life to the cause of abolition.
If anyone was the founder of the modern human-rights
movement it was Clarkson. Even the Quakers, the frst
abolitionists, were impressed by his zeal. It was essentially
the alliance of Clarkson, an Anglican, and the Quakers, with
their existing network of preachers and supporters, that
made up the abolitionist movement.
Clarkson fxed the strategy of the campaign. His frst
task was to gather evidence about the slave trade, not
easy when things were so hidden from public view. He
spent long periods in Liverpool and Bristol, trying to gather
testimony from the captains or doctors of slave ships, or
freed slaves. Almost nobody would talk to him, but over the
years small chinks opened in the wall of silence.
Clarksons greatest coup was to get hold of a plate, or
diagram, of the slave-ship Brookes, owned by a Liverpool
family of that name, which operated between the Gold
Coast and Jamaica. The plate showed the Brookes loaded
with 482 slaves, lined up in rows and squashed together.
In 1789 they published 700 posters of this image and it
was a sensation; nobody could now deny the horrors of
the middle passage, during which many slaves either
killed themselves or died of disease, starvation and cruel
treatment. It became the abiding image of the campaign.
Clarkson also organised what was probably the frst
ever consumer-goods boycott, of slave-grown sugar, to
bring home to ordinary Britons at their tea tables the
message that they were paying a dreadful price in human
cruelty for indulging a sweet tooth. And he inspired the
parliamentary movement against slavery, recruiting a
young Tory, William Wilberforce,* as spokesman.
Copy, copy and copy again
In its tactics, boycotts, moral zeal, lobbying, research and
its use of images, the British campaign was a template for
many later ones against slavery in the Belgian Congo in
the late 19th century; against apartheid in South Africa; and
against segregation in the American south.
For all the fervour of its opponents, the slave trade
would not have collapsed without rebellions by the victims.
The most important was in 1791 on St Domingue. Within
two months the slaves had taken control of the island, led
by the remarkable Toussaint LOuverture. Samuel Sharpes
uprising on Jamaica in 1831 was put down at great cost. The
British feared that if slavery continued, they would lose
some colonies altogether. So in 1833 slavery was abolished
throughout their empire.
Britain was not the frst to outlaw the slave trade in
its territory; the Danes had done so in 1803, the French
temporarily in 1794 and several northern American states
had also done so before 1807. Other European nations,
notably the Portuguese, persisted with the trade into the
1860s.
The European and American role in the slave trade is
now well-known and governments, such as Britains and
Frances, as well as individual cities have apologised. There
will be much talk about apologies this year. But will words
of regret be enough?
* It was William Wilberforce who brought successive bills before
Parliament to abolish the slave trade until one was passed in 1807.

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The means by which sugar lumps
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vi be
zq Exam Issue Volume 6
Where theres a WiII, theres a way
Of the 17,677 different words William
Shakespeare used in his plays and poems,
an estimated 10% were new to the English
language. He is credited with neologisms (new
words) that are now commonly used, such as:
excellent, submerge, homicide, gnarled, bump,
hurry, hint, lonely, and majestic. The word
neologism itself, however, only entered the
language in around 1800.
5upersuckers
The American Food
and Drug Authoritys
decision in 2004 to
license leeches as
the frst live medical
devices marks the
recognition of a form of medicine practised
by the Ancient Egyptians 3,500 years ago. It
seems that leech saliva contains more than
30 different proteins that help to numb pain,
reduce swelling and keep blood fowing.
Name that name
In addition to Novelty, a town in Missouri,
USA, over 152 place names around
the world contain the English word
New.
InvisibIe man?
Scientists at
Tokyo University
are working on
an invisibility
cloakwhich combines a video camera,
computer and hooded coat made
of special refective material to
enable the wearer to melt into the
background.
j times a second
With more than 80 million births per year, it
has been calculated that an average 176 babies
are born every minute or three per second.
If current growth rates continue, the worlds
population of about six billion could become 12
billion by 2054.
fits qoo
Microchip manufacturer
Intel says that silicon
will soon be replaced by
hafnium a metal used in
making nuclear reactors.
Using hafnium will allow
the use of 45-nanometre
transistors, which are so small that 400 could ft
on the surface of a single human red blood cell.
1aIk through the hand
Japanese
communications
company NTT
claims it has
developed
technology that
can send data over
the surface of the skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps
(megabits per second) equivalent to a fast
broadband data connection. Using the bodys
natural electric current it would enable you to
download photos from your camera
to your laptop just by touch.
Source: holland herald
While we have made every effort
to trace the copyright holders of
articles and illustrations contained in
this issue, we would be grateful for
any information that might assist us
in identifying sources we have as yet
been unable to fnd.
ditor
Johan Graus
ditoriaI assistant
Aafke Moons
CompiIed by
Gerda Cook-Bodegom
Johan Graus
Caspar van Haalen
Rob van Koldenhoven
Aafke Moons
Ine Sanders
Bianca Struik
Frederike Westera
Listening materiaIs
Bridget Schiff
1eaching enquiries
Johan Graus
waspreporter@plex.nl
Photo on cover
Corbis
ditoriaI agency
RVTekst, Nijmegen
Craphic design
Maura van Wermeskerken, Apeldoorn
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New facts & gures
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