ISSUE 695 | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 FREE

0ALATINATEATs3PECIALANNIVERSARYSUPPLEMENTINSIDE

Chancellor mobbed by Chad’s Day crowd

TOM BRADLEY
Chancellor Bill Bryson was in Durham on Saturday to lend a hand to Student Community Action’s litterpick - here he is being mobbed by an
over-enthusiastic Chad’s Day crowd. And who said you can’t have a personal relationship with your tutors? Interview on page 3 >>

University honoured as
Olympic training venue
David Rhys Elward
DURHAM UNIVERSITY has
been included on a list of sport-
ing facilities across the country
which will be available as train-
ing camps for visiting teams,
for its facilities for Archery,
Fencing, Football, Hockey, and
Table Tennis.
Durham is one of the lead-
ing sporting universities in the
country, and is joined on the list
by several other universities, in-
cluding Loughborough, Oxford,
Northumbria, and Sunderland.
The list of 600 venues will be
published at the Beijing Games
in the summer, and will allow
participating countries an exten-
sive range of high quality elite
sporting facilities from which
they will be able to decide where
they base themselves, or where
individual athletes can prepare
in the run up to the games in
August, 2012.
Daniel Lewis, the University’s
Deputy Director of Sport told
Palatinate: “We are obviously
delighted to have been includ-
ed. We have a history of host-
ing major events and teams, for
example three teams in the Euro
96 campaign, World and Euro-
pean Cross Country Champion-
ships and International hockey
festivals, but this is still a big
honour for the University. We
will be working very closely
with partners in the North East
to target selected countries with
whom we have regional links...
What impact this will have on
Durham’s students and their
possible involvement will large-
ly depend on what size of team
we might attract to the Univer-
sity.”
Whilst the University have
plans to develop the sports fa-
cilities on both the Durham and
Queens campuses Mr Lewis
said that these “are part of our
long term strategy for sport and
are not linked to the possible
hosting of a training camp.”
Adam Wallace, President of
the Athletic Union responding
to the announcement said that it
would obviously raise the pro-
ÀOHRIWKH8QLYHUVLW\EXWZRXOG
probably not affect students
since any training would hap-
pen out of term time.
Lord Sebastian Coe, Chair of
the London 2012 Organising
Committee, said, “It’s a great
opportunity for towns through-
out the UK to get involved in our
plans”.

NEWS FEATURES COMMENT

Increase in Durham vs. York - Is attention-seeking
burglaries do we measure up? charity degrading?
p5 >> p16 >> p8 >>
 palatinate.news@durham.ac.uk
2 NEWS www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

NEWS IN BRIEF
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mayhem and a silent disco for nights of surreal madness.
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for a second year running.
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voter turnout, which came after
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year. There has been an increase
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turn out in the election was the
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>> 22 The free ice-cream on offer cer-
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Sport >> 29 worked very hard getting their
colleges to vote.” Laura Math-
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Search for Roman Catholic
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for Catholic Studies which will
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of Hexham and Newcastle, the
Right Reverend Kevin Dunn,
who had been actively cam-
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necessary to create the Chair.
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to be involved in the outreach
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aims to become an internation-
ally known research centre.
Austin Donohoe, Chair of the
Fundraising Committee and Di-
rector of Catholic social serv-
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conviction that we now have
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another great centre of Catholic
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region and well beyond”
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Theology and Religion, as well
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ing Roman Catholic scholar to
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PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
The Chancellor was in Durham over the weekend promoting the work of ‘My Friend Oli’, an organisation raising awareness about organ donation.
Oli Lewington and Bill Bryson, pictured top-left and centre with the models of the Hatfield College Charity Fashion Show, met many students, talking about how to improve
the numbers of people, specifically Durham students, who are signed up on the organ donation register. For more information on My Friend Oli visit www.myfriendoli.com.
“I’m like the Queen, and Chris Higgins is PM”
Alex Lawton
10.00 AM, dressed as smartly
as one should be when meeting
their Chancellor, I was intro-
duced to Bill Bryson by my col-
lege principle, Martyn Evans.
Bill himself had sparkling blue
eyes and was dressed as a Chan-
cellor and travel writer should
be - tweed, dark green jacket,
vibrant red tie, white shirt, dark
green trousers and hiking boots.
Yes, hiking boots. I thought this
RGG DW ÀUVW EXW WKHQ WKRXJKW
why not? Perhaps he’s just tak-
en a walk in the woods. He was
perfectly charming and assured
me that he would give me plen-
ty of time to ask him ‘anything I
wanted’ as ‘there are no secrets
amongst us’.
I blushed and giggled, trying
to get to grips with the fact that
I would be interviewing him at
various points in the day, the
ÀUVWEHLQJLQKDOIDQKRXU·VWLPH
I ambled over to my seat and
sat down, anticipating what my
interview would entail. I drank
my tea and waited whilst men-
tally punching down the butter-
ÁLHVÁRDWLQJLQP\VWRPDFK
Finally, after half an hour had
passed, Chancellor Bill was
ready for his interview. I gulped
down the remainder of my tea,
attempted to do the same with
my cowardice and walked over
to Bill, perched on the edge of
my seat opposite him on a sofa
that could have lost me amidst
its pillows and commenced my
interview.
Alexandra Lawton: ‘Hello
there, I have to say I’m some-
what nervous at the prospect of
interviewing you, you’re a very
intimidating man!’
Bill Bryson: ‘Oh no, not at all,
I’m most certainly not intimi-
dating. I’m a cupcake’.
Alex: ‘Are you indeed? Well
in that case I can proceed at
ease! So, what was life like for
you when you were a student at
Drake University in your home
state of Iowa?’
Bill: ‘Wow, that was a long time
ago! In truth, it wasn’t very in-
teresting because Drake was in
my home town and that was a
bit of a mistake for me. Actu-
ally, part of the reason I was so
excited about coming to Dur-
ham was because I’m getting
some of the student life I never
had before. When I went to
Drake, I literally just commuted
from home to the classroom. I
never did a single social thing,
the only social contact I really
had was with people from my
home town, Des Moins, and
with people from high school
and so on. Coming to Durham,
you realise how important all
those things are, like contacts
and friends and University life
in general’
Alex: ‘Yes, all those little things
that make Durham unique. Like
endless hill climbing and the
Castle..’
Bill: ‘Yes, like on Thursday
night I went to this play in the
Assembly rooms that was very
good and then to this fashion
VKRZ DW +DWÀHOG &ROOHJH
There are so many ways of
proving you’ve got talent at
Durham.’
Alex: ‘Yes, quite. Shame about
your University days, because it
rules out the question - what’s
the naughtiest thing you ever
did as a student?!’
Bill: ‘Oh no! I actually did noth-
ing naughty as a student.’
Alex: ‘I doubt that. In fact I
don’t believe that for a second.’
Bill: ‘Not because I’m incapa-
ble of being naughty, it’s just
university didn’t inspire the
naughty streak if you will. I was
naughtier when I was at high
school!’
Alex: ‘Do tell me what the
naughtiest thing you did in high
school was. I’m intrigued and
I’m sure the students of Durham
would be interested to know!’
Bill: ‘Well, I didn’t really attend
high school. I had led the teach-
ers to...‘
Alex: ‘You skived?’
Bill: ‘Well.. yes, yes I did. I had
two years running of absences.’
Alex: ‘Good Lord!’
Bill: ‘Yes, I was absent one year
more than a boy who’d died..
I actually was. I was a really,
really bad student, I was very
under-motivated which is again
ZK\,ÀQG'XUKDPVRH[FLWLQJ·
Alex: ‘So did you ever regret
leaving Drake and not pursuing
your studies?’
Bill: ‘No, I don’t and I didn’t.
My life has been unconven-
tional and very accidental but
it’s worked out incredibly well
for me. I would never have
done what I do professionally
if I hadn’t left home and gone
out into the world - and I would
never have met my dear wife‘
Alex: ‘Cynthia!’
Bill: ‘Yes! Cynthia, or had kids
or any of those things; but what
I keep saying to my kids is I got
away with it and as time has
come on, it has become a lot
harder to drop out. You have to
be conventional, you have to get
a degree in this day and age to
succeed’.
Alex: ‘Did you always want to
be a writer?’
Bill: ‘Interesting question! I sup-
pose I did but the more I think
about it, I never really knew an-
ything else I could do. English
was the only thing I ever had
any skills at.. You know, mess-
ing around with words’.
Alex: ‘Yes, you’re good at that!
You describe Durham as a ‘per-
fect little city’. Your last book
was out in 2007 and was based
on Shakespeare. Would you
ever consider writing something
about Durham? Perhaps about
your experience as a Chancel-
lor, how to and how not to be a
student, doing your research by
going on nights out?’
Bill: ‘Very good! Possibly, I
mean, I would never write any-
thing about Durham that was a
piss-take. In an awful lot of the
books I’ve written, the humour
is sarcastic about the particular
places and people I’ve met and
visited.’
Alex: ‘My particular favourite
is Mrs Smegma’
Bill: Thank you! Yes, she was
GHÀQLWHO\ VRPHWKLQJ (YHQ LI ,
did have something bad to say
about Durham, which I don’t,
I wouldn’t write about it as it
would be disloyal so I don’t
think I could write anything
about it. I’ve mellowed these
days. I’m trying to feel more
palatinate.news@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
positive about things!’
Alex: ‘Ok, how about this for
ammunition? You say in your
book, ‘Notes from a Small Is-
land’- ‘If you’ve never been to
Durham, go at once, take my
car, it’s marvellous’. Tell me,
Would you lend me your car to
go to Stockton?’
Bill: ‘Yes! Yes, Stockton has
got a lot going for it. I feel like
I’ve only been to Stockton once
though, I’ve been to Queens
Campus several times but would
actually like to see ‘Stockton’.
But I like the Campus very
much. As Chancellor, one of my
goals is to get the two campuses
to work closer together. I think
that’s really very important for
the University as a whole.’
Alex: ‘Sure, I completely agree.
Onto some more personal ques-
tions now if you don’t mind?
Chris Higgins the Vice Chancel-
lor, is he your Gordon Brown?’
Bill: ‘No! I’m more like the
Queen and he’s like the Prime
minister! In that I’m more of a
ÀJXUHKHDG·
Alex: ‘If you had one piece of
advice for Durham students,
what would it be?’
Bill: ‘I believe it’s incredibly
important to do your best. You
should identify what it is in life
that you really want to do, go
out and try to be the best at it.
I just don’t see why anybody
would settle for less than that’.
Alex: ‘Yes, absolutely. Now,
having lived in both the States
and Britain, which do you think
is the correct side of the road to
drive on is?’
Bill: ‘Good question! Well!
The correct side of the road is
NEWS 3
OLI LEWINGTON
the right side, but I’m prepared
to give you a dispensation, be-
cause you’re so used to driving
on the left. It will always seem
odd and wonderfully exotic to
me, as even after all the years
I’ve been over here, it really
doesn’t take much for me not to
remember I’m not in Iowa any-
more. The one thing that does
remind me however, is the driv-
ing situation.’
Alex: ‘Good answer.. sort of!
If you had to go back in time to
meet someone who’s been an
inspiration to you, who would it
be and why?
Bill: ‘If I could go back in time,
right now, I think it would be re-
ally interesting to go right back
and meet someone from the
caveman period and see what
life was like for them’.
Alex: ‘Meet the inventor of the
wheel for example’.
Bill: ‘Exactly.’
Alex ¶$QG ÀQDOO\ WKH ORQJ
awaited last, highly anticipated
question! Are you working on
anything at the moment?’
Bill: ‘I am, I’m doing a book
about the history of private
life!’
Alex: ‘Fantastic! I can’t wait
to read it. Having delved deep
into your history however Bill,
I must thank you for putting up
with this interview with all my
incessantly annoying questions,
and wish you all the best with
your new book. I hope to see
you again someday.’
Bill: ‘You’re welcome, and
likewise!’
More on Bill’s new book at
palatinate.org.uk
 palatinate.news@durham.ac.uk
4 NEWS www.palatinate.org.uk
President’s
Column
Is the only
viable future
for British
universities
one in which
institutions are
free to charge
higher fees?
This week the Guardian News-
room are kick-starting a debate
that has been rumbling for a
while. Vice Chancellors and
Universities across the country
are calling on the government
to increase the amount they can
charge for University educa-
tion. Eric Thomas, Vice Chan-
cellor of Bristol University says
that “Politicians must bite the
bullet and give universities the
freedom to charge higher fees”.
7KDW·VÀJKWLQJWDONEXWWKHUH
are plenty of people on the oth-
er side of the fence pointing out
that a charge of £10,000 a year
for university education will
price many students out of the
market. The suggestion of many
VCs that individual institutions
should be free to set their own
fees is up for discussion when
the government reviews the
current system in 2009.
The lifting of the current £3145
cap would allow institutions to
charge variable fees and mean
that some, such as Durham,
would be pitting themselves at
the top of the market, whilst
others would take more of an
“economy value” approach.
Faced with the choice of a de-
gree that costs £3000, but is
perhaps not as good as another
that costs £10,000 but claims to
be top of the range, which one
would you choose? This su-
permarket approach to higher
education strikes me and many
others as a dangerous shift, and
sets an irreversible precedent
within the British education
system.
BURSTING THE BUBBLE by Ursula Hankinson
Warrior prince
returns home
Prince Harry has returned from
a secret tour of duty in Afghani-
stan. The Prince, who has been
serving as a tank troop leader
LQ+HOPDQ3URYLQFHÁHZEDFN
early after 10 weeks due to
fears he would be targeted by
the Taliban. Harry has rejected
the hero label, instead prais-
ing those he worked with on
the front line. The Prince also
thanked the press for keeping
his deployment secret for so
long and said that he hopes to
go back to Afghanistan as soon
as possible.
Those arguing for variable fees
suggest that extensive bursaries
and schemes will help those
whose parents cannot fund their
education. We are to trust that
this will amend the “national
disgrace” that in 2003 Charles
Clarke, former education min-
ister who introduced top up
fees, described as the social gap
among those entering higher
education. But I suspect that
such a regressive policy will do
the opposite. The fear of debt
means that students will have to
take the gamble and judge at the
age of 17 whether or not they
wish to commit themselves to
decades of repayments: stu-
dents won’t be choosing a de-
gree based on what is best for
them, but rather on the price
tag attached. Allowing variable
fees will cement a two-tier edu-
cation system: those who can
afford to will naturally pick the
expensive universities, whilst
middle-class students ineligible
for bursaries will feel priced out
of the market. In turn, univer-
sities at the top will struggle to
remain academically elite.
National levels of debt are at
an all time high and students
are starting their working lives
knee-deep in repayments. Next
term DSU are launching a
campaign that will feed into a
national effort in the run-up to
the Government’s 2009 review.
We’ll be calculating the Dur-
ham debt and asking for your
opinions so that by 2009 stu-
dents nationally will be able to
ÀJKWIRUDEHWWHUIDLUHUV\VWHP
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Music students dismayed
at plans to relocate library
Andy Rogerson
MUSIC STUDENTS and the
Head of the Department, Dr
Bennett Zon, have met with the
Library Steering Committee
to oppose the relocation of the
Music Department library.
Plans to relocate the depart-
ment’s library to an extension
of the Main library have been
met by increasing student pro-
test for months. The plans list-
ed in the Gateway project are
part of wider reforms hoping
to improve the university. Yet
the plans to convert the Palace
Green Library into a World Her-
itage Sight Visitor Centre have
proved controversial among
staff and students alike.
According to the Facebook
group ‘Save Palace Green Mu-
sic Department Library’, which
has attracted more than 800
members, the relocation will
have disastrous effects upon
music in Durham. Listing its
University has no spending worries
Laura Griffiths
IT HAS BEEN reported that
universities are more in debt
than at any point in the last dec-
ade, due to increased spending
on building work to meet the
demands of students paying
higher fees.
The National Student Survey
has resulted in many universi-
ties planning additional refur-
bishment and expansion as they
realise student dissatisfaction.
Data released to The Guardian
by the Higher Education Statis-
tics Agency shows that several
universities had gained debts
of more than £4m by the end of
the 2006-7 academic year. The
universities most affected were
Manchester University with a
Russia crowns new President
Dmitri Medvedev has secured
victory in Russia’s Presiden-
tial elections. Medvedev, the
Kremlin supported candidate,
appears to have won with 70.23
per cent of the vote, way ahead
of his rivals. His landslide win,
however, has been criticised
by commentators who are con-
cerned by the role former presi-
dent Vladimir Putin will play in
the future of Russia’s politics.
Medvedev has never held a
SROLWLFDO RIÀFH EHIRUH EXW LV
supported by Putin. In his cam-
paign, which was publicised
through staged public events
and widely broadcasted on the
Music students oppose the relocation
of the music library from Palace Green
objections, the group states the
relocation ignores practicalities
and recent investment in the
department. It is also suggested
that the relocation of the library
from Palace Green, which has
been the heart of the University
since 1832, will damage the de-
partment’s reputation and will
PDNH LW PRUH GLIÀFXOW IRU WKH
department to attract top music
students, as they compete with
growing UK and international
competition.
There appears to be much re-
debt of £12.4m, Nottingham
Trent University with £7.4m
and the University of London
with £6.9m.
Some universities have
planned their spending rely-
ing on the tuition fee cap be-
ing raised beyond the current
£3,145, meaning their debt has
escalated. As well as tuition
fees, universities depend on
funds from the Higher Educa-
tion Funding Council for Eng-
land (HEFCE), research funds
and the recruitment of interna-
tional students to avoid debt.
Paulina Lubacz, Durham Uni-
versity’s Treasurer, commented
that although the university has
loans, it is not in debt: “Our
borrowings are higher than they
were, but we also have a greater
income.” She insisted that the
Kremlin controlled television
networks, Medvedev portrayed
himself as a reformer and prom-
ised to crack down on corrup-
tion. Putin has announced that
he will remain in government
once he steps down as presi-
dent.
European Union Commission
President, Jose Manuel Bar-
roso, said he was certain the
EU-Russian “strategic partner-
ship” would continue, whilst
other Western governments
have said they look forward to
working with him, though they
avoided commenting on the
election itself.
MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
sentment at the new facilities
being built to house the law li-
brary, whilst ‘music are getting
absolutely nothing other than a
weaker department’.
Penny Walters, who has been
spearheading the students’ peti-
tions said in an email sent out
to all music students: “Bennett
Zon presented both the depart-
mental and student documents
to a meeting with the Library
Steering Committee yesterday.
There was no positive or nega-
tive response at the time.
7UHDVXU\·V ÀQDQFLDO IRUHFDVW
does not rely on the tuition fee
cap being lifted. Durham Uni-
versity raises many of its build-
ing funds from alumni dona-
tions and charities so can afford
WR PDNH EXLOGLQJV ´ÀW IRU SXU-
pose”. The university also hopes
to receive money from research
councils and a greater number
of international students.
Durham University does have
plans for more building work,
such as a new Student Serv-
ices building at the Science
Site, which will gather together
several scattered departments.
A new Law Department, li-
brary extension and executive
RIÀFHV DUH DOVR SODQQHG RQ
Stockton Road. This Gateway
programme is part of a planned
£60m development, which also
Man must give Pork prices
wife roses prompt protest
An Iranian court has ordered
a man to give his wife the
124,000 roses he promised her
LQ KHU GRZU\ DIWHU VKH ÀOHG D
FRPSODLQW 7KH PDQ·V ÁDW KDV
been seized until he produces
all of the roses. Under Iranian
law a woman can claim her
dowry at any time during a mar-
riage or when getting divorced.
The woman decided to claim
her roses to punish her husband
of ten years for being ‘very
stingy’. In the Iranian capital,
Tehran, a long-stemmed rose
costs about $2 or £1.10.
DURHAM UNIVERSITY
  ´7KLV ZDV WKH ÀUVW WLPH WKDW
any discussion which included
the Music department has taken
place. Obviously it is vital that
everyone understands that this
potential plan of relocation has
not gone away.
“We must still make people
aware of our objections to the
LGHD DQG EH UHDG\ WR ÀJKW EXW
only when the time is right.”
Ms Walters will be meeting
with the VC the Dean and Dr
Zon on 13 March to discuss the
matter further.
includes refurbishing a building
at Mountjoy for administrative
RIÀFHVDQGVRPHUHRUJDQLVDWLRQ
of academic departments on the
Bailey. An estimate of £5m is
expected to be spent on refur-
bishing St. Aidan’s and Grey
Colleges over the summer. The
Treasurer said that this build-
ing work was not the result of
student demand for better facili-
ties, but simply due to a “need
for greater capacity.”
Referring to the National
Student Survey, Lubacz com-
mented that there was “not a
direct link” between this and
the planned building work, but
that the university “takes the
survey very seriously”, so the
Treasurer strongly encourages
as many students as possible to
take part.
Hundreds of farmers will pro-
test at the falling price of pork
this week. With the low price
of pork and increasing rearing
costs, many farmers are being
forced to quit, which could lead
to a pork shortage this summer.
Feed prices have doubled in the
past twenty years and currently
farmers are losing £20 for eve-
ry pig raised. Another cause
RI SURÀW GHFOLQH LV WKH VWULFW
British regulations, which the
rest of Europe does not have to
abide by, making British pork
more expensive to produce.
 palatinate.news@durham.ac.uk
PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 www.palatinate.org.uk NEWS 5

Palatinate asks are you in love with your degree,

or is it just a stop on your way to the top?
Alexandra
Lawton Stockton Spy
So you think you can dance?
“I’m completely in love with my degree!
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ways changing. It is especially good at LQDVVRFLDWLRQZLWK0LGGOHVEURXJK·V¶&HURF'DQFH&OXE·PHDQLQJ
Durham.” Claire Turner that if you fancy yourself to be the next Fred Astaire (one can dream),
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Chad’s SPJDWKHULQJUHDPVRISDUWLFLSDQWVDOOHDJHUWREHDEOHWRVSLQ
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“I’m doing my degree mostly for the job IRRWIRUZDUGLI\RXZLOO(DFKVWXGHQWZDVRIGLIIHUHQWVWDQGDUGVEXW
HYHU\ERG\FDPHWRJHWKHUQLFHO\GXHWRWKHPDMHVW\DQGJUDFHRIWKH
prospects. Engineering is not an easy de- GDQFHLQVWUXFWRUVVHWWLQJWKHH[DPSOH3KLOLSDQG$OH[DQGUD0RWOH\
gree!” 7KHVHVVLRQVWDUWHGZLWKDGHPRQVWUDWLRQRILPSRVLQJVNLOOIURP0U
Paul Harwood DQG0UV0RWOH\VWULNLQJERWKMHDORXV\DQGIHDULQWRWKHERGLHVRIWKH
Cuth’s GDQFHUVWKDWKDGWRUHSHDWWKHLVRPHWULFPRYHVWKDWKDGEHHQVWUXWWHG
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Laura Griffiths
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for learning as they did a dec-
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their degree based on the result-
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chancellors and lecturers, the
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“I’m in love with parts of my subject. I’m
doing a Masters in Developmental Psy-
chopathology, which I need to go on to
do a PhD. It’s good for my CV, but I enjoy
it too.” Zoe Tsivos
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due to the increased emphasis
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Spring prompts an increase in burglaries

Jodie Smith
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the number of thefts increase as
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security conscious and usually
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such as laptops, printers and
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was wide open and the lights
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Dawson, a 2nd year student
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most of the bedrooms were
trashed, so we left the house in a
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the police, and they said to stay
out of the house until they ar-
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were still in the house when
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Clinton keeps presidential Chef’s fake Chiefs forecast

hopes alive with key victories
Hillary Clinton secured three
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knight claims Hitler’s plans
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A chef from Wiltshire who Files released by the National
tion in August before either
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delegates in order to secure the
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McCain secured the nomina-
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tion after winning in all of the
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four contested states (includ-
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Obama still leads the race
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a battle that will intensify as
the primaries and caucuses
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the race and pledged his support
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will now prepare to battle it out
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for the White House with who-
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 palatinate.news@durham.ac.uk
6 NEWS www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

Durham under the weather

>> Gale-force winds and earthquake hit Durham in day of disruption
Jodie Smith
IN A WEEK of wild weather
that included an earthquake and
winds of nearly 90mph, Durham
has not been left unscathed.
Intense gales on 26 Febru-
ary resulted in wind speeds of
84mph recorded at Newcastle
Airport. It also saw the roof
tiles of the Philosophy building
on Old Elvet torn off, causing
considerable damage to nearby
vehicles. This led to the closure
of the road for some time after
the incident, forcing a number
of students to use the back door
WRWKHGHSDUWPHQW+DWÀHOGVWX-
nation-wide earthquake in the
early hours of 27 February.
The earthquake, the biggest
in the UK for 25 years, which
occurred at around 0100GMT,
measured 5.2 on the Richter
scale and was felt by millions of
people all over the country. The
epicentre was in Market Rasen,
Lincolnshire, but tremors were
felt as far away as London and
parts of Wales.
Durham’s Professor Robert
Holdsworth, an expert in struc-
tural geology in the Department
of Earth Sciences, believes that
the earthquake could be linked
to an old fault zone that has lain
dormant for hundreds of mil-
lions of years.
“Most potentially damaging
earthquakes like this occur near
to plate boundaries such as the
6DQ$QGUHDV)DXOWµ+HUHÁHFW-
ed that “the UK, however, lies
in the interior of a plate so this
is quite unusual. The UK crust
is riddled with such old faults
which form an important part of
our geological heritage. Perhaps
this one is just reminding us that
it is still there.”
Another Durham expert, Pro-
fessor of Geophysics Roger
Searle, also commented on the
event: “A quake as large as the
Market Rasen quake is quite
rare in Britain. It is almost 25
years since the last one of this
size, which was in Wales.”
However, despite being the
biggest earthquake in Britain
for a quarter of a century, it was
nothing compared to those in
other parts of the world.
“Enormous earthquakes like
the 2004 Banda Aceh Box-
ing Day earthquake are about
a million times more energetic
than this one,” added Professor
Searle.

GEORGE BAIRSTOW
dents were also warned to avoid
using a pathway near the col-
lege chapel, as it was feared
that the Chapel Cross, which
had seemed to be swaying in the
wind, might fall down.
As well as this, the computer
room in Palace Green Library
TOM BRADLEY

was closed for the afternoon

due to fears over health and
safety. There were concerns
that the listed building’s stained
Hild Bede student Ashley Cordwell had his hair dyed glass windows might shatter,
pink at Saks hairdressers to raise money for ‘Save the something that has previously
Children’, as part of his summer expedition with DUCK occurred in such windy condi-
to Kilimanjaro. The colour was voted on by friends, with tions.
pink triumphing, followed closely by calls for it to be As if a day of such tumultu- High winds damage
ginger. The current fundraising total stands at £640. ous weather wasn’t enough, roofing on Old Elvet
much of Durham then felt the

So you want to be a
journalist?
There’s just one term left this academic year, which means a mere two issues left to get your work published in
Palatinate. No matter what you like to write about - breaking news, opinion pieces, the latest gigs and shows,
full length features or sports reports - we want to hear what you have to say, and so does the rest of Durham.

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PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
Continue the debate at www.palatinate.org.uk
Today’s high-fliers could be tomorrow’s homeless addicts
Anna Codrea-Rado
THE NOT-SO unfamiliar scene of a
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saucepans pilled high in the sink, a
(probably broken) bike in the garden -
and drugs everywhere.
What I found shocking was not the
quantity but the way it was being tak-
en; it was as though if every last pill
wasn’t dropped or if the last gram of
coke not snorted that night, something
terrible would happen.
My mother often asks me about the
‘youth of today’. It lies behind that
front door - a generation of excess
Prince Harry - right royal rebel or public hero?
Emily Purser
PRINCE HARRY is back in England’s
green and pleasant land. It’s a far cry
from the barren landscape and harsh
heat of the Helmand province in Af-
ghanistan, the Prince’s home for the
past ten weeks. Harry has declared the
war zone “a fantastic place to be”, as
if it were his beloved Klosters, except
with mines and bullets and bombs.
Since his return to Blighty, Harry has
spoken of his enthusiasm to return to
Afghanistan “very, very soon” and has
ÀUPO\UHMHFWHGDQ\VXJJHVWLRQVWKDWKH
is a hero, passing all credit on to those
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Initially, it all smacks of a huge pub-
licity stunt. Rewind a few months and
royal correspondents, whilst simulta-
neously getting their knickers in a twist
about the possibility of no William
and Kate wedding china, were get-
ting hugely excited about the younger
Prince’s man-about-town exploits. Day
after day, photos of Harry falling out of
this Mayfair club, or that drugged-up
SDUW\ÁDVKHGDFURVVIURQWSDJHVDOODW
once appalling and delighting the Brit-
ish public. It was like Fergie Mark II
- a real royal rebel. It would seem to
make sense: the Ministry of Defence
and the palace put their heads together
and binge, in every aspect of life. I see
someone off their face in the DSU, but
two days later we are in a seminar and
I am intimidated by their intellect. Eve-
rything must be done to the extreme.
One drink is never enough, you have to
drink at least double your weekly rec-
ommendation in one night: but the next
day you pull yourself out of bed, trek to
the library, read all the secondary read-
ing and stay up all night churning out a
ÀUVWFODVVHVVD\
I am not surprised when I read about
coke-snorting investment bankers who
spend their weekends in a drug-induced
haze. These are the young executives
who have always been the high achiev-
ers who simply don’t understand the
concept of second best; everything has
to done to the max, they have to live in
the biggest house, drive the fastest car
and have the best high.
Drugs like crystal meth are becoming
more and more popular - to the extent
that new clubs are opening in Vauxhall
at 7am on a Sunday morning to cater
for those still buzzing from a 72 hour
to counteract Harry’s image of a posh,
partying public school boy. Off to Af-
ghanistan he goes, and he would come
back a real public hero. At least, that’s
what PR guru Max Clifford thinks. The
publicity bigshot has gone very public
with his interpretation of the last fort-
QLJKW·V HYHQWV ´LW MXVW FRPHV DFURVV
the whole thing, as a very, very calcu-
lated public relations exercise.” Com-
mentators throughout the media seem
to have latched onto this idea, waving
WKHLU DQWLPRQDUFK\ ÁDJV DV WKH\ JR
The Guardian shouts, “Harry, you’re
not normal, you’re a prince. And this
is war, not therapy,” deeming the affair
“the most fatuous use of Ministry of
Defence resources since Geoff Hoon.”
Cynical, much? The palace may very
well be a bit of a publicity monster,
well versed in rebranding and cover-
ups, but to suggest that the entire mis-
VLRQKDVEHHQRQHGHVLJQHGMXVWWRLQ-
spire us with pro-Harry, and therefore
pro-palace sentiments seems a little
dubious, even for us supposedly ultra-
liberal students.
The whole affair has been conducted
in the dark; the earthquake-that-barely-
was seems rather timely, shaking off
the cloak of secrecy that has shrouded
Harry’s tour. Early last July, the MoD
KHOG D PHHWLQJ ZLWK WKH PDMRU %ULWLVK
news corporations and asked them to
consider a voluntary agreement to keep
Harry’s tour of duty out of the press, in
exchange for extensive coverage to be
used later: a news blackout.
A news blackout is a bit like the war
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for things to go wrong is pretty high.
The public are generally a pretty inquis-
high. That is extreme beyond my com-
prehension. In comparison, the party I
went to was tame.
There is something decadent and in-
dulgent about these people and a side
of me (probably the same side of me
that still maintains smoking is cool)
ÀQGV VRPHWKLQJ VWUDQJHO\ DWWUDFWLYH
about the guy who can get you pills and
knows where the squat raves are and
of course can get you in. But when I
think about it rationally, the pill head’s
comedowns aren’t going to be pleas-
ant and once the coke has worn off, he
won’t have so much to say for himself.
I don’t necessarily believe that every-
one who dabbles with drugs will end
up a homeless heroin addict, but what
does scare me is the desire for more.
In the context of work and academia,
this is surely a healthy addiction.
7KLV DWWLWXGH ZLOO JHW \RX D ÀUVW RU
that sought-after position at Goldman
Sachs. But with regard to drugs is it
not perhaps the reasoning behind try-
ing something like crystal meth?
I don’t mean to say that there is a
itive bunch, always keeping the indus-
try in check; blackouts only work long
term in high drama situations such as
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sure to notice the absence of news and
start asking questions. Over Christmas,
they did; where were the Princes on
Christmas Day? They sure weren’t at
Sandringham with the rest of the clan.
And what did our favourite wild child
get up to on New Year’s Eve? You can
bet the Daily Mail would have been all
over that one if he had been anywhere
but a war zone.
“like the war
Harry has been
fighting, the
potential for
things to go
wrong is pretty
high”
It was, I’m sure, hugely predictable that
the story would break on the Internet,
the home of international blogging and
gossip. What’s almost amusing is that
it was an American blogger who spilt
the beans having discovered the news
on an Australian website; Matt Drudge,
of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair fame,
palatinate.comment@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
COMMENT
broke the story globally and scooped
himself another exclusive. Trust the
British to be puppeteered by the USA.
Harry has said that he was “surprised”
the British news media had held their
tongues- frankly, I am too. Our tabloid
culture is such that keeping the secret
must have been a tough task for edi-
tors - all it would have taken is a letter
home from someone in the know and
an aspiring and ruthless hack.
In the wake of the exposure of the
blackout, editors have been called
upon to explain why they decided to
keep schtum. In an age of relatively
poor public trust in the media, it was
a bold decision not to inform the popu-
lus of what was happening, and one, no
doubt, that they will be criticized for
to some degree. So is it right that this
information was hidden from us? We
can all appreciate the dangers of mak-
ing Harry’s whereabouts public, and
the increased risk the entire regiment
would have been at if this had been the
case. But it didn’t seem to achieve the
desired effect, as the Taliban supposed-
ly knew about Harry’s presence in Af-
ghanistan before we did. Mullah Abdul
.DULQDYHWHUDQÀJKWHUUHSRUWHGWKDW
he heard that an “important chicken”
had arrived and was promptly made a
target, as “he is our special enemy.”
Harry has said that one of the best
things about his tour was the anonym-
ity he found away from the lenses of
the British paparazzi. Known simply
as Harry Wales, he revelled in the free-
dom to whip his top off without the
FDPHUDV ÁDVKLQJ« H[FHSW WKH\ ZHUH
BBC, ITV and Sky cameras were roll-
LQJFDWFKLQJHYHU\PXVFOHÁH[IRURXU
COMMENT 7
growing problem of crystal meth users
forsaking their degree and dropping
out of the University, but I am saying
that this world of excess can turn nasty
when the scales tip out of balance.
99% of the people at that party will
out-grow this phase and go to on to
lead a successful life never touching a
drug again, other than maybe the occa-
sional paracetamol. But there will be a
few who can’t leave Wonderland.
I was always told not to grow up too
quickly, but in our consumer culture
that is often easier said than done. We
are encouraged to expect to have any-
thing we want, which is probably the
reason we are so ambitious but also so
blasé about our reckless behaviour.
Whatever the reason, in answer to my
mother’s question about the nature of
the youth of today - some are hedon-
ists who irresponsibly pursue pleasure,
many are the “sensible” type she would
love to have round for Sunday dinner.
But most are intelligent people who
live to the extreme and want the best
out of life, in all their endeavours.
later delight, and he acknowledges the
awareness of his presence as the “bul-
let magnet.” So if the enemy knew and
the industry powers-that-be knew, was
there any harm in us knowing?
When all’s said and done, the news
media have a responsibility to the pub-
lic to report what they know, but, cru-
cially, not at the expense of personal
or national safety. In hiding the news
about Prince Harry, they were taking a
precaution to protect military person-
nel in an already dangerous situation
and in so doing, affording Harry the
taste of normality that he longed for.
The press must have been convinced of
the MoD’s sincerity in sending Harry
to Afghanistan and indeed the Prince’s
genuine desire to serve his country in
order to cater for their wishes, and have
left the PR cynicism to the Max Clif-
fords of the world.
So Harry, with his paparazzi fatigue
and bleats of “I generally don’t like
England that much,” escaped the Brit-
ish winter for a mere ten weeks and
had a taste of the front line. Only a
long-term cynic could truly doubt his
desire to put his training into practice
and regret at his coming home so fast.
Now Afghanistan is hardly “a fantas-
tic place to be,” but it is a place with
relative anonymity, no Daily Mirror,
QRERG\JXDUGVQRSDODFHRIÀFLDOVQR
SU\LQJSXEOLFDQGRQO\DMREWRGR,Q
a war zone, Prince Harry came as close
to being Average Joe as he ever will,
and in a place which, to the rest of us,
is completely extraordinary, Cornet
Wales found that much awaited sense
of normality, be it as a pawn in a PR
stunt or not.
 palatinate.comment@durham.ac.uk
8 COMMENT www.palatinate.org.uk
COMMENT
Keep your custard pies to yourself: attention-seeking charity is degrading
of chocolate treats from Waitrose? Are
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of charity in our everyday lives that
renders us passive and unsympathetic?
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tuary concerning Big Issue sellers in
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Rachael Revesz WURYHUV\\HW,DPSX]]OHGDVWRKRZD
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GLVWUHVV WKDQ WKH PDMRULW\ RI VWXGHQWV
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MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
ing events and have a more concrete society? In the same way that corporate
knowledge of whom we are support- EXVLQHVVHV VXFK DV .30* ZLOO KDQG
LQJ$SDUW IURP '8&.·V ZHEVLWH WKH RXW IUHH FXSFDNHV QH[W WR WKH 6WXGHQW
general lack of information concerning 8QLRQ '8&. NQRZV WKDW JXDUDQWHHG
the actual charities is rather intriguing. entertainment and free goodies will al-
I’ve done my fair share of fund- ways encourage students to dig deeper
UDLVLQJDWXQLYHUVLW\,·YHFOLPEHGKLOOV LQ WKHLU SRFNHWV WKH\ DUH SUHGLFWDEOH
slept on the street and done fun-runs marketing strategies that simultaneous-
IRU FKDULW\ , HYHQ DSSOLHG WR EH SDUW ly entice us and insult our intelligence.
RID'8&.RUJDQLVHGWULSKLVVXPPHU
I was invited to an interview, which
“it would be ,WZRXOGEHJUDWLI\LQJWRVHHDQDF-
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to host one of the largest money-mak-
ing charity organisations in the country.
/DVW\HDUWKH\UDLVHGDOPRVW…
for local and international charities,
and the lengths that some individuals
go to make a difference is inspiring.
However, why is there always that
sense of reluctance when those yellow
EXFNHWVDUHWKUXVWLQRXUIDFHVDVZHVLW
VLSSLQJD…EURZQLHERPEHULQWKH
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7KLVLVQRWFRPIRUWDEOHVXEMHFWPDW-
ter. But I will presume that everyone
can relate to that feeling of guilt as
we hurry past Big Issue sellers on the
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Making it or faking it? We’re all looking for jobs we know nothing about
Francis Fookes
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the sellers in the street.
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et does rattle your way - it doesn’t
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pected to cough up those coins.
Many colleges use one particularly
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pies which were sporadically shoved in
people’s faces as they ate in the can-
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pie anyone you want. I admit I was on
the receiving end. I hope I took it rather
well, despite falling over while running
out of the hall.
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these somewhat ludicrously entertain-
ploi of some sort, it is now time to ap-
ply to the various companies. Hitherto,
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of the insidiously named companies on
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raise our chances.
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cause, em… and that was when I knew
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I asked myself afterwards why I had
really wanted to travel to the other side
of the world. The improvement of my
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me as the personal need I felt to help
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accepted onto the trip, I genuinely hope
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would everyone?
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and shaving-foam-pie throwing: do the
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hand in hand in competitive collegiate
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By the time you’ve forgotten your
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ning to think your name has already
EHHQEODFNEDOOHG
You’ve told them: where you live, how
old you are, what illnesses you’ve had
(here is always a good point for crea-
gratifying to
see an active
yet dignified
approach to
fundraising in
Durham”
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deleted Windows last week and how
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isn’t as good as Word for writing your
dissertation.
The really fun part now arrives. The
proach to fundraising in Durham.
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complete cynic, I paid to get revenge
on the person who asked to shove a
shaving-foam pie in my face.
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tion-seekers reaping the free rewards.
In the name of the good cause, of
course.
Do you disagree with any of our
opinion-merchants?
palatinate.comment@dur.ac.uk
Correction
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Joe Cookson’s article was incorrectly
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namic’ when all you really want to say
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clients’.
When listing skills, those most highly
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IT HAS COME around to the time of
year when we Arts students confront
some unwelcome truths. These are
twofold: our degrees are not vocational
and one day, fairly soon as it transpires,
we will actually have to leave educa-
tion. We are left to ponder what our de-
Most of these companies are promot-
ed at Durham in a way that momentari-
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kayaking holidays. Of course we see
through this and appreciate that they
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that you’d prefer not to state what the
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warm-up questions arrive:
A-level Results. Here is where the
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Cs are somehow omitted, and those
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yours once mentioned he’d done.
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company does and how to operate the
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grees actually qualify us to do, and the
more pressing question - how we are to
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our penchants for gourmet dinners.
A career in the City seems to answer
the latter question rather well, and so
our minds quickly dance over details,
for instance that one week’s work in the
City is tantamount to an entire term’s
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take down the details and ankle down
for an urgent engagement at the Swan
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for myself in saying that I have only
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all the different links, where the word
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part-time-unrelated-manual-work you
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a day locked in my room.
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re-worded into something like: What
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pany? To which it is necessary to list
the qualities you had when you were
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self up. Something the modest intel-
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scription of a working day, much like
quoting from Wikipedia without us-
ing quotation marks or footnotes when
writing an essay.
Our applications reach maturity in an
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the last-minute discovery of the MS
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sends a speedy reply with a link to the
numeracy test….
Do you disagree with any of our
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PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
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A Truly World Wide Web...
Rosa Rankin-Gee
AN ARTICLE READS very differ-
ently if you come across it 8 years
late. Back in 2000, a New York
Times journalist watches Karin
Stahls, manager of the Ebay Foun-
dation, disembark from a wobbly
wooden boat onto the jetty of San
Pedro, a small lakeshore Guatema-
lan village. She is Christ-like, “dol-
ing out kisses like chocolate” to
grateful, gleaming, brown children.
This is picture-perfect paternalism:
Stahl has come to bless these peo-
ple with internet access.
Fast-forward to today, and San
Pedro is Central America’s narcot-
ics capital. Travellers tanned with
dirt line the streets, sucking on bal-
lenas (whales) of beer and plump
joints. Kids no longer wait for Ka-
rin, they practise their new English
with the riff “Canoes?... Horses? …
Crack?”. Rich North Americans of-
fer peasants peanuts to snap up the
shoreline and build luxury villas.
Yet, for these reasons, the average
income in San Pedro has rocketed;
some parents now have the means
to send their children to university
in the capital city, and James Blunt
ringtones tinkle out of Mayan
men’s mobiles.
While the internet is not solely re-
reason to do so. There are countless
pragmatic advantages to a literal
world-wide-web.
Cutting-edge, specialized health
expertise can be shared; online li-
braries and virtual classrooms vis-
ited; a market of billions tapped.
For the western world, the internet
lubricates life: at the work place,
recreationally, even romantically.
We think of pre-internet days as
rusty and inconceivable.
The internet is our most valuable
resource; and one of the only ones
not on the verge of running out.
It is only natural then, that Ebay
and Stahls saw the installation of a
computer room in San Pedro as the
perfect way to wrench the sleepy
town into the 21st century.
But how inorganic and straining
is leaping, from having no electric-
ity, into the lap of the information
superhighway? The pace of tech-
nology sweeps us off our feet even
in England, where we have seen
computers’ awkward adolescence,
their evolution from lump to lithe.
In Guatemala, like much of the
developing world, this middle
ground is missing. Communicating
“The internet is
our most valuable
resource; and one of
the only ones not on
the verge of running
GP in rural Guatemala? Who’s to
say that even if they wanted to, the
language barrier wouldn’t render
it unfeasible? And access to most
online libraries and newspaper
archives requires hefty subscrip-
tion fees. When you consider that
the average Guatemalan earns just
under $4000 a year, the internet’s
treasures are actually quite buried.
Ebay did realize this, and when
they donated the 15 computers to
Colegio Bethel in 1998, they also
sent a team to give lessons in com-
puter literacy and e-commerce.
In fact, the latter was a very
important facet to their program.
They wanted local craftsmen to be
able to sell their handicraft online,
rather than to local wholesalers
who allegedly then sell it on for 10
times the price.
In comparison, paying Ebay’s
insertion fees (which range from
30 cents to 40 dollars) and 5.25%
ÀQDOYDOXHIHHVVHHPVOLNHDJRRG
deal. However, surely one middle-
man has just been replaced with
another, who this time, is taking the
SURÀWVEDFNZLWKKLPWRWKH8QLWHG
States.
For all the talk of bridging the
gulf of information between de-
veloped and developing nations,
to what extent is the spread of
the Internet cynical? After all, the
big moneymaking content of the
internet is already established.
Google, Hotmail, Ebay, Amazon,
Facebook… though a few more
names might join this hall of fame,
most of the movers and shakers
palatinate.comment@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
COMMENT
mere 2% of websites. Afemann de-
scribes the internet’s potential to be
an “electronic Trojan horse”, and
not just through linguistic imperi-
alism. The internet indoctrinates its
users to the culture and values and
philosophies and politics that Eng-
lish is used to articulate.
3HUKDSVWKLVLVRYHUVLPSOLÀFDWLRQ
but it seems to me that San Pedro
used the internet to say “Hello
ZRUOG:HDUHKHUHµ7KHZHEÁX-
ent world then descended.
Schooled in shifting traveller
trends and the international prop-
HUW\PDUNHWWKLVZHEÁXHQWZRUOG
can’t help but be savvier than the
average San Pedreño. Yes, local en-
trepreneurs have made money from
the Lonely Planet-lovers who’ve
come to study Spanish or snort co-
caine. But, if you walk around the
town’s gringolandia (‘White Trav-
eller Land’), the restaurants, the
hostels and the internet cafes are
owned by foreigners.
Stahl’s gift may have been to some
of the world’s poorest people, but
 \HDUV ODWHU PD\EH LWV EHQHÀWV
are best reaped by the privileged
gap-yearer, emailing mum to say
they’re having the time of their
life.
By no means do I want to suggest
that the developing world’s eyes
should be shielded from technol-
ogy: that would be devastatingly
patronizing. But, the ‘casting of the
net’ is a thorny issue.
The internet can be marvelous:
without it, the U8 would be crip-
pled; and, on a smaller scale, I
COMMENT 9
Chris Hates...
ITV
De La Soul like to claim that three is
the ‘magic number.’ But anyone famil-
iar with Dr. Fox, Cilla Black, Ant and
Dec, Jeremy Kyle, Chris Tarrant, or
Simon Cowell will recognise that three
is, in fact, the font of all shit.
Before September 1955 there was
only BBC1 and, I imagine, we all
knew where we stood; television was
probably intelligent, respectable, en-
tertaining fare. Then ITV arrived.
  )RU RYHU ÀIW\ \HDUV QRZ ,79 KDV
churned out television appealing to
something below the lowest common
denominator. Suited men sitting in
ITV meetings have apparently drawn a
picture of their ideal viewer and come
up with a cross between Vicky Pollard
and an actual vegetable.
,IWKHUHZDVWREHDVFLHQWLÀFLQYHV-
tigation into all this it would probably
conclude that between 1955 and today
the people of Britain have got thicker.
And not just a little bit thicker either.
Watching ITV on Saturday night is
about the strongest argument against
democracy imaginable; if people ac-
tually want to watch phone-in game-
shows hosted by inane, smug cocks
then should they really be allowed to
decide who runs the country? Should
they really? Or should everyone who
grows steadily fatter in front of ITV
programmes, laughs incessantly at Ant
and Dec’s stilted ‘banter’ and watches
Coronation Street with a holy dedica-
tion be taken outside and shot? If not,
why not? Because I can’t think of an
argument against it.
This philosophy of making TV for
actual dribbling idiots has infected
the BBC too – endless phone-ins and
dumbed down news reliant on graph-
ics that go ‘woosh’. At least the BBC
and Channel 4 plough on where they
can on digital channels so forth and
come up with some interesting and
funny stuff. There has genuinely never
been a single programme on ITV that
has made a positive contribution on
any level to British life.
That the majority of the British pub-
lic hate ITV for essentially denigrating
public television to an orgy of nafness
and idiocy is evidenced by the treat-
ment those who defect from the BBC
to ITV receive. In 1996 Des Lynham
ZDVDERQDÀGHQDWLRQDOWUHDVXUHZKRVH
cuddly ‘tache people would have glad-
ly gone to war for, in 1999 he moved to
ITV for the money and is now (prob-
sponsible for these changes, it has
certainly been a vehement catalyst.
So, is the internet rightly hailed as
a fundamental tool for social de-
velopment, or is this just history
repeating itself? Is the white man
spreading smallpox all over again?
There has been a massive push
to get the developing world on line.
The World Bank and UNESCO are
doing all in their power to convince
developing world leaders to invest
in new technology; and they have
out.”
with the world’s best eye surgeons
is useful, but far less so than access
to clean water, given that 98% of
water sources in Guatemala are
contaminated. JSTOR can be so
valuable, but not if it diverts funds
away from touchable, smellable,
real books that don’t make your
eyes go stripy.
Additionally, who is to say that
the medical avant-garde will hap-
pily give their expert opinion to a
have already been chosen. Perhaps
the only place left is for new con-
sumers; and is this the underlying
reason we’re so keen to get every-
one online?
The thing is, these movers and
shakers aren’t only moneymakers:
they set the tone. Incredibly, it is es-
timated that 90% of the web’s con-
tent is in English, despite the fact
that far less than 30% of the global
population have any knowledge of
English whatsoever. Spanish is the
second most widely spoken lan-
guage in the world, but is used by a
would not be able to stay in contact
with my Guatemalan friends, who,
in any case, I probably would have
never met. It’s just that when faced
with a problem, the technophilic
world arms itself with buzzwords
OLNH´FRQQHFWLYLW\µDQGWULHVWRÀQG
a solution at the click of a button.
We cannot apply this principle
to international development. The
internet has a large role to play, but
also an uneasy and complicated
RQH WKDW GHÀHV VXPPDU\ E\ HYHQ
the headiest cocktail of emoticons.
DEO\VRPHWKLQJRIDKDWHÀJXUH7KH
list goes on: Michael Parkinson is now
seen as an elderly, rambling invalid
who needs putting to sleep, and Bruce
Forsyth remains irreparably soiled in
the wake of by his ITV past. Imagine
if Trevor MacDonald worked for the
BBC – he’d be more popular than sex.
ITV is for idiots by idiots and its mak-
ing us all idiots. Switch it off.
These amusing but controversial ram-
blings were brought to you by Chris
Gribbin. Palatinate does not endorse
his opinions. Ever.
 editor@palatinate.dsu.org.uk
10 EDITORIAL www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

EDITORIAL
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Yet when our highly capable succes-
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the electorate that voted for Tony Blair
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One Durham article that drew a few
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Look out next term for goodies like a
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>> Until 2006,

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 palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
12 FEATURES www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

A
as we crossed into one of the locked Serbia and Bosnia, but
country’s two federal entities, its thousands of kilometres
the Republika Srpska, at the of coast and 1,185 islands are

STUDENT’s scruffy border town of Ždravo,

and continued after the best
among the least spoilt in the
Med.
value pizza lunch I’d ever had The beauty of Croatia (and

TRAVEL to the capital Sarajevo amidst

stunning mountain scenery al-
most empty of holiday traffic
GUIDE despite it being the height of
summer.
Sarajevo itself is a fascinating
small city, and a point where
by Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy and
OTTO RICH Western Catholicism all collide.
The coffee is excellent, people
friendly and you could almost
be in the Middle East or Turkey
for all the mosques and mina-
rets, were it not for the lush
green mountains and blonde
hair of the inhabitants.
We ended up stopping for
some time in Mostar, a small
Durham-sized city in the south
of the country that, until 1992,
was famous for its beautiful
and ancient stone bridge. This
was destroyed by Croat mortar
fire in what was to symbolise
the callous futility of the Bos-
nian conflict, but now stands
(albeit in shiny, new modern
version) once more, even if the
town remains ethnically di-
this goes for Bosnia and Serbia
too) is that you can rock up
at any destination and they’ll
usually be an army of old ladies
waiting for you to whisk you
off to their B&Bs (called ‘sobe’
in Croat, often little more
than the spare room in their
apartment). They can often be
bargained down if you’re in a
group to as little as 10 euros a
head, and their ubiquity makes
a visit to Croatia a really flex-
ible experience.
The islands are the real high-
light of the country (avoid the
capital, Dubrovnik, a cruise-
ship favourite and now sadly
gridlocked with blubbery tour-
ists).
Any one of the islands are
worth a visit; but highlights
would have to be lush green
Korcula in the south with its
sandy beaches and ancient
walled main town, Brac for
great low-key nightlife and
wide open beaches and isolat-
ed, barren Dugi Otok, well off

T
hink you need to jump
on a plane and fly half
way around the world to
do some backpacking on the
cheap and relive your Gap year
days? Sure that everywhere in
Europe is now either package-
tour gridlock or fast becoming
that way, with hoardes of stag
weekend party-goers swarm-
ing off hourly EasyJets from
Biarritz to Budapest?
Think again. There’s still one
corner of southern Europe eve-
ry bit as beautiful and warm as
Italy or Greece. It has stunning
beaches, pulsating nightlife
and breathtaking mountain
scenery. It’s easy to get to,
safe, visa-free and the locals
are dead friendly. It’s also one
of the cheapest parts of the
continent.
Now if I was to tell you I was
talking about the former Yu-
goslavia; seven small nations in
south-eastern Europe flanked
by Austria and Hungary in the
north and Greece to the south,
would you be surprised? Pos-
sibly. But a lot’s changed since
the devastating wars of the
1990s that saw Yugoslavia dis-
integrate killed off the old fed-
eration’s tourist industry.
So while the Spanish Costas
and the Greek islands were
fast concreted over, this part
of the Med actually received
fewer visitors in the 90s than
in previous decades.
But it’s all change now, and
with the area largely open for
business, discerning student
backpackers are flocking to ex-
plore this slice of the Western
Balkans. So this summer, why
not get a car of mates togeth-
er, set aside a couple of weeks
and explore a little bit of what
this fantastic corner of Europe
has to offer.
My suggestion is to glide
down the autobahns of Ger-
many, Austria and Hungary and
cross into Serbia, the largest of
the republics and the rump of
what was the former Yugosla-
via. Now the country may have
had a lot of bad press during
the Miloševic years and is now
in a bit of a huff with the West
over Kosovo, but the country
itself is fascinating.
Just a couple of hours later
you’ll get to the second city of
Novi Sad; and if you’re pass-
ing through from the 10th to
the 14th of July this year you’ll
discover a town so packed
with partygoers and clubbers
it makes Ibiza seem like a re-
tirement resort. The university
city plays host to Exit, voted
Europe’s best festival in 2007
and likely to continue to sur-
pass the likes of Glastonbury
and Reading again this year.
Continue south down a sleek
new motorway for a couple
of hours and you’ll reach Bel-
grade, population two million
and capital of Serbia and once
of the federal Yugoslavia itself.
The city was, until a few years
ago, a dark, forbidding place
of crumbling communist-era
facades that suffered consid-
erably under NATO bombings
in 1999 and years of sanctions.
Now, while the streets may
still be a little potholed and
the grey tower blocks still pre-
dominate in the suburbs, the
nightlife is electric and you can
get an apartment for less than
20 euros per person per night.
In fact, Serbia’s currency, the
dinar, is one of Europe’s weak-
est: change 50 euro, and you’ll
be presented with a wedge of
banknotes worth over 4,000
dinars that will last you for
days.
After a few days soaking up
Belgrade’s nightlife and relax-
ing in its cool riverside bars,
we headed south and east for
the border with Bosnia-Herze-
govina, arguably the country
that has suffered the most in
recent history and, if you scan
recent news articles, an eco-
nomic basket case, hotbed of
people trafficking and drug
smuggling. All of this, howev-
er, seemed far from our minds
vided between Catholic Croats
and Muslim Bosnians.
But the town itself is an ut-
terly idyllic place to spend a
few days wandering its mar-
kets and taking day trips out
to the surrounding country-
side where you can spend the
day relaxing by bottle-green
lakes and tumbling waterfalls
“drink at sylish
rooftop bars that
make you feel
like you could be
in Dubai for the
price of a pint in
Kingsgate”
before heading back into town
and drinking at stylish rooftop
bars that make you feel like
you could be in Dubai for the
price of a pint in Kingsgate.
Once you’ve had enough of
that, you can head down to the
coast in Croatia, a mere couple
of hours south. Now Croatia is
more touristy than both land-
the beaten track and where is
possible to get hold of a boat
and just camp in the isolated
beaches you happen to come
across. On any of these islands
the best thing to do is hire a
motorbike for a few days and
set off exploring on the desert-
ed country roads.
And when you fancy moving
on from Croatia you could also
add any of the other smaller
republics to your list; wealthy
EU-member Slovenia would
make a good entry (or exit
point) and has Alpine scenery
to match Switzerland’s at half
the price. Tiny Montenegro (of
Casino Royale fame) has south-
ern Europe’s only fjord and is
apparently the ‘next Croatia’,
while a visit to little known
Macedonia would probably
impress even the most jaded
of Gap-year bores. And while
in Kosovo tensions remain
high, the sheer excitement of
venturing to the tiny country
a mere months after its inde-
pendence is surely to be worth
the effort, and it is still perfect-
ly safe as long as you avoid the
border area with Serbia.
So this summer if you’re
thinking of getting out there
and holidaying ‘off the beat-
en track’, keep the Balkans in
mind: there is really is no need
to re-live your Gap year.

The Facebook Stalker Odd and online, we’ll find it

Group Name: ‘I flip my pillow over to get to the cold side’

Members: 456, 327
Wallposts: 26, 152
Group description: ‘Do u have trouble sleep-
ing? Do u find urself waking up in the middle
of the night, and the only remedy to a good
night’s rest is turning that pillow over so u
can feel the cold side on ur face and head.
Thought u were the only one who did this?
think again. If you experience this same issue
night after night, this is the group for you.’
This group is not only limited to flipping pillows to find the cold side, but
also about all the other ridiculous things we do in bed to ensure a good
night’s sleep. Habits such as keeping your hand/ arm under the pillow,
fear of feet not being under the covers and building pillow and blanket
forts.
Lenny Augurusa, the group creator, calls its members to share their bed-
time habits. One member says that he “needs a total of three pillows, one
under my head, one to cuddle and one under my leg to kick around”.
The group acts to reassure sleepers that they’re normal, 90% of wall posts
are from happy members pleased to find out that their sleeping habits
are far from bizarre. “I can’t believe that so many people do it, I thought
there was something wrong with me”.

PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
I
t has been just over
eighteen months
since General Sir Mike
Jackson relinquished his
post as Chief of the General
Staff, withdrawing from the
intense media and political
spotlight after a three-year
tenure in which he had suc-
cessfully commanded British
troops in the Coalition’s opera-
tion in Iraq. Having called time
on a military career spanning
almost forty-five years, taking
in everything from the Intelli-
gence Corps to the Allied Rap-
id Reaction Corps, Sir Mike’s
formidable and dynamic per-
sonality has made a seamless
transition into the world of
political media coverage and
political commentary. Indeed,
he has been almost ubiquitous
in the media spotlight since his
retreat into civilian life, releas-
ing an autobiography (simply
entitled Soldier) and com-
mentating on current affairs
through programmes such as
Newsnight and Sunday AM.
On the transition from mili-
tary life to civilian life, Sir Mike
comments: “You have to be
pragmatic about it. I was very
lucky in that I had a longer
service than most – nearly for-
ty-five years – and so I count
myself very fortunate. You
have to look forward and not
back.”
Educated at Stamford School
and subsequently the Uni-
Generally speaking
versity of
Birmingham,
Jackson entered
the Intelligence
Corps at the age
of nineteen in
1963. “To succeed
in the military,”
he explains, “you
have to have a
sense of purpose.
It’s not just a job.
It’s a way of life.
The word in the
military is commit-
ment, and you have
to be pretty com-
mitted to what you
bring. You’ve got to
be able to understand
other people pretty
well too. It’s all about
working with people,
particularly in the sense of
teamwork. That’s extreme-
ly important in successful
soldiering. You’ve got to
have courage – both physi-
cal and moral – and that’s
pretty clear. And as you go
on, you develop a greater
understanding of the po-
litical-military interface,
which is ever-present for
obvious reasons.”
It was on transferring to
the Parachute Regiment
in 1970, and serving in
Northern Ireland,
that Jackson was to
meet the military
figure he still cites
as his biggest in-
fluence, Frank
Kitson. “I first
met Frank Kitson
when I was a young
officer in Northern Ireland,”
Jackson notes. “It was a very
difficult time, and he was a
superb leader – one watched
and learned from the way he
handled things. “Frank had a
great clarity of thought. He
never suffered fools gladly, but
“it’s important for
these two young
men that are so
crucial to Britain’s
future to learn
more about the
armed forces”
I don’t mean that in any criti-
cal way. Frank Kitson was very
good at seeing the wood from
the trees – he could always get
to the heart of the matter in a
very direct and very impressive
way.”
To continue the theme of
A suspension on the East Coast Main Line disrupted plans for the visit of General Sir Mike
Jackson at the Durham Union Society, with the potential for his address to be the biggest
event of the Epiphany Term. Hours before his planned visit, the former Chief of the General
Staff of the British Army talked politicians, princes and peacekeeping with Matthew Walters.
getting to the heart of the
matter, it’s Jackson’s voice that
has been heard loudest in re-
cent weeks as the details of
Prince Harry’s ten-week tour
of Afghanistan emerged. Jon
Snow, one of Britain’s foremost
broadcasters, has advanced
the argument that the involve-
ment of prominent members
of the royal family is purely
a form of advertisement, a
recruitment drive. Jackson re-
sponds: “Jon Snow’s perfectly
entitled to his opinion, but it
seems rather far-fetched to
me. The first thing to remem-
ber is that the law permits
any British citizen to apply to
join the armed forces. There’s
no law that denies that right
to any particular individual,
whether they’re a member of
the royal family or not. Prince
Harry had every right to apply
to the Army, which he did. If
the country thought he should
not join the Army, Parliament
would be invited to legislate
accordingly.
“Secondly, both William and
Harry chose to join the Army,
and I can only applaud that –
not because it’s to the Army’s
benefit, which arguably it is,
but because it’s important for
these two young men that are
so crucial to Britain’s future to
learn more about the armed
forces. They’ll learn more about
their fellow Brits through
this. I would put forward the
thought that nowhere else,
in no other profession, would
the heir to the throne be sat in
a trench in the pouring rain –
cold, tired – with a young man
from a difficult background,
from one of the rougher areas
of one of the big cities.
“A year ago, when it was be-
ing mooted in the media of
whether or not Harry should
go, we made the right deci-
sion in not allowing Harry to
go. Because of all the public
fuss, there would undoubtedly
have been an increased risk to
the safety of Harry and his fel-
low soldiers. On this occasion,
credit is due all round: credit
to Harry, who was determined
to play his part; credit to the
Army, for coming up with a
plan that allowed him to do
this; and credit to the media,
particularly the British media,
for acting responsibly. It’s a
very big shame that somebody
acted selfishly and irrespon-
sibly by leaking the fact onto
the Internet.”
Last month, Kosovo declared
its independence as a nation,
with several of the foremost
countries on the political scene
recognising this independence
within days (the United States,
the United Kingdom, France
and Germany among others).
In terms of permanent mem-
bers of the UN Security Coun-
cil, Russia and China are the
only two members to refuse to
recognise this independence.
Jackson himself has great po-
litical knowledge and military
experience of Kosovo, having
played a prominent role in the
NATO campaign in the Balkans
in the late-1990s. Of this he
opines: “Getting recognition
of Kosovo’s independence,
particularly among Russia and
China, will be quite a big task.
It’s been ten years since things
really started to go wrong in
Kosovo. The Balkans conun-
drum starts and finishes with
Kosovo.
“We achieved three things in
the operation in 1999: we pre-
vented a reoccurrence of the
appalling ethnic slaughter that
went on in Bosnia; we pro-
duced stability and a degree of
law and order in Kosovo; and
finally, we were able to buy
time for a political settlement
to be reached. Sadly, after ten
years, it proved very difficult to
arrive at a political settlement
that pleased all concerned.”
Jackson assumed the posi-
tion of the Chief of the Gen-
eral Staff just a matter of days
before the campaign in Iraq
began in 2003. From his dis-
tanced standpoint as an in-
formed spectator of events,
and now boasting eighteen
months of hindsight since
his withdrawal from his posi-
tion at the head of the British
Army, he views recent hando-
vers of responsibility for secu-
rity in the country as a positive
sign. “The handover of pri-
mary responsibility for secu-
rity in Basra was part of a long
strategy – perhaps three years
or more – on a province-by-
province basis when there was
agreement on the sides of the
Coalition and the Iraqis, and
when it was felt that the Iraqi
palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
security forces were capable, “
he explains. “The worst thing
happening in Iraq over the last
six to nine months – something
I find very interesting – is that
the violence has been really
inter-ethnic.
“It’s the manifestation of a
political problem. The Sunni
minority were favoured un-
der Saddam Hussein. They
very much were in positions
“He was a
consummate
professional as
a soldier. He
understood
the business of
soldiering and
he understood
soldiers.”
of running the country. With
the elections that have taken
place, we’re obviously going to
uncover a complete different
form of demographic weight-
ing. The origins of the inter-
ethnic violence was down to
that – the shift of power. We
have some way to go, of that
there’s absolutely no doubt.
But things are different and
things are better in Iraq than
they have been certainly in a
very long time.”
The Durham Union Soci-
ety recently held a debate in
which the motion of whether
we in Britain should fear Iran
FEATURES 13
was defeated. What’s Jackson’s
take on Mahmoud Ahmadine-
jad’s actions in recent months,
and the way in which the West
should respond?
“Should one have a concern
about the direction in which
Iran appears to be moving?
My answer would be yes. It’s
a large, potentially powerful
country. It’s not at all easy to
discern what the real policy
coming from Tehran is.
“They do seem to be set
upon nuclear development
with a worrying possibility of
a military dimension to that.
We’re right to be concerned.
Iran needs to be engaged with
in a sensible way. When you re-
member that these two coun-
tries (Iraq and Iran) fought
a very bitter war for eight or
nine years, it’s important that
these two biggest countries
in the region have a relation-
ship.”
It will come as no surprise
to many readers that Jackson
counts among his military he-
roes the Duke of Wellington.
Jackson’s comments on the
Duke of Wellington could
quite easily have been spo-
ken by a politician regarding
Jackson himself, with the man
nicknamed ‘Darth Vader’ and
‘The Prince of Darkness’ by
his troops held in the highest
respect: “He was a consum-
mate professional as a soldier.
He understood the business of
soldiering and he understood
soldiers.”
Few would deny that Jack-
son, one of the highest-profile
generals in post-Second World
War Britain, has displayed pos-
session of these very qualities
in some of the most intense
military and political climates
in recent history.
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 palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 www.palatinate.org.uk FEATURES 15
Ever wondered how to buy a vintage car, how much the
gargantuan Google is worth, or how Sarah Ferguson feels
about family values? Elizabeth Shrives, Emily Purser and
Christopher Carr have trawled the
internet to find
the answers.
Caught in
the web

Design: Christopher Carr

 palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
16 FEATURES www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

A Tale of
Two Cities
For all the bad press
ess Durham gets from other universities about being small and
boring, most of ourur students rate our little cobbled town quite highly
highly. But how
does it stack up when rated against another academically prestigious university?
We sent Izzy Arundel to York to infiltrate their lectures, their Union and even their
version of Klute. So who came out on top? Now there’s a tough question...

genitalia when he fell in on his
bike. Not that that was really
the lake’s fault.
The lecture hall interior con-
tinued with the 60s theme;
blue and purple paint with
pink lights interspersed with
chipboard… and a blackboard.
All very kitsch. Thankfully, the
soft-spoken Italian man lectur-
ing neglected his microphone
rather so my head didn’t take an ex-
café, which did a fine selection
of smoothies, including a yo-
ghurt and muesli one which I
got particularly excited about.
Durham should really intro-
duce these.
“the York
newspaper talks
with its slightly dingy, cold in-
terior.
Community spirit is pretty big,
and you can tell, despite the
lack of ‘proper’ colleges and
a Union: the newspaper tells
me of how, when a spate of
robberies occurred on cam-
pus, the students arranged a
patrol throughout the night,
eventually catching the filthy
ruffians.

C
ommon student folklore
about York seems to in-
clude a lot of birdlife;
one friend told me about
how, on his open day, he was
lured in by a story of how two
students woke up to a blank
memory and a terrible smell in
their room. On further inspec-
tion, they found a penguin
in the bath, stolen from York
Zoo. Trophying traffic cones
is a bit done, I suppose. Other
stories revolve around ducks: if
you find a golden feather from
the golden duck you will get a
First, apparently.
On arrival, I was told to lose
my “bullshit sense of superi-
ority”, which I automatically
have being from Durham, and
was then promptly taken to a
‘Have I Got News For York’, a
comedy night in a packed out
lecture hall. The panel includ-
ed two wise-cracking English
students, leader of the Social-
ist Society, two technicians re-
ferred to as ‘elves’ and a fully
clad pirate with a duck on his
shoulder, who was running for
sabbatical President. So far, so
surreal.
Throughout the evening I
learned that the golden duck
(Trevor) had died but was go-
ing to be replaced by two
horny golden ducks of oppo-
site sexes, so presumably more
students will be getting Firsts if
it is to be a fruitful spring. The
banter was self-depreciating;
apparently they have just had
a damp squib of a RAG week,
raising less than they did last
year. Their newspaper, the
‘Nouse’ claims that other uni-
versities of the same size raise
twice the amount they did,
Durham raising 10 times the
amount. Ahh, Durham’s big
heart.
Other topics up for discus-
sion was that, rather disturb-
ingly, the pirate will probably
win in the election; his avid
fans will vote several times
over to make sure of this (a
few eye-patches were in the
audience) and the rest of the
population is too apathetic to
vote at all. Apathy seems to
be a recurrent theme in York,
and something they are rather
proud of. The pirate himself
recounted a time when some-
one stood for election be-
cause he lost a bet. And then
used this to advertise himself
on all of the election posters.
The head of the Socialist Soci-
ety was generally redundant
in the proceedings. He too
seemed apathetic. The main
gossip about him involved the
time he ‘nearly’ came across
the head of the Conservative
Society. Exciting stuff.
Despite all of the chat about
‘only ten per cent of the stu-
dents voting,’ by my standards
York boasted very fiery politics
even with the pirate set aside:
the front story of the York
newspaper talks about how
the YUSU welfare officer was
forced to resign after hitting
a second year. Her feminism,
in addition to standing for La-
bour chancellor, made her a
hate figure for the right wing
students who provoked this
brawl. Even she acknowledges
that it was probably wise for
a fist-wielding welfare officer
to step down. When asked
why she hit the second year,
in particular, she claimed that
it was “nothing personal, ob-
“On arrival,
I was told
to lose my
“bullshit sense
of superiority”,
which I
automatically
have being from
Durham.”
viously. We’ve just known and
loathed each other for about
18 months.” Here’s hoping we
don’t see that in Durham!
I was then promised a typical
studenty night out “in the worst
nightclub ever”. This tagline is
normally reserved for Klute,
so I was expecting something
tra pounding. To my surprise I In the sunlight, if you ig-
similar. ‘Ziggy’s’ was disap-
pointingly clean in compari- also managed to get into the about how the nored the car-parks, the cam-
son, and spacious: it had three library- unthinkable in Durham pus almost looked pretty. The
floors. The club appeared to be without a NUS card and the YUSU welfare lake, ducks and pirates defi-
treat-your-campus-card-like- natly soften it up, and stops
a rather weird house, complete
with banisters and carpets. The a-bank-card security policy. It officer was the campus from being a cruel
soft core pallet I have devel- was open plan and with gal-
leries, so if you didn’t want to
forced to resign joke in comparison to York it-
self, 10 minutes away on the
oped for music at Durham lead
me straight to the ‘cheesy’ work you could easily spy on after hitting a bus, with its castles, Cathedral
room. people. Apart from a distinct and tea rooms. It occurred to
After throwing some shapes lack of Jack Wills and stash, the second year.” me that York’s fate could be
average York student seemed Durham’s if the Council have
to B*Witched, Aqua and the
very similar to a Durham one. their way and the Bailey Col-
like and with some cheap shots
I also popped into a curious lages and departments are
down me, I felt sufficiently
little room with a reception Compared to Durham, doing eventually shuffled up the hill.
confident to brave the belly of
and a photocopier, which my anything academic would go Would it actually be that bad?
the club, the ‘dance’ level. This
friend informed me was one down like a hot sugary tea, as So, back to Durham and
was more like Klute; sweat was
of the only Student Union the atmosphere is so relaxed with my superiority back in
running off the walls, there
rooms. Apparently, York has and homely. Everything is place, I will openly relish hav-
was a funky odour, and it was
no real Union to speak of, and there for you where you need ing my lectures in different
rammed. The dance music list
their collegiate system seems it, and you don’t have to rush places and my department be-
included tracks from Faithless
to be having a few teething anywhere. Lecture halls were ing half way up Old Elvet. Nev-
(out there!) and any intimida-
problems due to lack of fund- bright and open with seating er again will I complain about
tion I might have felt at the
ing. One event, arranged in areas in between them, with the cobbles having an adverse
thought of a deviation from
college, is notoriously remem- the kind of sofas and chairs effect on my bike. Instead of
the Klute playlist was removed
bered for having only two peo- which appear in DFS adverts, cursing the freshers for sing-
by the thoughtful interspersal
ple turn up. Still, as everything and a nice smell of freshly ing their college songs about
of YMCA and Gloria Gaynor.
and everybody is on campus, brewed coffee wafting around Hatfield going to see the Pope
Various fancy-dress bar crawls
with the concrete buildings the place. It was a stark con- or Cuths’ version of ‘Angel’, I
also made me feel at home
and convenient buses binding trast to the science-site where will gently goad them on. My
with the usual brightly col-
everyone together in a big stu- the vending machines in the only drinking will take place in
oured afro wigs and U.V. paint.
denty mass of grey, perhaps a tiny library café hardly induce a college bar, however sticky it
Also, lots of Pirates. A punnet
Union might have been a bit you to stay on longer than is is and how ever many times I
of cheesy-chips later and I
pointless. Good student servic- strictly necessary, and the DSU, have to watch the assigned
could have been in Durham.
es are provided on the cam- ‘lash monster’ do a yard. As for
On waking up with a hang-
pus; shops and a nice big the Union, well,
over the next day, the thought
now I have a
of ‘infiltrating’ the campus
and going to a lecture, made certain amount
me feel slightly green. I real- of fondness
ised that I had definitely done for concrete
blocks.
things the wrong way around.
Still, nothing that a greasy
spoon breakfast couldn’t sort
out. Fifteen minutes later and
my senses were assaulted with
rows of concrete blocks which
made up various buildings on
the campus; however, a big
artificial lake gave the area
some appeal, like a kitchen-
sink-esque Vienna.
When pointing
out how much
I liked it, I was
promptly told
that you had to
get a tetanus jab
if you so much
as even looked
at the water, it
stinks in the sum-
mer because of
all the duck shit,
and someone’s
mate ruined his
PALATINATE AT 60
 palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALAT

PALATINATE AT 60 Sign of the times: Palat

N ext Monday it will
be sixty years to
the day since Palatinate
first graced the wonky
cobbled streets of
Durham. Not much has
changed: we looked
Angry letters
In the first edition an irritated
theatregoer bemoans the bad
manners of students in the
Assembly Rooms. It seems like
he didn’t even like the play,
either.

>
through the archives and
found students musing
about everything from
library opening hours
and charity events to
the town-gown divide -
even a flood of articles
complaining about a
lack of news in Durham.
We give you some
vintage material from
>>
the paper’s earliest days. Scandal
Chad’s JCR banned Palati-
nate after a downhill slide in

Words of the early 50s. The paper saw

rapid change after this issue
that led to its being dubbed
welcome the ‘New Palatinate’

The editorial from the first

edition, dated 17 March 1948.
The editors put their emphasis
on the need for student
involvement - even to the point
of suggesting that the paper’s
name was still open for debate!
>

>

Bored much?
Now you can fill in your very
own ‘Palcross’ - complete with
clues that refer to fairy stories
and even the Bible. You can’t
help but feel that they underesti-
mated their audience a little.
 palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
TINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 www.palatinate.org.uk PALATINATE AT 60

inate celebrates 60 years

>>
40s college ents
Hatfield Day 1948 included an SCR sherry
party and croquet on the lawns. And who
said bailey colleges were Rah?

<< ‘Women’s Angle’

This column ran during the late 50s and
rails against the conspiracy of ‘anti-femi-
nist propaganda’ hidden in pop songs.

Rowing success
The winners of the 1948 Ladies’ Invitation
race stop for a breather by Elvet Bridge
>

Fierce opinion
The 1957 Wolfenden Report
sparked intense controversy in
its reccommendations to legalise
homosexuality and prostitution.
This is one letter on the topic.
 palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

PALATINATE AT 60 A life in the day...

With sixty years under its belt, it’s hardly surprising that Palatinate has
kick-started the careers of a share of media giants. Victoria Raimes meets
Hunter Davies - biographer of the Beatles, columnist for The Guardian, The
Independent, The New Statesman... and most importantly, Palatinate Editor
c.1957 - as he returns to the city during term time since graduating fifty
years ago. Is Durham anything like he remembers?

students were Northern. They’re
all Southern now. They’re all
posh and rich. And the girls are
extremely attractive.”
Hunter, on the other hand,
came to Durham as a rather poor
Carlisle lad, supported entirely
by a government grant. But this
didn’t hinder his experience ex-
cept in one vital respect: “I could
never afford what all students
wore in the 1950s, the absolute
must – a duffel coat. When tak-
ing a girl out and wanting to
impress, I borrowed one from
Edmund Vardy-Binks who lived
below me in the keep. Some-
ALEX MARSHALL
times, I admit, without telling
him first, which pissed him off as
he had to stay in.”
Things have changed since
poor Edmund was stuck in his
room while Hunter went out on
or two. In those days women
could not entertain male friends
after a certain time so we de-
cided the best way to leave and
not be noticed was disguised as
a woman.
“I put on Margaret’s coat,
wrapped her college scarf and
walked boldly through the lodge
gateway. Outside I took off the
coat and scarf. There was a cou-
ple in the alleyway, and I could
see the man watching me.
“He turned out to be the edi-
tor of Cherwell [Oxford’s inde-
pendent student newspaper].
He flogged the story to the Daily
Sketch, a popular tabloid, later
brought out by the Daily Mail.”
After graduation Hunter’s cut-
tings helped him to get a job
with the Manchester Evening
Chronicle but he lamented the
his biggest break of all: being
chosen to write the Beatles’ only
official biography. This meant a
rather liberal existence even af-
ter studenthood, hanging out
with the lads and talking about
their lives for hours every day,
sitting around Abbey Road while
John Lennon scribbled songs.
Since then he has ghostwrit-
ten several biographies; John
Prescott’s is currently a work-in-
progress. Biographies are Hunt-
er’s favourite work because he
is fascinated by people’s memo-
ries. His extensive collection of
Durham memorabilia and Pa-
latinate cuttings help him to
recapture some of his own most
treasured times.

I
nterviewing Hunter Davies is
a lot like spending time with
an intelligent, slightly devi-
ant 10-year-old boy. He is ener-
getic, fun to be around and he
doesn’t hesitate to ask cheeky
questions.
“Have you got any sherry?”
is one that particularly sticks in
the mind, given that it was 10
o’clock in the morning. Hunter
was chatting to Castle’s Senior
Man, Damien Gomez, and he
was keen to find out if the al-
cohol privileges are the same
today as when he was a Castle
student.
“I used to have a sherry allow-
ance when I was Senior Man.
You were meant to give it to
important guests but you al-
ways saved it to share with your
girlfriend, of course.” He is told
there is no sherry, but there is
port, which appears to be a sat-
isfactory answer.
It is the first time Hunter
Davies has been back to Dur-
ham during term-time since he
graduated 50 years ago, but he
hasn’t forgotten the mischief to
be had. Reminiscing about the
drinking, the girls and the fun is
as important as his official duties
- picking up an Honorary Fellow
award and researching an article
for Durham’s alumni magazine,
Durham First.
But having ‘work’ to do doesn’t
bother Hunter. His passion for
be a journalist.
“I started off as the advertis-
ing manager just so I’d have
something to put on my CV.
Then one day the editorial team
– a Hatfield clique of course –
moaned that there was a hole in
the paper. I heard myself saying
‘I’ll fill your hole.’
“I wrote a column about Dur-
ham stereotypes. I did a rower,
then a theology student, and so
on. I called it ‘A Life in the Day
of...’ which I thought was terribly
clever. After that I wrote all sorts
of bits and pieces. It seemed so
much better than attending bor-
ing lectures and writing boring
essays.”
“I used to have a
sherry allowance
when I was Senior
Man. You were
meant to give it
to guests but you
always saved it to
share with your
girlfriend.”
the pull. fact that there “wasn’t the fun The Beatles, Football and Me is a
In the 1950s there were only of Palatinate, where you’re in- memoir by Hunter Davies, priced
nine colleges in Durham: six for volved in every aspect of creat- £18.99 (hardback). It contains a
men and three for women. There ing a newspaper.” chapter dedicated to Durham
were no mixed colleges, which Hunter wasn’t restricted by life. Hunter’s article document-
is something Hunter appears to a junior reporter’s position for ing his visit to Durham in Oc-
envy today. Trevs didn’t exist at long. He was soon writing for tober 2007 will be published in
the time, but Hunter has heard the Sunday Times, which led to Durham First in April.
during his trip that the college
is the least liked: “Is that right?
Trevs is the most unpopular?” he
asks Damien. Damien doesn’t
answer. “They also get the best
results though, don’t they? My
theory is they’re so boring they
have nothing to do apart from
study.
“The same goes for scientists.
You know how boring they are,
going to labs all the time.”
Hunter also notes that plenty
of things are exactly the same –
the drinking habits in particular.
“I used to row. God knows why
I did it, but I enjoyed the boat
club dinners. Each term, they
were the biggest piss-ups in col-
lege.
“My roommate must have hat-
ed being lumbered with me...
I would come back drunk and
be sick out of the window, or
on the floor, if I couldn’t reach
the window in time.” On an-
other occasion Hunter threw an
orange through a stained glass
window at a Castle formal. He
didn’t get sconced because he
didn’t get caught.
It was during his third year

penning has made him one of
the most famous journalists, bi-
ographers and sports writers of
the past 40 years. Current jobs
include writing for The Guard-
ian and The Independent, and
he has a weekly sports column in
the New Statesman magazine.
His books on the Beatles and
footballers such as Wayne Roon-
ey and Paul Gascoigne have sold
millions.
A good chunk of his sentimen-
tal feeling for Durham stems
from the fact that this is where
it all began. That half century
ago Hunter edited Palatinate,
which he says is “definitely the
best fun I have ever had in jour-
nalism. I knew after doing the
student paper that I wanted to
T
he cheekiness employed
in his first columns is still
present today as he inter-
views Damien for his Durham
First article. Hunter has an envi-
able knack for asking blunt and
direct questions while remain-
ing extremely likeable, helping
to explain why his writing is so
engaging and revealing.
“Where are you from?” he asks
Damien. He is told Singapore.
“Good. You’re the only black
guy I’ve seen here.” After learn-
ing that the vice-president is also
foreign - an African-American
girl - he is even more impressed.
“In my day it was totally differ-
ent. Castle is notorious for its
lack of ethnicity. And when I was
here about 80 per cent of the
that Hunter became editor of
Palatinate, at the same time
that he took on the role of Cas-
tle’s senior man. Despite the
intensity of holding two time-
consuming positions the student
newspaper became an unprece-
dented success. At the time a Pa-
latinate issue cost money, but he
still managed to shift 1,500 cop-
ies every time it was produced.
There were only 1,500 students
in the university.
Hunter even managed to sell
some of his student stories to the
national papers – and made an
unexpected appearance in one
himself: “Once when I was visit-
ing my girlfriend Margaret, who
was studying at Oxford, we real- Hunter’s last issue of Palatinate as Editor in December
ised I had overstayed by an hour 1957 featured this tribute from his Deputy Editor, Jill Burtt

PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
S
ink it fresher and
get your rack out!” The
audience are ready and
inebriated, the participants
scantily clad and barely able to
stand up, and all in the name
of charity. This is DUCK Week,
and we are witnessing one of
the many Mr and Mrs College
competitions, renowned for
debauchery, scandal and the
power to fuel the breakfast
time gossip for many weeks to
follow. These people are para-
gons of virtue, if you choose
Miss Chad’s is overwhelmed by her success
TOM BRADLEY
Fornication and
mortification
Within a week of arriving in Durham, you’d be hard pushed not to see a naked body,
and not just after a drunken night out. Our penchant for the debauched is becoming
quite a phenomenon, with people keen to give up their dignity at an alarming speed.
Dipal Acharya and Nell Killin had the misfortune of witnessing a Mr and Mrs College
competition, which made even a rugby social look positively demure.
to rationalise it that
way; they are serving
the public and charitable
organisations by bearing
their assets to a more than
obliging audience, and in-
dulging Durham’s lust for nu-
dity and sordid antics. Who
are we to judge? We’re
here aren’t we? What we
are about to describe may
not be the most tasteful of
subjects, but is an intrinsic part
of university culture, and actu-
ally highly fascinating (even if
it is in a slightly pervy way.)
Let’s not beat around the
bush – a minute by minute
account would, quite frankly,
be boring and repetitive – we
know we saw you there too.
The rather lovely Ms Cuth’s,
normally of a modest and de-
mure temperament, succeeded
in ruffling a few feathers in her
charitable quest to secure her
crown. Some may argue there
was a bit too much flesh on
show, but we all hold liberal
views here and so say, “good
on you girl!” So what was the
clincher? Was it her wit and
ingenuity for recounting such
a memorable joke? Or maybe
the moving rendition of her
favourite song? Or was it just
the fact she got her baps out?
We’re reserving judgement on
that one and will leave it to
you.
What we will say is that naked-
ness seemed to be the recur-
ring motif, even the defining
feature of the University-wide
competition. One only has to
recall the line-up of manginas
and alcohol-slathered torsos of
the male competitors to realise
Durham’s penchant for the hu-
man form.
We all revel in a good spec-
tacle, but by accepting this as
the norm are we beginning to
take too many risks and push
the boundaries of propriety in
“We think
stapling objects
to your bottom
would have
been enough
to exceed
expectations”
our efforts to satisfy our curi-
osity? Although not ones for
shallow gossip, we hear a po-
tential Mr Grey suffered quite
an ordeal in his attempts to
obtain the much-coveted title.
Having already undergone the
usual embarrassing challenges,
he then, fuelled by copious
amounts of alcohol, proceeded
to position a silicone phallus
(that’s a dildo to the rest of us)
up his bottom. Not to be out-
done, it seems that a potential
Mr. Mildert was thinking along
similar lines. We think stapling
objects to your bottom would
have been enough to exceed
expectations, but in his quest
for college domination he
took it that little bit further.
To maintain his supporters’
zeal, he then went on to swim
across the college lake, result-
ing in a tetanus shot having
to be administered due to the
filthy nature of the water. If
these displays are only at the
college level of the competi-
tion, we wonder what the con-
test will hold at the University
stage.
In anticipation of the Mr and
Mrs Durham contest, due to
take place in the Summer term,
we need only think back to the
final of 2007. Held in Love-
shack, a mammoth jism ring
was constructed in the middle
of the club, with the activities
broadcast on screens through-
out the venue. Again plied
with alcohol, the contestants
battled it out, rupturing their
own personal boundaries and
culminating in yet another
bout of public nudity.
So what is this obsession we
seem to have with stripping
off, and must it always be cou-
pled with excessive alcohol
consumption? It would seem
so. The Student Union itself
has no less than three societies
devoted to the exploration and
enjoyment of our liquid friend;
the Wine, Cocktail and Pimms
societies are all revered and
highly attended institutions
within Durham student life.
This sentiment is unsurprising-
ly pervasive, extending to the
sporting and social spheres of
the University. Initiations into
the sports clubs can, at times,
be disturbing in their nature.
Members can be forced to
down successive pints, shots
and yards before having to ful-
fil the disconcerting challenges
set by their superiors. These
come to include the notorious
‘naked
Bailey
r u n ’
( w e
h a v e
person-
ally ex-
perienced
this ordeal
as naïve
freshers),
and the ‘fly-
ing pigeon task’
(when members
are compelled to hurl
themselves against the
chipboard scaffolding that
lines the cathedral, result-
ing in gross bodily harm and
substantial memory loss).
Still all good fun, right? We
believe as responsible student
drinkers that all things taken
in moderation are fine, and
this includes nudity. There
is no accounting for those
extremists out there
(cough – rugby boys –
cough), but taken with
a pinch of salt, it’s all
mostly harmless.
So what about
the teetotal stu-
dent population?
Without the aid
of beer goggles
these activities
lose their air of
amusement and
forego a lot of
their charm.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY SUSANNAH TAYLOR
palatinate.features@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
lives
Not everyone
student lifestyle.
Lucy Laycock k metm
Starkey, whose se first
at Durham was cut short
by cancer. Carol
Cuth’s fresherr – second
around.
Or do they? It’s undeniable
that the diversion of public
humiliation and the nature of
the gossip it generates play
upon a very human curiosity.
Regardless of whether or not
you are crapulous, the sight
of the untanned, unshaven
legs of someone you know (or
rather, thought you did) will
not fail to get you thinking,
and more importantly talk-
ing, until the next scandal. The
point is that, more often than
not, nudity is approached and
received in good spirits; DUCK
week draws upon this interest
and channels it in a productive
way to raise money for char-
ity. You will encounter nudity
at least once in your student
career, and so we say embrace
it. Hopefully it will make you
feel a little more worthy, if not
liberated afterwards. And if it
is much too disturbing for your
refined and cultured palette,
remember, worse things hap-
pen at sea.
FEATURES 17
DURHAM
HA
VES
LIVES
the
e in Durham
ste
stereotypical
le.
Carol
fi year
arol is now a
se time
T
oday Carol got up
at 5:50am to cox the
college girls VIII. She
went to lectures for a few
hours, and then worked in
Miss Selfridge for the whole
afternoon. Sound like an
exhausting day? Then take
into account that, just a year
ago, Carol was in hospital
receiving chemotherapy for
a life-threatening form of
bone cancer.
Carol originally came to
Durham in 2006 as a biol-
ogy student, but within
three weeks her life was
totally transformed as the
pain in her arm was diag-
nosed as something much
more sinister. Osteosarcoma
only affects one in a million
people, and is most common
amongst our age group. Al-
most ten months of hospital
stays and treatment later,
and Carol was able to cel-
ebrate her 20th birthday and
the end of her treatment.
Despite the trials of hair loss
and being minus 13cm of
bone, she was raring to get
back to Durham.
Just over a month later
she was back, same room,
same college, to give be-
ing a Fresher a second shot.
However the illness has left
its effect and Carol has se-
vere movement restric-
tion in her right arm,
being unable to lift it
above her waist. Even
so, at no point has
she let this damage her
student experience. Just lis-
tening to Carol’s list of hob-
bies is enough to make me
tired. Although she has had
to give up many of her fa-
vourite watersports, she en-
joys badminton, hill-walking
and canoeing. She has even
created a new technique in
order to carry on playing the
flute.
Lectures were yet another
challenge, as writing causes
her damaged shoulder to
swell painfully. Luckily with
the help of her ‘EEE PC’ lap-
top, she can take notes. The
future is bright, and Carol
says her experience may
potentially lead her into
the field of medicine. She
continues to speak at Bone
Cancer Research confer-
ences and is open about her
experience.
When asked how she feels
to be back she grinned and
said, “fantastic”. Whilst the
cancer is part of who she is,
she does not want it to take
over her life. She tells me
that we should not take an-
ything for granted and that
we should all live life to the
full. Carol is an inspiration
to everyone here.
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
18 LISTINGS www.palatinate.org.uk
The real alternative
Palatinate’s cream of the cultural and social crop this week, as collated by Olly Nguyen and Mary Dobson
DSU societies, meetings
& events
Talks & Conferences
Film
Theatre & Comedy
Music & Clubs
>> For gigs see p21
Monday 10 March
EASTER SERVICE
Easter Celebration
Service
DICCU. A traditional Easter
service in Durham Cathedral.
Hot cross buns and hot choco-
late will be served afterwards
in the Debating Chamber.
Cathedral, 7.15pm - 8.45pm
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=21386084232
TALK
Monsters as
Metaphorical Models
Part of the Metaphors as
Models Interdisciplinary Dia-
logues series. Dr. Wes Williams
(Oxford University) in dia-
logue with Dr. Kathryn Banks
(MLAC). Explores a number of
ways in which monsters – and
in particular ‘monstrous births’
- are subjected to metaphori-
cal reading in the Renaissance.
5.15pm – 7.15pm, IAS, Cosin’s
Hall
TALK
Risk, Capital and
Information: Modelling
Catastrophe in a
Networked World
Rowan Douglas. Catastrophe
Modelling has revolutionised
the way in which the industry
confronts these challenges
by integrating science and
engineering with risk and
reinsurance markets.
5.15pm – 7.15pm, CLC 202
WORKSHOP
Contemporary Poetry in
the North East
A 10-meeting weekly course
organised by the CLL of
Sunderland University and
Durham Clayport Library. Tu-
tor: Michael Ayton. Looking
at recent writing by poets
from Durham, Newcastle and
elsewhere in the region.
Durham Clayport Library, 7.15
pm - 9.15 pm £70/ £55/ £32.
Anita Thompson 0191386
4003.
WORKSHOP
Mat Making
Making traditional mats of
the Northeast.
Durham Clayport Library,
10am - 3pm Debbie Elliott
0191 3864003.
THEATRE
Black Comedy
Fountains Theatre Company.
Brindsley, a broke sculptor,
and Carol, his air-head fian-
cée, await her monster father
and a millionaire who will
make them rich and happy.
But a fuse blows... and ensures
A farce in the dark. Fountains
Hall, Grey, 7.30pm
£3.50 / £3.00 DST, maxime.
dargaud-fons@durham.ac.uk
MUSIC
Rejoice in the Lamb
St. Cuthbert’s Society Choir.
Music by Britten, Stravinsky,
Harris and Allegri. St Mar-
garet’s of Antioch Church,
Crossgate, 8pm - 9.30pm
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=23595684656
Tuesday 11 March
TALK
The Risk Of Rapid
Climate Change
Peter Challenor will outline
methods to estimate the
probability of climate risks
and show how we can design
mitigation strategies that
minimise these risks.
5.15pm – 6.15pm
Lecture Room 21, Palace
Green (Union Society)
TALK
The Rise of Internet
Food Blogs
Computing Society talk given
by Joe Taylor, CG60, 8.30pm
compsoc.dur.ac.uk
COMEDY
The Other Side
Comedy Club @ DSU. A night
of laughter with Simon Bligh
& Dan Atkinson
Riverside Cafe, 7.30pm
dur.ac.uk/whatson/
event/?eventno=3382
MUSIC
Sonatas by Mozart
and Prokofiev
Durham University Music Soci-
ety. Lunchtime concert given
by Pippa Silverman (Violin)
Concert Room, Music depart-
ment, Palace Green, 1.15pm
MUSIC
Epiphany Concert
Durham University Concert
Band. The programme will
include music by Dave Brubeck
and Aram Khachaturian and
themes from Final Fantasy VII
and ‘Miss Saigon’. In addi-
tion, two newly orchestrated
works, Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and
a medley of the film music
of Joe Hisaishi, both orches-
trated by Julian Mak, will be
premiered.
St Oswald’s Church, Church
Street, 7.30pm - 9.30pm
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=8948337991
MUSIC
Cuths Acoustic Night
A great way to wind down
and forget about the disserta-
tion with an evening of live
music. Cuths bar, 8pm - 10pm
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=9109308358
GOING OUT
Reinventing the English
Language Take II
Grammar at the Fishtank.
Come fry your little brains
once again and pull shapes
to the best indie, soul & rock
’n’ roll in all the land. Let
loose to the likes of The Kills,
Black Kids, CSS, Ting Tings,
The Kinks and Curtis Mayfield.
Fishtank, Neville Street, 9pm.
0191 384 6470.
Wednesday 12 March
BAR CRAWL
Last Man Standing
Nationwide event lands in
Durham...500 people, 6 bars,
one club, one aim...
dur.facebook.com/group.
php?gid=9407270747
TALK
Deformation and Failure
Processes in Geologic
Materials at Scales From
Grains to Basins
Professor Ronaldo Borja.
Prof. Borja is a professor in
the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering
at Stanford University. He
is visiting Durham as an IAS
Distinguished Fellow
5.15pm – 6.15pm
Lecture Room 21, Palace
Green (Union Society)
THEATRE
Collected Shakespeare
Durham Shakespeare Compa-
ny. Fresh from their Ivy League
College Tour in America,
the Durham Shakespeare
Company present a collection
of the finest sonnets, scenes
and speeches by William
Shakespeare. Light-hearted
entertainment, ideal for a
spring evening.
Assembly Rooms, 7.30pm
(and 13 March) £4/ £3.50
(NUS)/ £3 DST
c.e.peters@dur.ac.uk or
dur.ac.uk/dst to book
MUSIC
John Lill
John Lill is without doubt one
of this country’s greatest pian-
ists. His recital programme
reflects his affinity for
Beethoven and Prokofiev for
whose music he has become a
renowned interpreter.
Gala Theatre, 7.30pm
£12 (£8 conc.) £5 students
GOING OUT
Silent Disco
Durham’s first ever silent disco
at DSU. 2 DJs, 2 Channels,
COMPLETE SILENCE...
Silent Disco was trialled at
Glastonbury in 2005 as a
response to noise restrictions.
Music is streamed to your own
set of headphones as two
DJs battle it out to gain your
listen - switch DJ at any time.
£6 adv. / £8 door (Profits
to Phoenix Charity for the
Prince’s Trust) DSU 10pm - 2am
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=10584521227
Thursday 13 March
DRINKS RECEPTION
Cathedral by
Candlelight
Durham Union Society. A
Drinks Reception in the Clois-
ters In Aid of The Prince’s Trust
Durham Cathedral, 7pm - 9pm
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=8565947923
TALK
Guest lecture and social
Queens Campus Anthropol-
ogy Society. Guest lecture on
Evolution, given by Todd Rae,
followed by a social in the
beautiful new Waterside Bar
D003 lecture theatre followed
by Waterside, 6.30pm onwards
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=10552242396
FILM
Paprika
(Japan, Anime, 2006)
Ethnofilm Society. Chiba At-
suko and her dream-entering
alter ego Paprika go in search
of a dangerous thief – a fran-
tic and psychedelic film.
ER 141, 7.15pm
ethnofilm.society@dur.ac.uk
THEATRE
All Our Yesterdays
Back after last year’s successful
show, this terrific production
takes you on a musical journey
through the decades. Featur-
ing the best of the movies and
musicals, the wonderful pop
songs and rock ‘n roll of the
60s, all your favourite Country
& Western songs, the amazing
harmonies of the 1970s and
an uplifting Elvis finale.
7.30pm, Gala Theatre
£ 11 / £ 9 (conc.)
GOING OUT
DV8 vs. Inertia
Take a last chance to get
out of Durham this term
with Deviate vs. Inertia 2nd
Birthday Bash feat. Marcus
Intalex. Mike Jones. Ryde. And
So I Watch You From Afar play
LIVE. Sully. Emre.
World Headquarters, Carliol
Square, Newcastle, 11pm - late
£5 all night
trenthouse.com/comingevents
Want to see your event here?
Email palatinate.arts@dur.ac.uk, text us on 07504
301 762, or visit www.palatinate.org.uk, and get
your event seen for free by thousands of students
across both Durham and Stockton campuses.
MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
MUSIC
Ceilidh
Folk Society. Last ceilidh of
term - everyone welcome!
DSU Riverside, 8pm onwards
dur.ac.uk/folk.soc
Friday 14 March
DUCK
Mega Raid!
DUCK Mega Raid for Juvenile
Diabetes Across England. This
national competition pits
North against South for one
weekend only. Our chance to
beat the Oxbridge Rag once
and for all. Raid wherever you
are, celebrate St Paddy’s day
in style with restaurant incen-
tives and earn money for a
really worthwhile cause. Look
out for more information.
14 – 16 March
duck.dsu.org.uk
GOING OUT
Stephenson and Snow
FOAM Party
End of term Foam Party -
the only place to be on
Queen’s Campus.
Zanzibar, High Street, Stock-
ton, 10pm onwards
dur.facebook.com/event.
php?eid=9149125196
GOING OUT
Planet of Sound
It’s the last one of term! Why
not celebrate after all those
essays/exams/dissertation
deadlines. Tickets £5, Durham
Students Union, 10pm
Ongoing Events
THREE EXHIBITIONS
Mark Titchner:
Run, Black River, Run.
Cut Up Collective:
CutUp.
Barry McGee:
They Don’t Make This
Anymore.
Baltic Art Gallery, Gateshead.
Turner Prize nominee Mark
Titchner creates a psychologi-
cally unnerving space, combin-
ing image and sound.
Runs until 27 April
CutUp are an anonymous
group of artists whose prac-
tice incorporates collage, film
and installation. They focus
largely on the creative poten-
tial of the city as a site and
inspiration for interventionist
art and disruption.
Rooted in the spontaneity and
immediacy of graffiti culture,
Barry McGee’s direct approach
considers both the melancholy
and humour of life.
Runs until 27 April
balticmill.com
EXHIBITION
Jake and Dinos
Chapman
“My Giant Colouring Book”.
A series of prints created by
the original and controversial
young British artists. The ma-
jority of the images on show
are based loosely on join-the-
dots drawings from children’s
picture books, with surrealistic
interventions, improvised
monstrous creatures, fantas-
tic landscapes and macabre
incidents. A Hayward Gallery
Touring Exhibition on behalf
of Arts Council, England.
Durham Art Gallery, Aykley
Heads. 12 March - 13 April.
www.durham.gov.uk, 0191
384 2214.
Book Now For...
FESTIVAL
EVOLUTION
Tickets now on sale for Evolu-
tion festival in Newcastle-
Gateshead, bank holiday Mon-
day 26 May 2008, 12pm-1am.
Forget those exams - or, if you
(unluckily) haven’t finished,
take a well-earned revision
break with a beer and some
live music.
Ok, so there will be an
entrance fee this year... but
where else can you get The
Streets, Kate Nash, CSS, New
Young Pony Club, Reverend
and The Makers, Duffy, Crystal
Castles and Does It Offend
You, Yeah? For a measly £3?
Sounds like a bargain to us.
Still unconvinced? Well, your
ethical side can rest at ease, as
all profits go to Wateraid.
Full listings for the accompa-
nying indoor programme of
music events on the website.
Tickets available from www.
ticketweb.co.uk, from the box
office on 08444 771000 or
from HMV stores in Durham
and Stockton.
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 www.palatinate.org.uk WHAT’S ON 19

WHAT’S ON
Depressed with Durham? Try further afield
James Thompson surveys the scene over in Newcastle across the next few weeks. He likes what he sees. Well, some of it...

NOT IMPRESSED WITH what and hip-hop.

you’ve seen on the left-hand 0191 443 4661
side of this spread over in
the Listings section? No mat-
ter. While Durham’s range of Poetry
activities and events is actu-
ally fairly impressive given the Simon Armitage. Do those
city’s somewhat diminutive two words send a shiver down
proportions, it’s difficult not your spine? If not, you either
to at least occasionally feel didn’t study for your GCSEs in
that its cultural offerings are this country within the past
relatively underwhelming in ten years or you’re just plain
comparison to the competi- nuts. The English Literature
tion. textbook mainstay will be
With access to the Geor- bringing his particular brand
die Mecca, Newcastle, taking of classroom-friendly poetry
less than twenty minutes by to Live Theatre as part of their
train, it would only seem to new Live Poetry series of read-
appropriate to flag up the ings (16th). Have your vintage
very finest art, gigs and other copies of Anthology at the
performances going on that ready.

might be worth making the
trip for if you’re staying in
Durham across the Easter holi-
days.
Here’s the pick of the best...
Art
This one isn’t for the squeam-
ish. Performance artist Franco
B, famed for splattering his
own blood around like water
in his previous performances,
is coming to Live Theatre as
part of Globe Gallery (13th).
His latest piece, Don’t Leave
Me This Way, is sure to make a
strong impression. Patrons are
forewarned that male nudity
will be in abundance. ...Hoo-
ray?
0191 232 1232
The Sage Gateshead will be playing host to Gateshead International Jazz Festival
Comedy
A barrel of laughs or just a tub
of lard? You decide. French
and Saunders, perhaps Brit-
ain’s most famous female
comedy duo, are coming to
Newcastle City Hall through-
out the middle of the month
(12th-13th, 20th, 22nd). The
pair are taking some of their
most beloved characters from
the ‘French & Saunders’ era on
tour for you to witness before
your very eyes.
0191 261 2606
Film
You probably won’t be seeing
China Blue on at The Gala any
time soon, though you will
catch it at Side Cinema as part
of their ongoing China season
(13th). Micha Peled’s powerful
2005 documentary sheds light
on the harrowing conditions
faced by Chinese sweatshop
workers on a daily basis as
they toil away for wages that
are practically tokenary. Not
exactly cheery fare but utterly
compelling viewing nonethe-
less, particularly given the
increasing controversy re-
garding China’s human rights
record in the run up to this
summer’s Beijing Olympics.
0191 261 4224
Music
Jazz afficionados are in for a
real treat come the end of the
month as Gateshead Interna-
ACP2006.ORG.UK
tional Jazz Festival rolls into
The Sage Gateshead (28th-
30th). Acoustic Ladyland rep-
resent perhaps the biggest
draw for most students, hav-
ing built up a not inconsider-
able reputation amongst indie
scenesters for their fiery in-
terpretation of jazz and rock
music. Another big attraction
is Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian
multi-instrumentalist famous
across the globe, while re-
cent Blue Note signing Robert
Glasper is sure to impress with
his idiosyncratic blend of jazz
0191 232 1232
Theatre
Heard the one about a boy
called Alan who had a fetish
for horses? I didn’t think so.
Peter Schaffer’s disturbing
1973 play Equus was given a
new lease of life last year as it
re-opened down in London’s
West End with the boy wizard
film franchise star Daniel Rad-
cliffe in the lead. The Theatre
Royal will be hosting its own
five-day run toward the end
of the month (24th-29th) with
Alfie Allen - yes, brother of
Lily - as the hippophiliac pro-
tagonist. Tickets are on offer
to students at £10.
0844 811 2121

Neon Kicks: the blue hue years

Budding writer?

Short Story Competition 2008

Head full of ideas? If you’re feeling creative over Easter, think
of our summer short story contest. We’ll be collecting entries
after exams with the best published for the whole student
body to see. There’ll be more goodies, too, announced closer
to the time. So get writing, and watch this space...
The awesome foursome
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
20 VISUAL ARTS www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

VISUAL ARTS
Experiments in light and darkness
James Thompson explores lighting in photography courtesy of Sabine Oekten, David Wade, James Budge and Marc Pritchard

g each photo-
Accompanyin m-
EVERYTHING
when it
h dis pla ye d is a brief su
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ot og ra ph y. Lighting ry of th e co nditions in wh
comes to ph and ma
place and so
me
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provides dram ines whether
a th e
ant facts.
invariab ly de te rm
. further relev about lighting
oo d” or otherwise To learn more
picture is “g ogra- eed photog-
amateur phot techniques an d ind
Nonetheless, ying us ing cheap,
ca sio na lly forego pa raphy in ge ne ra l
pher s oc most me nt , send an
ntion to this available eq uip t
en ou gh at te eir es s below to ge
redients in th e-mail to th e ad dr
t the
essential of ing or ma tio n both abou
more inf
compositions. wer next shoot:
lighting’s po society and its
To illustrate og raphy
th e Ph ot am.
and impact, o ociety@durh
ly held a phot photography.s
Society recent ht ing techniques ac.uk
ich lig
shoot in wh sults
focus - the re
were the sole en across this e photograph
y...
of which ca n be se Now, on to th
page.

THIS WAS TA
KEN in broad
light during day- natural, than
a (relatively) ks to the artifi
day by Sabin sunny cial
e Oekten. light having
Top-left show been moved
s the subject from the subje away
unilluminate ct and shone
d from the fro from a more
with the sun nt but acute angle.
utilised as a ba bottom-right Finally,
light. Top-rig ck- depicts the su
ht combines with a flashgu bject
backlight of the n shone at him
the sun with from directly
light shone to artificial above the ca
ward the subje mera.
face at an an ct’s
gle.
Bottom-left ap
pears more

of the gym.
E TOOK pose
JAMES BUDG The dramatic
the below ph
otograph equipment
and archery
ge Maiden re introduce
within the lar employed he
e gy m. An interest- me nt of threat,
Ca stl an ele THIS PICTURE WAS taken
lig ht ing se tup was ile th e fla shguns serve
ing wh by David Wade with the
eby three the back-
created, wher to “wash out” help of the Gymnastics
ed flashguns bring the
radio-trigger ground and and Trampolining Club.
ed in order e fore.
were position subject to th Sports provide interest-
r the low-
to overpowe ing and dynamic subjects.
nd lights
level backgrou The aim here was to
use lighting technique
to expose the subject in
order to make them much
brighter than the ambient
light.
Radio triggers were
used along with multiple
flashguns pointed into
mid-air and another one
situated underneath the
trampoline.

THE PHOTOGRAPH TO
the right was taken by IF YOU WO
resident Palatinate pho- ULD like to
some of yo see
tographer Marc Pritchard ur own wor
on the Visu k
in conjunction with the al Arts page
in future, yo
u’
Archery Club. we’re alway re in luck -
In a similar vein to the s looking ou
for the keen t
other archery-orientated est and mos
creative ph t
photo (see left), dra- otographer
and artists s
matic lighting was again and we’d lo
to see som ve
utilised. However, the e of your m
rial. ate-
placement of flashguns
Simply send
either side of the subject to the addr an e- m ai l
along with one on the ess listed
at the top
floor means that the of this page
explaining
background is totally who you ar
what you do e,
eliminated, while the and what
your intere
subject is illuminated with sts are with
a good exam
“rim” light, creating more ple photo-
graph or ar
drama and colour separa- twork piec
attached. e
tion.
 palatinatemusic@gmail.com
PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 www.palatinate.org.uk MUSIC 21

MUSIC
Gig Guide
Album reviews
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds return better than ever, whilst Vincent Vincent & the Villains offer a stunning debut
Our pick of
upcoming live music

of being the next big thing.
Vincent Commercial awareness has,
Vincent & the of course, been part and parcel
of underground rock for dec-
Villains ades, but there’s something
Gospel Bombs extra smelly about it nowa-
days. Their songs suck and they
2222 suck badly; there’s very little
thought put into the song-
writing process and little em-
phasis placed on the crispness
BY Matthew Gibson of the finished product.
Vincent Vincent & The Vil-
lains, you’ll be pleased to
know, don’t fall into this cat-
egory. Their debut album, Gos-
pel Bombs, has been brewing
for a long time and you can
most definitely tell. Their first
single was released back in the
fall of 2006.
Each track on the album is
crafted with care and preci-
sion but, most importantly, the
fundamentals are right. They
MOST GROUPS THESE days are
haven’t skimped on the melo-
only out to make a quick buck.
dy, lyrics or beats, and there’s
They think that just because
something light-hearted about
they have twenty friends on
their sound that makes me
MySpace they’re on the verge
want to skip.
Vincent Vincent & The Villains
also remind us that there was
pop before the explosion of
the Mersey Beat in 1961. The
group does old skool ‘rockabil-
ly’ and it does it in a big way.
They switch from a drunken
Mexican mash-up (Beast) to a
raw Skiffle number (Blue Boy)
to a classic Wah-Do rock ‘n’
roll track (Sins of Love) and
back to Skiffle (On My Own).
They’re clever, witty, and they
maintain the highest quality
throughout.
Their latest single, Pretty
Girl even manages to make
Ska sound good again, while
the vocal harmonies on Sweet
Girlfriend make the Wombats’
attempt at something akin to
music (check out A Guide to
Love Loss and Desperation)
look quite stupid.
Perhaps the biggest trag-
edy is that unlike their peers, March 11
DATE:
Vincent Vincent & The Villains ARTIST: The
Feeling
Carling Academy,
occupy a perilous position on
the periphery of mainstream
VENUE:
Newcastle
indie. Their sound, although
DATE: March 14
polished and mature, hasn’t
ARTIST: Dancingon the Doctor,
got the radio-edge that the
Ghost Hunter, and Man is
Klaxons have.
Instead of filling a dance Slapped
VENUE: Fishtank, Durham
floor with subtly aggressive
hedonistic rock their album is
much more passive. It paints a DATE:March 14
ARTIST: Dead Men Walking
picture of a world in which love
VENUE: Carling Academy,
is dangerous, girls are idolised
and a bad night can be rem- Newcastle
edied by a quality joint. While
variety is great for dedicated DATE:March 15
ARTIST: ThePonyClub presents
music fans, this could prove a
difficulty for the group’s long- Moira Stewart
VENUE: Fishtank, Durham
term success.
Now that ‘indie’ is in, the la- DATE: March 18
bels want to cash in, and those ARTIST: Asia
groups with the biggest tracks Carling Academy,
VENUE:
will be rewarded accordingly. Newcastle
That’s just one more reason to
buy this album and help add
colour to the blandness of 21st
century rock ‘n’ roll.

and high energy. On the other and sex.

Nick Cave & hand each album is always a
The Bad Seeds new discovery. Listening to a
Nick Cave album for the first
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! time is like being a passenger
as Cave takes you on a jour-
2222 ney, through his seedy world
of beautiful women, symbol-
ism and, the perennial Cave
BY Ben Paterson favourite, death.
It is this dichotomy that still
makes Cave one of the most
fascinating artists in modern
music, fourteen albums into
his career with the Bad Seeds
that lies at the heart of his lat-
est offering Dig Lazarus Dig!!!
Readers who have heard
the title track and first single
might be worried that they are
in for a poor patchy affair and
that Cave has somewhat gone
off the boil; indeed, four tracks
into the album, I too feared
TO SOME EXTENT you know
the worst. The three weak-
what to expect with a Nick est songs on the entire album
Cave & The Bad Seeds album:
were lined up first, the only
dark visual imagery, intensity exception being the ebullient
I AM ALWAYS slightly dubious
Nizlopi about overtly political albums.
As an apathetic politics stu-
Make it Happen dent I generally find idealistic
earnestness vaguely depress-
ing. The new Nizlopi album is
2 no exception.
Nizlopi are yet another band
who released one popular
BY Rachel Judge song and then faded into the
background. Their first album
was good, but not spectacu-
lar. The sweet childlike quality
that made The JCB Song such a
hit made their subsequent love
songs sound a little like teen-
age offerings.
This new album moves away
from the clichéd love songs
and into the realm of new
post-materialist politics; but
ends up sounding a lot like the
work of naïve schoolboys who
have just recently learnt to
and catchy Today’s Lesson.
Luckily fans can be reassured
that the rest of the album is
very much Nick Cave and the
Bad Seeds at top form.
This album is, at its heart, a
blues rock album filled with
dirty riffs and distorted feed-
back: indebted to the Doors
read a newspaper.
That’s not to say that there
isn’t a smattering of over-
indulgent mush; Find Me and
Love Is are two stunning exam-
ples of this.
Politically speaking, Nizlopi
cover all the normal topics of
gay rights, peace, love, and
harmony; they even get Ben-
jamin Zephaniah involved to
say that we should all wear
hemp. The major problem
with this is their insistence on
name-dropping.
From Citigroup to Amy Wine-
house, all the staples of mod-
ern society get a mention in
an effort to focus their tirade.
Most of the time this comes
out as a failing attempt at
pop-politics; Part of Me, for
example, is little more than a
long list including Margaret
This reaches a peak on the
final song of the album More
News From Nowhere, an eight
minute epic of psychedelic sto-
DATE:March 20
ARTIST: TheRifles
VENUE: Carling Academy,
“Overall, an Newcastle
excellent album, DATE:March 21
despite its dodgy ARTIST:Discount Horse
presents Apologies I Have
beginning” None
VENUE: Durham, Fishtank
DATE: March 25
ARTIST: Sugababes
rytelling which is both dark
and the Rolling Stones, espe- VENUE: City Hall, Newcastle
and witty.
cially on the fantastic Hold On Overall Dig Lazarus Dig!!! is
To Yourself. DATE: March 27
an excellent album, despite its
Adding to this sleazy atmos- ARTIST: Scouting
for Girls
dodgy beginning and unlike
phere are Cave’s lyrics, remi- Carling Academy,
VENUE:
anything else and shows that
niscent of Bob Dylan, but as if Newcastle
Cave, now 50 and heroin-free,
filtered through the mind of is just as relevant and interest-
Lou Reed, telling abstract tales DATE: March 29
ing as when he entered the ARTIST: Projects
high on religious symbolism scene in the late 70s. VENUE:Georgian Theatre,
Stockton-on-Tees
Thatcher, God and Dr Dre and shows that when they manage
April 2
claiming that ‘part of them is to match uncomplicated lyr-
DATE:
ARTIST: Young
Heart Attack
gay’. ics with a relevant theme and
Whilst fighting for gay rights good musicality they can pro-
Carling Academy,
VENUE:
Newcastle
is laudable, the repetition and duce a good tune.
cringe-worthy lyrics just de-
tract from the sentiment. The
real low of the album is Eng-
land Up Rise. Faux-rapping, an
attempt at humanitarian na- “they should
tionalism and a dodgy tagline
make this song certainly worth
be relegated
a miss. to the school
That said, this album is not
a complete tale of woe. John playground”
Parker’s bass playing is a beau-
tiful background to Luke Con-
cannon’s earnest vocals. There
are hidden gems like Last Night So, in brief, there is hope. But
DATE: April 5
in Dakar, which is an enchant- as long as they are still using
ARTIST: Elbow
ingly yearning piece fused with lyrics like ‘its way cool to me
Carling Academy,
VENUE:
eastern elements. if you turn out to be gay’ they
Newcastle
Musically, Part of Me is simple should be relegated to the
but charming. Start Beginning school playground.
 palatinatemusic@durham.ac.uk
22 MUSIC www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

MUSIC
Meet that student band... Neon Kicks
Rumbidzai Maweni gets up close and personal with Durham’s synth-rocking starlets. Accompanying photography by Marc Pritchard

a popular choice for college

FACTFILE: NEON KICKS
Q. Who are they?
A. Natalie Graham
(vocals), Bobby
Peck (guitar,
bass, synth), John
Williamson (synth,
guitar) and Chloe
Elliott (drums)
Q. When did they
start?
A. Summer, 2007
4,QÀXHQFHGE\"
A. Justice, The Rap-
ture, The Whip, Test
Icicles, Tom Vek etc
4&UXFLDOWUDFNV"
A. Check out Miles
or Fashionites
THE NEON KICKS are known
virtually all throughout the
Durham student music scene
as being the hottest student
band in town and the go-to
for college events and local
gigs. Comprised of two 3rd-
year and two 2nd year Dur-
ham students, they harness a
smooth electro-synth sound
accompanied by the jazzy vo-
cals of classically trained pian-
ist and Music student Natalie
Graham.
“I wouldn’t
really say there’s
a scene...”
“I wouldn’t really say there’s
a scene,” she says when I ask
her what it’s like to be in a
Durham student band. “There
was before, but a lot of them
graduated last year. It’s really
just us at the moment.”
The band achieved imme-
diate success when they made
their debut last summer, play-
ing a series of Fishtank dates
and moving on to become
functions. “A drunk audience
is always best”, cracks Rob
Peck, who provides the band’s
synth, guitar, and bass.
Nonchalant about their
success, they play down their
collectively impressive back-
grounds in a wide range of
musical styles; indeed, they al-
most make it look easy. When
I ask them how they got to-
gether they all look at each
other and shrug: “I basically
called up Rob and said, ‘Hey
do you want to start a band’
and he said, ‘Yeah’. And that’s
all there was to it,” Natalie
says whimsically. “But it really
didn’t come together until
Chloe joined us.
As if on cue, Chloe Elliott,
the band’s vivacious, brunette
drummer nods and smiles
cheekily. “Rob and I already
knew each other since we both
study Music in the same year”,
Natalie continues. Chloe then
explains how she joined the
group though Rob who she
knew through “a friend of a
friend of a friend that lived
near her” and subsequently
brought John Williamson into
the mix to replace original
member Joel Reich, currently
on a year abroad. “Both Chloe
and John fit really well actu-
ally,” Natalie goes on to say.
“We had no problems at all.”
Indeed the bond between
them is immediately evident.
There are times during the
interview when I feel like I’m
crashing the cool kids’ party.
Clearly a tight-knit group that
gets along really well, the con-
versation occasionally would
divert to chit-chat about mu-
tual friends and they were
prone to gently ribbing each is also the group’s main song- ier.” Rob enthuses. “Like, Natalie their prospects are looking
other. writer. “I write about what She went on to emphasise, will write something really good. They’re scarcely hard-
“Tell her about that song inspires me and the people however, that song-writing jazzy on the piano with a lot pressed for gigs. “We’ll prob-
about the girl you hate, but and things that are going on was not a sole enterprise. Rob of depth and I’ll listen to it ably do a lot of the summer
you won’t tell us who she is,” around me. It’s really doesn’t backed her up on this: “I think and go, ‘Ok, how can I turn college events,” Chloe gan-
giggles Chloe at one point. take long for me to write a we actually have a good thing this into an electro-synth ders. “That’s definitely when
Natalie shoots her pointed song. I can write a song in as going, because we all add our song?’ And Chloe, of course, we’ll be busiest.
“zip-it” look and everyone little as an hour. The thing, own elements. Natalie and has played the drums for 10 Even more exciting, the band
bursts out laughing. “See, this you know, is that if you go I both see each other all the years...” has just started recording. As
is why I don’t tell them what into it feeling like, ‘Oh, I have time since we’re both finalist Plans about next year Rob explains, Dot 45 Promo-
the songs are about,” she rolls to write a song’, then it won’t Music students. So she’ll write make them all turn to each tions and Records, a Durham
her eyes and smiles apologeti- happen. But if I sit down in my something really jazzy and other and chuckle nervously. based promotions company
cally. room to write a song, when I’ll see how I can add my own “That’s what we’ve been talk- and soon-to-be record label
Equally blasé about the I’m feeling inspired about synth thing to it. And Chloe ing about non-stop it seems,” will be releasing a compilation
music-making process, Natalie something then it’s a lot eas- and John will then add their Chloe admits. Natalie agrees. record which will include their
input. So everyone is involved “We have no idea what we’re song Miles. “It comes out the
in the writing process really,” going to do, especially with first week of next term. They’ll
he confirms. me and Rob graduating. We probably be having some sort
Half-way through the meet- would really like to continue of launch party to kick it off
ing Natalie gets a text from with it and if we do then may- somewhere like...”
John, who was unable to be I can come up from Lon- “Fishtank,” they all say si-
make the interview. “He says don every now and again. But multaneously, laughing.
to tell you that he smiles and then, there’s also the fact that
nods sagely,” she laughs. the other band members that
On their website, they cite will be finalists next year study
Currently in a band
AMESHISTORICALSOCIETY.ORG

a wide-range of influences in- rather demanding subjects.

cluding Tom Vek, Bloc Party,
and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and
they agree that they all enjoy
very different artists. “I think
it’s great that we all have dif-
ferent musical backgrounds,
Photo caption over photo and thus, varied influences,”
Chloe is a 2nd year Maths
student.” Chloe looks unim-
pressed: “It’s such a goony
subject,” she says, rolling her
eyes and scrunching up her
face hilariously.
In the meantime, though,
and think that your
group would like to
be featured on this
page? Get in touch
with us at the e-mail
address above!

PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
Can you hear the sirens coming?
Rumbidzai Maweni enjoys grime in the northeast, whilst Daniel Bjelis goes in for something a little more sophisticated
Once we managed to shove
Dizzee Rascal our way into the popular
The Carling Academy, Newcastle venue, which was
packed but not claustrophobi-
Newcastle cally so, I immediately looked
around and marvelled at the
diversity of the audience: old,
2222 young, faux punksters, ghetto
boys, teens dressed like Young
Conservatives poster children;
BY Rumbidzai Maweni the grime artist seemed to at-
tract all types.
I HAD NEVER experienced an Opening for Dizzee were Da
urban music concert in this Newham Generals, a duo the
country, let alone in the north- artist personally signed to his
east, and to my DC club-hop- label Dirtee Stank, and who
ping temperament the concept will soon be releasing their
seemed strange and unten- debut album. Although show-
able. For thissake
reason, I jumped
For Pete’s - he’s not evencasing a groovy, experimental,
a pirate
at the opportunity to see Diz- bass-driven grime sound, their
zee Rascal, the artist that first spitting skills were sluggish
wised me up to British hip- and the crowd was rightfully
hop scene, live at the Carling
Academy promoting his 2007
unimpressed.
After what seemed like an
album, Maths+English. endless slot by these guys and
We waited for half an hour several intervals of nondescript
to get into the arena in a line commercial rap, Dizzee Rascal
the curled around almost the finally ambled onto the stage,
entire span of the building. and with unpractised noncha-
Coffee in one hand, a notepad lance, set the crowd on fire.
in the other, I grumpily hud- The track selection was hard-
dled with my friend, partly to ly adventurous. Whilst enjoya-
keep warm and partly to sepa- ble, it held few surprises; most
rate ourselves from the hordes of the songs performed were
of rowdy, seemingly prepu- tracks we’ve all already heard
bescent concert goers in our ad nauseum on the radio. Still,
midst. “Children,” we scoffed many of these inclusions were
disdainfully. welcome. Classics (as classic as
a set mainly taken from their
Basquiat recently released disc, Knee-
deep in the North Sea. Their
Strings/Portico sound is very individual, em-
Quartet ploying an instrument I had
Sage, so far not heard of, the hang
drum. Alongside a soprano
Newcastle sax, drums and bass this group
played some catchy tunes, with
222 melodic motifs that produced
near pop-song style music.
Originally buskers from
BY Daniel Bjelis
South London, Portico Quartet
AS A VENUE, the Sage can played pieces such as Novem-
sometimes seem a little too ber – recalling their experience
formal, especially when there of busking in that particu-
is a classical concert on, draw- lar month in typically British
ing numerous middle-to-old- weather. With strong perform-
aged people dressed in suits. ances from the bass and sax,
However, don’t be put off by even the non-jazz scene will
this. Boasting a variety of mu- enjoy Portico Quartet
sical genres from Lou Reed to The music was edgy, not re-
Mozart to the modern British ally anything I’d heard before:
jazz I saw, there is a lot to dis- Two violins, a viola, a cello,
a bass and drums playing a
cover on the banks of the river
unique variety of jazz was cer-
Tyne.
tainly different. Yet although
In contrast to the poor music
there were definite good
venues in Durham, a fifteen
points in the set that really got
minute train journey and the
my foot tapping, some of the
following ten minute walk,
repertoire just felt unimpres-
brings you to the Sage’s bril-
sive.
liant and very distinct music
Band leader and cellist Ben
halls. At the end of February,
Davis writes all the music; in-
in the intimate second hall, a
ten-sided room with vivid col- cluding fun elements like a
our and dim lighting, I went to musical fight between the
see Basquiat Strings and Por- violins (hear it to believe it)
tico and a creative delight in the
NotQuartet.
just cathedrals...
Although the youthful mem- piece ‘Double Dares’. Basqui-
bers of the audience were at Strings are Mercury prize
slightly outnumbered by their nominees and I did go away
older counterparts, the music and buy their album but, I
on offer was definitely not the wouldn’t recommend them as
older generation of jazz that a first-starter. As a whole, the
many seemed to be expecting. concert was well worth paying
Portico Quartet opened with for.
Hot Chip
Newcastle University,
Newcastle
222
Daniel Bloom
BY
HOT CHIP ARE one of those
rare bands that seem to em-
body Geek with near-minimal
effort at Chic. There they are,
lined up with their oversized
specs and teen-movie-style
high-pitched voices, hammer-
ing away at their synths like
so many ‘Nu-Ravers’ but tragi-
cally without the silly hair or
blinding attire.
Now, arriving on stage in
Newcastle University’s Bass-
ment (no ballroom, this is a
real gig venue) to deafening
cheers, they may have traded
some of their keyboards for
guitars and percussion lately
but they still manage to state
their credentials straight out.
How? By following their intro-
duction of a dramatic sound
and light display with some
unexpected walk-on music:
fluffy pop hits. Genius. They
keep the mood throughout,
which is such a relief; we’d
know we were in trouble if a
band that fills their songs with
so many silly noises were able
to take themselves seriously.
Boy From School, Over and
Over and Ready for the Floor
TIM & BARRY
are impressive: when the
band segues seamlessly into
these tunes the venue comes
alive, and suddenly it all feels
more like an expensive DJ
night than a cheap gig, but
in a good way. The electricity
manages to spark some excep-
tional dancing, and unsurpris-
ingly, I am not without sin. It’s
as if somebody announced a
very fierce contest to find the
worst moves. I feel pity for the
bouncer (the same one as at
Revolver); watching that danc-
ing twice in one week must be
more than anyone can bear.
Vocalist Alexis Taylor is unex-
pectedly funny and, even more
unexpectedly, a pretty decent
singer. He croons over the top
of the band’s trademark rigid
beats, having fun with an-
noyingly repetitive lyrics and
Roaming the
switching the wild
albums’ clini-
cal delivery for a style more
becoming of a jazz singer on
helium.
The highs are pretty high,
then. But there are only a
palatinatemusic@gmail.com
www.palatinate.org.uk
MUSIC
Singles
Daniel Bjelis
you can be within a 5-year ca-
reer ) Jus a Rascal and Fix Up,
Look Sharp nicely filled out the
middle portion of the set.
As Maths+English is, by far,
the weakest of his three full
lengths, we were thankful to
be mercifully spared some of
the more cringeworthy tracks
off the new album. Rather
he tore it up with infectious
choices like Flex and Bubbles
as well as the brilliant rapid-
fire single, Sirens, all of which
had my girlfriend and I mani-
cally booty-shaking much, I’m
sure, to the chagrin of those
around us.
“...a delightfully
charismatic
performance.”
Not enough can be said about
the performance itself. I was
told beforehand to expect a
great live act, and grime artists
are not wholly unknown for
their bravado. Dizzee Rascal
gave a delightfully charismatic
performance, displaying a self-
assurance and stage presence
impressive for his 22 years of
age.
handful of them, five at best,
and even if the band does
extend each one into a ten
minute jam it leaves a signifi-
cant gap. I’d forgotten to note
before I left the house that
Hot Chip have some pretty bad
songs, and miraculously they
manage to play most of them
tonight.
It’s true, too, that the au-
dience aren’t the only ones
treating it as a DJ night: the
band avoid playing anything
like Like We Breakdown that
could break up the increas-
ingly monotonous thumping
bass, whilst Colours is com-
pletely reworked to the point
that it sounds a bit like eve-
rything else. It’s not that they
lack the talent to pull these
songs off live - it seems more
as if they’ve underestimated
their audience. It may be fun
to transform a dead crowd
into unexpected clubbers
for one or two songs, but a
self-proclaimed gig demands
something extra: variety.
MUSIC 23
Jaymay
Gray or Blue
Folk singer Jaymay goes for
a break-up song as her first
single from her debut al-
bum, Autumn Fallin’. It’s a
very laid back, sunny after-
noon song – very samey in-
strumental backing, which
gets boring after a while –
definitely gray.
Moby
Alice
A progressive sound laid on
top of a heavy, distorted
bass line, this is a return to
90s form for Moby. From his
upcoming album Last Night,
Alice features underground
rappers Aynzli and the 419
Squad, and remains loyal to
his particular brand of elec-
tronica.
Bryan Adams
I Thought I’d Seen
Everything
Continuing in his depend-
able style, Bryan Adam’s
new track doesn’t differ
much from his formulaic
guitar strumming and dis-
tinctive voice. From his 11th
album, entitled 11, I am still
reminded of Summer of 69.
Some might like that.
The Enemy
This Song is About
You
Although this track isn’t ex-
actly original in arrangement,
The Enemy epitomise today’s
British rock ‘n’ roll sound.
The melody is catchy and the
sound has plenty of energy,
Tom Clarke even shares in
some of Paul Weller’s tone –
it’s hard to fault.
Kate Nash
Merry Happy
Kate Nash returns with a
very pop-like single in her
typical style; ‘don’t tell me
that you didn’t try and check
out my bum’ she sings. This
is a quietly uplifting track
with some contemplative
lyrics revolving around a lost
love. The harmonies are nice
enough.
Siouxsie
About to Happen
From her solo album
Mantaray, Siouxsie conveys
some raw passion and seems
very similar to Blondie on
this track. It isn’t exactly a
breakthrough sound, but
this aging punk still has sell-
out shows.
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
24 FILM www.palatinate.org.uk
FILM
A city full of angels?
Rachel Baldwin wonders whether, on the eightieth Academy Awards, Tinseltown was coming down to earth
THE OSCARS: An opportunity
for the film business to give its
self a self-congratulatory pat
on the back and for tabloid
journalists to fiercely criticise
it for doing so. Usually associ-
ated with pretence, ego-ma-
nia and mawkish displays of
emotion, this year’s ceremony
was refreshingly low-key.
This was no doubt helped by
the choice of host. Jon Stew-
art, who presents the Daily
Show, an American satirical
programme, led us through
the evening. His dead-pan,
underwhelmed tone suggest-
ed that the event was no big
deal. He struck a perfect blend
of surface cynicism and down-
to-earth assurance, making
frequent off-beat comments,
which was a refreshing change
from the normal connotations
of the night as overblown,
self-congratulatory and ego-
driven.
Indeed, many of his com-
ments, including a request
that “Before we spend the
next four to five hours giving
each other golden statues, let’s
take a moment to congratu-
late ourselves” poked fun at
the perceived self-importance
of the event. Similarly, most of
the acceptance speeches were
short and simple.
The Europeans came out with
some of the more elaborate,
not to say bizarre, speeches:
Tilda Swinton, winning the
Oscar for Best Supporting Ac-
tress, compared the physique
of her bare-cheeked golden
statuette with that of her
bald agent and claimed that
Musical corner
Singing in the
Rain
Laura Griffiths
2222
SINGING IN THE RAIN, the all-
singing, all-dancing film of
1951, combines comedy, ro-
mance and even history!
It tells the story of Don Lock-
wood (Gene Kelly), a Holly-
wood actor of the 1920s, who,
through a great amount of ef-
fort, manages to land a role in
a silent movie. He and his act-
ing partner Lina Lamont (Jean
Hagen) shoot to fame togeth-
er, but problems arise upon the
release of The Jazz Singer, the
first talking picture, or ‘talkie’.
To compete, the studio decides
to turn Don and Lina’s current
film, The Duelling Cavalier,
into a talkie.
The new technology is dif-
ficult to use and exaggerates
Lina’s flaw: her high-pitched,
George Clooney, in between
takes for Michael Clayton,
was to be found hanging up-
side down in his bat-suit! An-
other bizarre comment came
from Daniel Day Lewis, who
seemed to believe that his Os-
car had ‘“sprung like a golden
sapling out of the mad, beau-
tiful head”’ of his director.
Day Lewis continued his cra-
ziness in urging Dame Helen
Mirren to knight him with his
Oscar, afterwards announc-
ing that “That’s the closest I’ll
ever come to getting a knight-
hood”’. Mirren attempted to
look amused.
Marion Cotillard, winning
Best Actress, came the clos-
est to overblown emotions in
her comment ‘It is true there
are some angels in this city’,
echoing Tom Hanks’ com-
ment at an Oscars night that
“The streets of Heaven are
too crowded with Angels’.
A reminder that winning an
Oscar could still mean a lot to
some people came from Glen
Hansard who made a beauti-
fully impassioned, but in no
way pretentious speech. Is the
film industry coming down to
earth?
The Coen brothers were the
real stars of the night, picking
up four Oscars for No Country
For Old Men. Joel did most of
the talking for the double-
headed director, making com-
ments such as “Ethan and I
have been making stories with
movie cameras since we were
kids - honestly, what we do
now doesn’t feel that much
different to what we were
highly-accented voice. The
first screening of the movie is a
disaster and so Don, with help
from his friends Cosmo Brown
(Donald O’Connor) and Kathy
Seldon (Debbie Reynolds), de-
cides to turn The Duelling Cav-
alier into a musical with Lina’s
voice being dubbed by Kathy,
“The film is
bursting with
energy and
guaranteed
to brighten
anyone’s day.”
without Lina finding out. The
developing romance between
Don and Kathy angers Lina,
who wants Don for herself.
She threatens to sue the studio
if anyone finds out what has
happened.
The climax of the film occurs
at the premiere of the newly
titled Dancing Cavalier, with a
doing then”. Ethan seemed
quite content to add a sim-
ple ‘thank you’ to most of the
speeches. Javier Bardem, dryly
thanked the Coens for “One
of the most horrible haircuts
in history”.
Although the close-ups on all
of the nominees faces when
the awards were announced
seemed to open a perfect
window for potential tabloid
bitchiness, the disappointed
nominees conducted them-
selves very well and there was
no hint of disappointment or
rivalry.
Whilst the papers and fash-
IMAGE.NET
threat from Kathy, embarrass-
ment for Lina and as for Don…
well that would be telling!
This film is bursting with en-
ergy and guaranteed to bright-
en anyone’s day. Many of the
songs are recognisable from
television advertisements, such
as ‘Singing in the Rain’ and
‘Good Mornin,’ but other gems
are contained in this feel-good
musical. The twelve-minute fi-
nale ‘Broadway Melody’ com-
bines the genius of Gene Kelly
as a performer, choreographer
and director with the dancing
skills of Cyd Charisse. All of this
together with the brilliance of
Technicolor and the MGM sets
results in an unforgettable
musical within a musical. The
number ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’,
and other slapstick moments,
establishes this as a comedy as
well as a romance.
The film also gives an insight
into Hollywood’s struggle to
convert from silent to talking
pictures. If you haven’t seen it
already, I urge you to, it is guar-
anteed to make you smile… or
even want to dance!
ion correspondents were ready
with disparaging comments
about some of the outfits on
the red carpet (and Stewart,
perceptively put his finger
on this traditional element of
The Oscars, informing the tel-
evision audience that: “In case
you’re wondering what we do
during the ad breaks, mostly,
we sit around and make catty
remarks about what you’re
wearing at home”), none of
this bitchiness was evident in
the film industry itself.
Cameron Diaz gushed on
the red carpet about how nice
it was to see the whole film
The Piano
Michael Clarke
2222
PECULIAR. SURREAL. CAPTI-
VATING. Erotic. Horrific. Beau-
tiful. All these are words that
spring to mind when watching
Jane Campion’s The Piano. The
film opens as mute Scottish
widow, Ada McGrath (Holly
Hunter), arrives in New Zea-
land with her daughter Flora
(Anna Paquin) and her belov-
ed piano, where she is to be
married to quiet frontiersman
Alistair Stewart (Sam Neill).
Ada and Alistair’s relation-
ship gets off to a rocky start as
Alistair does not understand
the value Ada attaches to her
piano. The only person who
does is George Baines (Harvey
Keitel), a lonely white man
who has tried to integrate
himself into Maori society.
MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
‘community’ come together.
Indeed, the whole evening
seemed remarkably pleasant
and civilised. This was particu-
larly impressive considering
that the ceremony was held
in the wake of the writer’s
strike. This fact was ostensibly
smoothed over very success-
fully on the night.
Whilst Stewart could not
resist making a reference to
it in his opening comments,
remarking that “These past
three and a half months have
been very tough. The town
has been torn apart by a writ-
er’s strike. The fight is over,
George buys the piano from
Alistair and agrees to give it
back to Ada if she satisfies his
lustful cravings. As the film
progresses Ada and George
become ever closer, with trau-
matic consequences.
Jane Campion directs the
film with powerful restraint,
drawing the true nature of
each character out slowly, so
that by the end of the film
nothing is at it first appeared:
Alistair’s stiff coldness towards
“Jane Campion
directs the film
with powerful
restraint.”
Ada turns out to be sexual
shyness; George’s lustful de-
sire towards Ada turns out
to be his craving to receive
a passionate embrace; and
Ada’s unhealthy attachment
so tonight... welcome to the
make-up sex”. He incorpo-
rated some of his trade-mark
cynicism, remarking that Van-
ity Fair had cancelled their
pre-Oscar party “out of re-
spect” for the writers, and
wondering whether it would
have perhaps been more re-
spectful to invite the writers
to a party.
However, bar Cody, who, on
accepting the award for Best
Screenplay, declared that ‘This
is for the writers’, surprisingly
little mention was made of
the strike for the rest of the
night.
to her piano turns out to be
her burning desire for a rela-
tionship with a man who un-
derstands her. This last point
is dramatised in a superb un-
derwater sequence that, once
seen, is never forgotten.
The film won the Palme D’Or
at the 1993 Cannes Film festi-
val and won Oscars for Best Ac-
tress (Holly Hunter), Best Sup-
porting Actress (Anna Paquin)
and Best Original Screenplay
(Jane Campion). Criminally,
however, Michael Nyman’s
haunting score (perhaps best
known as the music used in
the Lloyds TSB adverts) was
not even nominated for a Best
Music Oscar.
The DVD is available in the
main library and is definitely
worth watching. The film is
slow and it is often difficult to
see where it is going. However,
it is worth sticking with it to
appreciate the subtle themes
of loneliness and desire for
passionate love, to listen to
the superb music and to be
able to understand the defini-
tion of ‘Cult Classic’.

PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
Short and
Bitter-
Sweet
Prize.
One of his earliest collections
of short stories, On The Yankee
Station, is a clear example of
his writing prowess.
Whilst not forgetting its
fictional boundaries, the
collection charts an interesting
trans–world exploration of
subject matter from adolescent
sex in a Scottish boys’ public
school to murder in a quiet
Devon cottage.
“from
adolescent sex
in a Scottish
Review: John boys’ school
Elmes to murder in a
PERHAPS ONE OF the most
understated contemporary
Devon cottage”
British authors, William Boyd
has proved over the years that
However, where Boyd really
his writing holds within it a
excels is his writing on people
passionate feeling, remarkable
from across the pond.
realism and a dexterity of
In particularly graphic
language that introduces
scenes of American seediness,
wit so subtly you only realise
Boyd triumphs in painting a
that it’s there when you have
picture of abject realism for
been laughing for about five
his protagonists, no clearer
minutes.
seen in the story, The Care and
Attention of Swimming Pools’.
The intense focus on
“wit so subtle the unnamed (anti)hero,
you only realise whose job of installing and
tending swimming pools is
it’s there when also his favourite pastime, is
excruciatingly funny and tragic
you’ve been at the same time, creating a
laughing for five whole host of emotions for
the reader.
minutes” Ultimately, this is what makes
Boyd as a good a writer as he
is. On the Yankee Station is yet
another brilliant example of
It has seen him win numerous
how Boyd hooks the reader
prestigious awards and
and controls their reactions
a nomination for what is
with his writing, as though we
arguably the highest of British
were puppets on his string.
literary accolades, The Booker
Can the subtleties of a short
story rival the intricacies
of an epic? Palatinate
investigates, and discovers
sometimes good things do
come in small packages
Ernest by name,
Earnest by nature
Tim Smyth searches for the emotion at the heart
of Ernest Hemingway’s First Forty-nine Stories
WHATEVER YOU THINK about
Ernest Hemingway: his some-
times annoyingly minimalist
style; his pathetic develop-
ment of female characters; his
frankly boring obsession with
bull-fighting; you cannot deny
that this great laconic he-man
of American literature sure
could write a good story.
While best known for nov-
els such as the epic For Whom
the Bell Tolls and the perhaps
overrated The Old Man and
the Sea (on the back of which
he won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1954) the purest
form of Hemingway’s writing
can be found in The Collected
Stories.
“Hemingway
believed the key
to writing was
to write ‘the
truest sentence
that you know’”
From the woods of Michi-
gan, to the racetracks of Paris,
the sweeping plains of Africa
and even as far as the peak of
Mount Kilimanjaro, the geo-
graphical sweep of these sto-
ries is staggering and is very
much representative of the
wanderlust that formed such a
key part of Hemingway’s char-
acter.
They are always delivered in
Hemingway’s economic, plain
style: he believed the key to
writing was to “write the tru-
est sentence that you know”.
It is often what is left unsaid
that achieves the greatest sig-
nificance in these stories. ‘Big
Two Hearted River’ for exam-
ple is a story about the linger-
ing psychological effects of
war which actually neglects to
mention the war.
Perhaps what is most striking
about these stories though, is
the way they trace Heming-
way’s artistic development.
The collection comprises
Hemingway’s short stories
from 1921 until 1938, meaning
that he wrote many of them
when not much older than
you or I.
Of particular note are the
stories that come from In Our
Time, Hemingway’s first col-
lection (pages 79-223 in the
Arrow Edition), which are in-
terspersed with brief vignettes
concerning war and bullfight-
ing.
The emotive effect of even
these brief flashes is indica-
tive of the deceptive simplic-
ity of his work that belies its
profound emotional depth:
perhaps the key to our under-
standing of his oeuvre.
palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
BOOKS
Someone like Dahl
Edible murder weapons? Betting on little fin-
gers? Looking at this collection of short sto-
ries, Clare Finney finds that Dahl’s imaginative
power remains unparalleled
FOR SOME, Roald Dahl falls si-
lently off the radar along with
the rest of those classic child-
hood tales of witches, magic
fingers and taking animals
- round about the time mem-
bers of the opposite sex cease
to be ugly, pointless aliens and
start to seem strangely appeal-
ing.
For the enlightened few,
however, Roald Dahl is like
a good wine; he simply gets
better with age. I can safely
say I have been as enthralled,
amused, horrified and moved
by his adult books as I was by
the twists and turns of The
BFG or The Witches.
This hopelessly clichéd wine
analogy leads rather neatly
onto the first short story of one
of his best collections of short
stories, Someone Like You.
The collection opens with “a
little betting game” between
a famous gourmet and an ar-
rogant stockbroker who is
willing to bet his 18-year-old
daughter’s hand in marriage
that the gourmet cannot guess
the breed and the vintage of
his latest wine.
As the supercilious bon vivant
mediates over its flavours
and textures with his “wet,
spongy” lips, the girl and the
“gentle and gracious, almost
feminine” wine merge in his
mind - “demure and bashful in
its first taste, emerging shyly
but quite gracefully in the sec-
ond... teasing the tongue with
a trace, just a trace of tannin”
in a description that is at once
repulsive and enthralling in its
genius.
“Road Dahl
is like a good
wine; he simply
gets better as
one gets older”
Indeed, it is a clear sign of
the author’s incomparable tal-
ent that even everyday activi-
ties like tasting wine or buying
groceries is rendered mesmer-
ising by his power of descrip-
tion.
BOOKS 25
Witty yet disturbing, fun yet
thought provoking, the tales
derive much of their power
from a pervasive sense of fa-
miliarity; a familiarity which
is particularly disconcerting
when the tale in question con-
cerns a machine that can hear
flowers scream as they are cut;
a “frightful, throatless shriek”
that would make even the
most romantic bunch of cut
roses seem like a crime scene.
“Stories range
from the
ramblings of a
shell-shocked
soldier to the
surreal tale of
man who bets
on someones’
little finger”
The range of subjects cov-
ered by the stories in Someone
Like You is extensive, ranging
from the strangely disturbing
ramblings of a shell-shocked
soldier to the surreal tale of a
man who tries to bet a Cadillac
on another young man’s little
finger.
The tales, like their titles, are
deceptively innocuous, often
defying all attempts at expla-
nation right up until the very
last moment whereupon a
dramatic, yet subtly presented
twist renders the full implica-
tions of the tale shockingly
clear.
These ingenious ‘twists in
the tale’ mark the climax of
the heightened tension that
accumulates as each individ-
ual story unfolds, and more
than make up for a noticeable
lack of thematic consistency
throughout the collection.
Of all the tales, ‘The Great
Automatic Grammatizor’
probably marks the highlight
of Dahl’s creative genius. A
machine created to write sto-
ries, its ability to automatically
generate “fiction” en masse
threatens to “undercut every
writer in the country.”
A world without authors?
After reading Dahl’s stories,
I couldn’t imagine anything
worse.
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
26 THEATRE www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE

THEATRE
Playfulness with dark undercurrents from DOE
Fraser Riddell finds Durham Opera Ensemble’s Hansel and Gretel sugary-sweet while showcasing Durham’s top quality operatic talent
ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK’S
Hansel & Gretel presents the
familiar folk-tale as a full-scale
opera.
Premiered in 1893, it utiliz-
es much of the style familiar
from Richard Wagner’s music-
dramas but melds it with ma-
terial derived from German
folk songs. Its sense of fun and
youthfulness have ensured
its enduring popularity in the
opera-house.
Zoë Andrews’ production for
Durham Opera Ensemble cap-
tured both the playfulness of
the opera’s surface and the un-
derlying darkness of the folk-
tale’s subtext.
Sarah Shepherd and Julia
Hudson were perfectly cast as
Hansel and Gretel. While Hud-
son’s voice was far from the
most powerful in the cast, her
purity of tone captured the
innocence of her character su-
ance of the chorus was not
matched by the corps de ballet.
While Claire Hall’s choreogra-
phy was certainly ambitious, it
seemed to stretch the skills of
her dancers rather too far. De-
spite some convincing perform-
ances, there was a general lack
of synchronization and often
an inability to follow the musi-
cal pulse precisely. It often felt
as though Andrews could have
trusted the power of the music
to carry the emotional force of
the drama, rather than crowd-
ing the stage with these rather
unremarkable interludes.
Under the baton of Tom Ne-
wall, the orchestra were more
than capable of commanding
the attention of the audience
throughout. It is tempting to
take the musical abilities of
these players for granted, yet
their rigorous but subtle ap-
proach to elements of phras-

perbly. Shepherd’s more reso-
nant mezzo provided a fine
contrast to this, capturing the
boyishness of her role.
Gillian Plummer’s (Mother)
voice penetrated the dense
orchestral texture easily and
Michael Bunch (Father) dis-
played a fine control of the
higher register in his flexible
bass voice.
Harriet Fisher clearly relished
her role as the Witch, her voice
simultaneously mellifluous and
rather disturbing! For a group
of such talented singers, the
cast could have relied on their
own abilities to a greater ex-
tent: too great a reliance on
the conductor for cues occa-
sionally shattered the dramatic
illusion.
Andrews presented a chorus
of zombies, providing a reliev-
ing counterpoint to the some-
times cloying sugar-sweetness
of this opera, and often the
OLLIE KING
ing and ensemble underpinned
the success of the production
as a whole.
A common criticism of opera
performed in English – rather
than in the original language
supplemented with subtitles
– is the inability to hear the
words clearly. This production
used an English translation of
the original German libretto.
While the diction of the sing-
ers was universally crisp and
precise, there were inevitably
occasions when, due to bal-
ance issues between stage and
orchestra, the words were lost.
What impressed most, how-
ever, was the manner in which
the strength of the physical
acting conveyed perfectly the
sense of the libretto.
This production had a sense
of youthful ebullience rare in
the professional opera-house.
An opera of this scale is a truly
ambitious project and DOE
JIAMING JU

effective positioning of the
group ensured a stirring ‘sur-
round-sound’ experience.
Unfortunately the perform-
OLLIE KING
succeeded in presenting an
evening which showcased out-
standing vocal, orchestral and Gillian Plummer as ‘Mother’ Julia Hudson as ‘Gretel’
theatrical talent.

Off the wall comedy from the cream of the crop

Zara Fitzgerald joined the crowds at the Comedyfest at the DSU, in aid of DUCK

PEOPLE TURNED OUT in their
droves on Sunday night to see
the DUCK Comedyfest.
Such an assembly in one room
was truly bargainous watching
– even at Edinburgh you would
be hard pressed to receive so
much concentrated quality and
all the arty types that filled the
Fonteyn Ballroom were eager
to see what sumptuous comic
delights were awaiting them.
All in all it was a satisfyingly
successful evening. The show
was opened by the Cambridge
Footlights. Their sketches ad-
hered to a very contemporary
theme with Jack Gordon-
Brown making humorous ref-
erences to Chris Martin, about
whom a song was written to
the tune of ‘In my place’ except
it was ‘With Chris Martin’s face,
/ Poverty I shall erase’. There
were also some enjoyably sur-
real touches such as when
members of what appeared to
be a self-help group vowed to
peel back the ‘foreskin of de-
ceit’ about life. Yet as much as
I could have watched a large
volume of these sketches in
quick succession, they were all
too drawn out and what was
once funny deteriorated into
mildly annoying.
Although it was a strong per-
formance from the Cambridge
Footlights, they were abso-
lutely dwarfed both physically
and energetically by the mag-
nificent Penny Dreadfuls, who
stretched their limbs around
the stage leering at the au-
dience when appropriate.
Initially the Victorian back-
ground against which their
sketches were performed took
me aback, but after a few mo-
ments I was won over by each
one of this glorious trio.
All three had superb char-
acterisation, convincing us of
everything they did. I never
wanted to leave their middle
class drawing room in which
we witnessed ‘Susan Junior’,
oblivious to the offensiveness
of David Reed’s absurd Uriah
Heap-like fiancé, who was
writhing on the floor. I looked
around me: every other person
was rocking in their seat.
In the Oxford Revue we were
presented with a different but
in no way inferior type of com-
edy. Theirs was an intellectual-
ly interactive show; the open-
ing sketch being an amusing
exchange concerning a dead
hamster who had gone ‘a la
discotheque’ culminating in
various standard school French
textbook phrases uttered as if
they were life or death.
Although off the wall humour
is generally not my bag, this hit
all the right notes and made
everyone feel smug for being
challenged and successfully
rising to it. This show suffered
only mildly from drawing out
the jokes; with the extremely
witty Shakespeare sketch I was
shifting in my seat somewhat.
But by the time it got to team
leader Kieran Hodgson pro-
nouncing the Pokémon theme
tune with thespian vigour, all
was forgiven.
Perhaps it was that the audi-
ence was quite worn out from
the acts beforehand, but the
Durham Revue just seemed to
lack panache. This, although
it would have been fairly un-
noticeable had they been per-
forming alone, was painfully
evident in the shadows of the
others. Their sketches didn’t
match up in terms of quality
or innovation and when they
did have a good idea like their
WWI soldiers massively preoc-
cupied by poetry, the entire
process was drawn out with a
certain awkwardness.
There were gratifying mo-
ments such as Tom Lyons’ neat
visual demonstration of ‘bum
love’ and Jez Scharf’s sublime
use of his body bursting into
dance at the sound of Wham
but this wasn’t nearly capital-
ised on enough to carry the
entire sketch.
Thus, despite a few off mo-
ments and in the case of the
Durham Revue, a want of re-
hearsal, Comedyfest was one
of the best things I have seen
for a while. My inner cheap-
skate very much hopes that
this event continues, thus ren-
dering a trip to Edinburgh each
year entirely unnecessary.
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 www.palatinate.org.uk THEATRE 27

THEATRE
DULOG has a hard time
Otto Rich thought Assassins did its job, but wasn’t quite special enough

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESS of
this year’s DULOG Gala show,
and with a short rehearsal time
of just a month, director Steph
Smith was always going to
have a hard time to continue
the society’s run of high-quali-
ty, enjoyable musical theatre.
And in the choice of Stephen
Sondheim’s Assassins, Smith,
together with musical director
Pops Barham, choreographer
Alexia Papaspyrou and produc-
er Nick Boalch had definitely
not taken on an easy show.
Assassins tells the story of
the various attempts, both
successful and failed, on the
lives of American presidents;
from Abraham Lincoln to JFK.
But rather than focusing on
the presidents or the events
themselves, Sondheim focuses
on the killers: their stories,
backgrounds and mind-sets
that caused them to attempt
good all-rounders for Assassins
to succeed.
I commend Smith for her vi-
sion and ambition in putting
on this production; one of the
more challenging to happen
in Durham this year. This vi-
sion was at once evident in her
striking choice of set, and al-
though I would argue that the
Assembly Rooms is not a good
venue in which to stage a com-
plicated musical with a cast of
fifteen, Smith and stage man-
ager Laura Tickell produced a
stunning backdrop of a 1920s
speakeasy. Lighting and tech-
nical effects were fantastic
too – commendations to Ella
Parry-Davies and Ian Wenken-
bach for this – particularly at
the moments of the assassina-
tions.
Sadly, on the stage itself,
the performance was at times
less than sharp. Things didn’t
I actually grew to think of his
performance as one of the bet-
ter ones.
Good performances also
came from Aleks Kizimovich,
whose dry, witty portrayal of
assassin Sarah Jane Moore had
me chuckling on numerous oc-
casions, and I felt that she not
only really engaged with the
character but also brought a
lot of her own touch to the
role. Mike Shaw also stood
out, and his talent in holding
the audience’s attention shone
through in his long soliloquy
telling the story of Sam Byck.
But many other parts were
weak; awkward, incompre-
hensible accents and a lack of
engagement with characters
were frequent.
Musically the Balladeer Will
Davies and John Hinckley (Tom
Garnett) were a highlight:
exceptionally strong singers

the ultimate murder. Howev-
er, the show was all the more
challenging as, unlike most
other scripts chosen by DU-
LOG, Sondheim’s piece is both
musically and theatrically intri-
cate; I would therefore argue
that Smith had a far harder
job than most directors of mu-
sical theatre in Durham. Not
only is the show all-singing
and all-dancing, but the plot-
line is complicated and the
characters deep, meaning that
the cast have to be extremely
get off to a good start with
the music all but drowning
out the speakeasy’s proprie-
tor, Mike Bunch, and John
Wilkes-Booth, played by Simon
Radford, leaving me with ab-
solutely no idea what was go-
ing on in the opening scene of
the show. Radford’s dubious
southern drawl was also diffi-
cult to understand and his act-
ing began shakily, though he
returned towards the end of
the play far stronger and more
relaxed into his character and
OLLIE KING
who more than rose to the
challenge of the loud band
and complex score. But again
overall performances on the
pressive were the Bystanders from a dull, dissertation-filled val in a production that was a
musical front were mixed and
(Jess Taylor, Sam Morgan, Rob part of the year. good two hours long. Assas-
generally suffered from a lack
Richmond, Nikki Jones and In conclusion I commend sins did its job, but with more
of diction. The words were all
Jon Gracey), whose ‘freezes’ Steph Smith and the show’s rehearsal time and polish, the
but inaudible and were often
in the middle of dance num- production team for a serious- cast could have gone further
drowned out by the band, de-
bers worked well. The last few ly good effort considering the towards making Sondheim’s
spite most of the cast being
numbers were far more pol- challenge Assassins presents; work something special.
miked.
ished and the show finished it’s no Guys and Dolls. But there In future DULOG should
Things picked up, particularly
on a high. The audience gave were serious problems with perhaps think harder about
towards the end, and the cho-
rapturous applause, and essen- some characters, and I also putting on such a demanding
reography and dancing was
tially I feel the production pro- don’t understand the decision show so soon after their main
hard to fault; particularly im-
vided an entertaining diversion to deny the audience an inter- Gala event.

Tragicomic sci-fi Understated but entertaining

Danny Dyson isn’t convinced by the aliens of
A Midsummer Night’s Space Odyssey
IN THE FUTURE, we will all be
speaking Fwelnish. That is, if
you believe the wildly wacky A
Midsummer Night’s Space Od-
yssey, which imagines a future
where both Wales and Finland
are super-powers in human-
ity’s quest to colonise the uni-
verse.
Add in a cyborg, a clone, a
few disillusioned humans and
enough aliens to shake a light-
sabre at and you have the spir-
it of the show. Like a lovechild
between Star Trek and Rocky
Horror, A Midsummer Night’s
Space Odyssey baffled and de-
lighted the audience in equal
measure.
Starting with a cheesy voice-
over to make any 70’s sci-fi
fan proud, the little plot there
was attempted to tie together
various stories; from assorted
aliens’ quests to discover more
about humanity, to that of a
couple of jaded army cadets,
and a clone struggling to gain
respect in the army despite the
disadvantage of being grown
in a vat. Needless to say, it
achieved minimal success.
The acting was also uneven.
Whilst the show was often
stolen by the appearances of
‘Frank the Mantruscan’ and
Deborah Lowe’s cyborg pro-
fessor character complete with
cardboard costume and me-
chanical hand movements, the
real star of the show was Emily
Weir. Her clone character was
perfectly balanced in terms of
feistiness and vulnerability, es-
pecially alongside Naomi Pop-
ple’s commander character,
the villain of the show if there
was one.
Their chemistry was electric,
and definitely the strong-
est part of the show, despite
Weir’s occasional lack of confi-
dence and quietness.
The rest of the cast, whilst
not bad, often seemed point-
less – there was little opportu-
nity to them to endear them-
selves to the audience; some
just felt cheap and thrown in
to provide a laugh.
Whilst the show should be
applauded for not being main-
stream and soulless, it didn’t
pack enough of a punch to be
considered meaningful, either
by comic or tragic standards.
However, if you are harbour-
ing an inner geek, then this
show was definitely worth a
watch. Just don’t expect any
Shakespeare.
The Hill College Theatre Company’s reputation is secured by their production of The Odd Cou-
ple...and Helen Saville is suitably impressed
IN THE ODD COUPLE, Olive
Madison invites her friend Flor-
ence Ungar to share her home
when Florence’s marriage sud-
denly breaks down, but hilar-
ity ensues when Olive’s untidy
ways come to blows with Flor-
ence’s impeccably neat habits.
Playwright Neil Simons wrote
a female version of his origi-
nally male-cast Broadway play
twenty years after its 1965 run,
and The Hill College Theatre
Company ably staged this fem-
inised version in Trevelyan Col-
lege’s Sir James Knott Hall.
An impressively ‘homely’ set
“Alex Walshaw
as the jilted,
mascara-stained
Florence Ungar
was amusingly
charged with
hyperbole”
formed the backdrop to the
play, with careful details such
as posters of The Beatles and
Chat Noir adding to the con-
vincingly well-worn nature of
Olive Madison’s apartment.
When the play opened upon
Olive’s weekly trivial pursuit
evening with friends, the audi-
ence were invited into a cosily
furnished home rather than an
overly minimalist theatre set.
All the actors in the open-
ing scene made good, natural
use of expression and move-
ment. However, the clarity and
line delivery of some dialogue
was initially weak, most likely
because of difficulties in ac-
quiring sufficiently plausible
American accents.
Thankfully, accents grew
stronger as the scenes pro-
gressed. The believability of
the cast as a close friendship
group was quickly established,
yet each cast member por-
trayed their character’s indi-
viduality with unforced assur-
ance.
From Sylvie’s (Vicki Sparks)
sarcasm to Renee’s (Mia Hart-
well) neuroticism, the cast evi-
dently knew their characters
through and through. Placing
tomboyish cop Mickey (Kay
Hetherington) next to absent-
minded, girlish Vera (Isabelle
Salib) was a clever use of block-
ing that further emphasised
such character contrasts.
Alex Walshaw’s first entrance
as the jilted, mascara-stained
Florence Ungar was amusingly
charged with hyperbole. Comic
timing was flawless, especially
during the climactic upstage
moment when all characters si-
multaneously struggle to stop
Florence from harming herself,
in a cacophony of noise and
bustle.
Gabby Wass conveyed Ol-
ive Madison’s sharp, dry wit
with aplomb, and yet subtly
allowed moments of sincere
vulnerability in her character
to emerge. These moments
contrasted well with Florence’s
more hysterical, ‘wearing her
heart on her sleeve’ approach
to her loneliness. This odd cou-
ple were very well cast in de-
served lead roles, commanding
the audience’s attention with
great ease.
The first half of the play
sustained a strikingly well-
conducted pace; a worthy re-
flection of director Ollie Lynes’
ability to convey the succinct,
witty nature of Simons’s writ-
ing. Smooth interjections of
American hits during scene
changes, well timed sound ef-
fects and simple but effective
use of lighting ensured that
technical effects were a suc-
cess.
The second half was equally,
if not more, comically com-
mendable. When Barcelonean
brothers Manolo (Simon Mal-
lace-Goulbourne) and Jesus
(Charlie Cussons) entered the
scene, both actors confidently
portrayed the farcical foreign-
ers, their presence being re-
freshingly welcome in a pre-
dominantly female cast. They
brought warm humour to the
topics of language barriers and
Spanish society, their cheeky
flirting providing a humorous
foil to the highly-strung Flor-
ence. Colourful, flashy suits
were a good costume choice
to emphasise their gaudy per-
sonas.
The cast was small and the
venue intimate, but this un-
derstated production achieved
plentiful laughs, and further
secured the reputation of the
Hill College Theatre Company
as being capable of producing
thoroughly entertaining com-
edy.
 palatinate.arts@durham.ac.uk
28 THEATRE www.palatinate.org.uk MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
THEATRE
Fancy dress, debauchery and a dash of controversy
Zara Fitzgerald is outraged but surprisingly satisfied by The Cabaret of Evil at the Assembly Rooms last week
AFTER NEARLY TWO years
at ‘the ’Ham University’, I’ve
come to realise what makes
us students tick... fancy dress,
debauchery, and a smidge of
controversy.
And pray tell, where are
these things available in this
sleepy/asleep city in which we
reside? Enter stage right: The
Cabaret of Evil.
This musical comedy show
was not only original, but it ap-
peared to tick all the required
boxes. Written by student Rob
Henderson and postgrad Don-
nchadh O’Conaill, the show
was made up of several short
sketches, each ridiculously
controversial, offensive, ex-
travagant and equally brilliant.
There was a fantastic introduc-
tion to the show by Mr 666
himself (Ollie King), and the
audience stared in disbelief
as songs and dances were per-
formed, as if oblivious to the
GEORGE BAIRSTOW
fact that their content was un-
ashamedly crude and normally
avoided in a social context.
One minute the stage was
brimming with Klu Klux Klan
 
dancers, accompanied by a ‘hill
billy’ on a guitar promoting
White Supremacy, and then
the next second there were
babies hanging from the ceil-
ing by their umbilical cords,
while a doctor was singing
about the beauty of abortion.
This performance is not for the
faint-hearted, nor for the eas-
ily offended, but then neither
is a night out in Klute!
There were some very clev-
er, side-splitting scenes in the
show, and the excellent script
was complimented by a strong
cast. It would be fair to say,
however, that one actor in
particular did appear to steal
the show. Adam Blampied had
the stage presence and timing
that most professional actors
would envy, and he has a very
promising career ahead of him
in comedy.
So forget Cambridge Foot-
lights and the Oxford Revue,
‘Cabaret of Evil’ was an accel-
eration in comedy and provid-
ed cutting edge hilarity which
Durham University should be
proud of. Outrageous!
 




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PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
COLLEGE SPORT
Aidan’s
Jenny Cann
Despite a cancelled rugby
match and a disappointing
result for Women’s football,
Aidan’s sport had a successful
fortnight. The Men’s hockey
achieved an excellent 2-0
win against Van Mildert,
while even better news came
in the Football Trophy, where
the Men’s A’s came from behind to steal a semi-
final spot with a sensational 3-1 win. In rowing,
the Women’s 1st VIII recorded an excellent time
in their biggest (and longest) race of the year at
the Tideway Head of the River. Well done girls!
Collingwood Cuth’s
Vicki Sparks
Collingwood C football team
have been promoted to the
Men’s Premiership after
key 8-2 and 5-2 victories
over Aidan’s C and Cuth’s
A respectively. They will
now play a division above
the B team who missed out
on promotion, although they
could still be joined in the Premiership by
Collingwood D. In hockey, the A’s maintained
college bragging rights, beating the B’s to
progress to the semi-finals of the Men’s Hockey
Cup - keeping their double campaign on track.
Hild Bede
Tom Bigglestone
Described as “the closest thing
to total football since Ajax,”
the Men’s D team finished
off by hitting four past Van
Mildert. The Women’s netball
team, continue to lead the
table after edging Hatfield
31-30, and the Women’s rugby
B’s continued the success over
Hatfield, winning 37-15 in the Premiership. The
Men’s Squash team successfully defended their
title unbeaten, while the Women’s Football
A’s face a crucial six pointer versus Castle to
guarantee safety.
Stephenson
Joel Kara
The Stockton hockey derby
against Snow ended with
honours even, as both sides
fought hard in a 1-1 draw.
With Stephenson aiming
to close the four point gap
between them and their
local rivals, they responded
well three days later with a 3-0
win over Castle on their home turf.
The women, however, still sit bottom of Hockey
Division 1 after losing to Aidan’s A. In Men’s
squash, Stephenson were thrashed 5-0 by Grey,
leaving them still to earn a point this term.
Butler
Tom Maclean
In a successful fortnight for
Butler sport, the Women’s
Netball team secured
promotion to Division One,
with their eighth successive
win, and the Men’s team
stormed into the Semi-Final
of the Cup. Both Football
teams recorded resounding wins
at the weekend, the A’s thrashing Mildert 6-1
and the B’s claiming an equally impressive 5-1
win. Butler’s Rugby XV are all but promoted,
and the Women’s cricket team comprehensively
won the annual Indoor Cricket Tournament.
In football’s Men’s Division
2 Relegation Pool, Cuth’s B
and C both cemented their
positions in the top two
with battling 0-0 draws
against Ustinov B and Grey
B respectively. However, the
Indoor Cricket team went down
to Aidan’s at Houghton Kepier.
Fancy being the Cuth’s Sports Correspondent?
Get in touch at palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
John Snow
John Snow rugby A’s
promotion hopes took a
battering this fortnight as
they were hammered 60-0
by a rampant St Mary’s. But
better news came in hockey,
as the Men beat John’s 4-1.
Fancy being the John Snow Sports Correspond-
ent?
Get in touch at palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
Trevs
Rumbidzai Maweni
A series of unfortunate
events may well characterise
this past fortnight of Trevs
college sport. In the Women’s
Football Astro Premiership,
Hatfield beat Trevs A 3-1,
while, a few days later,
Men’s squash were thrashed
5-0 by Mary’s and Women’s
badminton suffered an abysmal 6-3 loss to
Aidan’s. However, Trevs football A’s secured
their Premiership survival by beating Hild Bede
C 2-1 and Trevs B also managed to remain in
their division, tromping Aidan’s B 3-2.
Castle
Tim Wright
This fortnight was a particu-
larly successful one for Castle’s
football teams. The Men’s A’s
won one out of their two
matches, while the B’s won
their only game. The Wom-
en’s Astro Football team also
look to have maintained their
place in the Premiership after
another crucial win. However, the college had a
rather mixed fortnight on the squash court. The
Women’s team impressed, winning their only
game 5-0, but the Men couldn’t match them,
managing only one win out of three.
Grey
Tom Brown
The Men’s football A’s
grabbed important victories
against Ustinov and Hild
Bede A’s in the Premiership’s
Championship pool, but a 4-1
defeat to Cuth’s B put the B’s
in danger relegation to the
Conference. In netball there
were wins for both the A’s and
the B’s, but the Women’s badminton A’s went
down 6-3 to Hatfield. The Men’s hockey A’s
moved up to third in the Premiership following
victories over Aidan’s and Van Mildert., and the
Men’s squash As thrashed Stephenson 5-0.
John’s
Peter Skerratt
John’s enjoyed mixed success
in a rather quiet fortnight
in college sport. On the
squash courts, John’s were
soundly beaten by Butler,
while the cricket team were
edged out by Collingwood in
the Indoor Championship. On a
more positive note, John’s A
Hockey boosted their promotion push with a
fine 3-0 win over Hatfield B. In football, John’s
B failed to fulfil their true potential at the end
of a disappointing season, despite boasting the
dynamic duo of Julian Shaw and Paul Wiggins.
Ustinov
Ustinov Women’s Hockey A’s
Division One title campaign
suffered a blow last week,
as they went down 1-0 to
Mary’s A. They now only
hold a one point lead over
second team Collingwood A,
who also have a game in hand.
Fancy being the Ustinov Sports Correspondent?
Get in touch at palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk SPORT 29
Chad’s
Matthew Walters
In hockey’s Men’s Division
1, a Rupert Bright hat-trick
inspired Chad’s to a crushing
6-0 win over Castle A, piling
the pressure on top-side
Trevs. Turning to football,
Chad’s A succumbed to a
damning 3-1 defeat at the
hands of the staff, resulting in
the side’s relegation from Men’s Division 1. In
rugby’s Women’s Premiership, Chad’s could put
up no resistance as Van Mildert emerged clear
19-0 winners. In badminton’s Chad’s A were
overpowered 9-0 by an imperious Cuth’s A.
Hatfield
Alex Bedwell
February 23 saw Hatfield-
Castle Challenge day, which
was dominated by Hatfield,
who triumphed in Men’s
football and rugby, Women’s
hockey and netball and
the supporters’ challenge.
Elsewhere the Men’s badminton
B team secured promotion to
division 1 and the Men’s hockey B team (the
only B team in the league) recorded their first
ever victory with a fine 4-1 defeat of Butler.
The netball A’s also continued their fine form,
outclassing Mary’s in an impressive 43-25 win.
Mary’s
In Men’s squash, Mary’s A’s
put themselves in a great
position to claim second spot
in Pool B with a 5-0 win over
Butler. They are now equal
on points with both the hill
college and John’s, but have a
superior Games Difference.
Fancy being the Mary’s Sports Correspondent?
Get in touch at palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
Van Mildert
Jon Baly
In a very successful fortnight
for Mildert sport, the
Women’s VIII put in a highly
impressive performance on
the Thames at Tideway, and
the Women’s A’s hammered
Collingwood 40-0 in the
Rugby Premiership. The Men’s
Squash A’s battled to a 3-2 victory
over Grey B, while in football, Mildert Galaxy
finished their season in style, John Baty scoring
the only goal in a 1-0 win over Mary’s A.
 palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
30 SPORT www.palatinate.org.uk
Can money always buy success?
In a fortnight that saw Chelsea fail to beat Tottenham, despite their millionaire backer, Joel Kara reflects on an
amazing Carling Cup final, while Peter Skerratt ponders the future of the Premier League in the face of excessive
money, an influx of foreign players and the prospect of games being played overseas...
G
oals from Dimitar Ber-
batov and Jonathan
Woodgate cancelled
out Didier Drogba’s first half
strike to give Tottenham Hot-
spur their first piece of silver-
ware in nine years. Great saves
from Paul Robinson put him
back in the running for the
England number one position,
whilst hard-lining from Juande
Ramos asserted his position
as Tottenham’s long-awaited
‘Messiah’ – or ‘Midas’ as some
are referring to him.
The mood was set. The pre-
match build up was like no
other. The team line-ups were
positioned in a 6-foot-flag per-
sonalised layout. The fans were
chanting at the top of their
voices and for today, nothing
else mattered. Chelsea led at
the break with Drogba’s pin-
perfect free-kick in the 39th
minute. However the score line
at half-time in no way reflected
the game’s proceedings. Spurs
could have led within minutes
of kick-off thanks to Juliano
Belletti’s shocking square-ball
which fell straight to Keane,
however Terry did well to de-
flect the shot out for a corner.
A good start for Spurs saw
their fair share of chances, but
goals failed to materialise.
Chimbonda came close early on
as he hit the bar from Lennon’s
deep cross, before Chelsea
replied with an attack by
Michael Essien that Woodgate
handled with ease.
Within the space of 10 minutes
Didier Drogba was gifted two
free-kicks, inches apart, from
two clumsy tackles. The first
breezed wide, but, with bad
defensive co-ordination, the
second was netted to the left
of Robinson to give the holders
the lead.
Tottenham fans were in
full-voice, even at 1-0 down
outsinging and outchanting
the Chelsea support. At the
break it was Chelsea who led,
but the game – even neutrals
would admit – was all about
Tottenham.
The second half continued
to show Tottenham’s control
over Chelsea, with Aaron
Lennon beginning to find
his feet. Movement from the
international flying winger
posed a threat to the Chelsea
defence leaving the supporters
asking not ‘if?’, but ‘when?’
This further increased the
volume of the fans but a
surprising substitution saw
Chimbonda storm down the
tunnel when replaced by
young Tom Huddlestone.
The England Under-21 star
made an immediate impact,
as he battled with Wayne
“the remaining
minutes
brought...golden
chances but no
goals, which
opened the door
for extra time...”
Bridge in Chelsea’s box to
force a blatant hand-ball. The
resultant penalty allowed
Bulgarian superstar Dimitar
Berbatov to tap home the
equaliser past Petr Cech.
The Chelsea fans sat quietly
waiting for another work of
magic from their star striker,
but nothing came. Didier
Zokora had a chance to end
the game when he was put
through by Keane for a one-
on-one with Cech but the
highly-rated goalkeeper stood
his ground and made himself
big to deny the Ivory Coast
international the winning
goal.
The switching of play by
the Spurs midfield only
added to Lennon’s liveliness
with a second goal seeming
SOPHIE CHIP
imminent. However, the
remaining minutes only
brought substitutions and
golden chances - no goals
- which opened the door to
extra time.
Within minutes of this, good
positioning by Woodgate put
him in the face of the Chelsea
shot-stopper and forced a
rebounded goal that gave
Tottenham the lead. Not scoring
in over two years made this
moment all the more special
for Jonathan Woodgate, an
England hopeful.
Even with the lead Spurs
did not give up. Jenas, a
key element in Tottenham’s
side, kept pressuring Mikel.
Persistently going forward
allowed Jenas to force a foul,
and a yellow card, out of the
Nigerian youngster.
Substitutions of Keane and
Mikel (for Kaboul and Joe
Cole, respectively) changed
the game completely and
saw Chelsea gain on Spurs.
However, it was all too little too
late. Tottenham ended their
nine-year dry spell by lifting
the first of potentially many
cups to come under the new
regime in a performance which
saw the holders outplayed,
outfought and out-sung by
the underdogs, Tottenham
Hotspur. Celebrations started
when Ledley King, the fans’
favourite, returned to lift the
cup to bring the glory days
back to White Hart Lane.
The 120 minutes of the
Carling Cup Final not only
put Tottenham on track but
also allowed for certain points
to be put into perspective.
For example, Avram Grant is
looking more and more like
an average manager, and
Tottenham’s prior defensive
problems were easily plugged
with the purchase of strong
defenders such as Hutton and
Woodgate.
Spurs now march on with a
guaranteed space in Europe
next year.
R
ecently the foundations
of British football have
been shaken up just a
little too much for comfort.
The proposals to add a 39th
game to the Premiership
schedule on foreign soil have
rightly been ridiculed; the only
plausible reasoning for such
action would be the potential
profit for money-grabbing
chairmen.
Yet this struck me as
symptomatic of the changing
tide within British football.
The Premier League seems to
be exploiting English clubs
within the international
market, rather than looking
after the interests of the
domestic game. Ironically, the
focus within British football is
slowly gravitating away from
all things British.
The former England technical
director, Howard Wilkinson,
has recently bemoaned the lack
of English players featuring
in the Champions League, as
well as an increasingly small
pool of British talent. All in all,
the future for British football
is bleak and England’s dismal
failure to qualify for Euro 2008
(in Switzerland and Austria)
simply reinforced this grim
scenario.
UEFA president Michel Platini
summed up the situation aptly:
“In England, you already have
no English coach, no English
players and maybe now you
will have no clubs playing in
England. It’s a joke.” Typically
outspoken but unfortunately
astute, Platini raises some
valid observations, two of
which have already been
touched on. As for an English
coach, I personally feel that
Capello is the right man to
revive England’s fortunes and
will prove the much-needed
disciplinarian, willing to kick
any prima donnas into shape.
Nevertheless, many have
continued to criticise the FA
for allowing England to reach
such lows, pointing to the
Could games like this be a thing of the past?
MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
snub of Martin O’Neill, an
accomplished British coach,
as a crucial error. O’Neill’s
rejection (and the subsequent
appointment of McClaren) left
Capello to dig England out of
a deep hole but, remarkably,
O’Neill might still prove the
saving grace for England in
these footballing dark ages.
Having been overlooked by
the FA, Martin O’Neill promptly
signed for Aston Villa, a long-
underachieving team (England,
anyone?). When he arrived,
Villa were slipping down
the table, fighting simply to
maintain mediocrity. O’Neill
wasted no time in offloading
several under-achieving,
overpaid foreign stars; namely
the precocious Milan Baros and
uninspiring Juan Pablo Angel.
In their stead, he has built a
team revived around a core
of promising or experienced
English players. This is in no
small part down to his ‘radical’
transfer policy. One only has to
look at his most recent signings
to spot the transformation: Zat
Knight, Ashley Young, Nigel
Reo-Coker, Curtis Davies, Scott
Carson…the list of British boys
could go on. There has even
been speculation that Villa
Park may once again behold
the lengthy limbs of Peter
Crouch and, however dubious
the Holte End faithful may
be about such a return, this
only confirms O’Neill’s policy;
buying and being British is
best.
The encouraging ascent
of Gabriel Agbonlahor (the
local lad come good) to the
top English marksman in
the Premiership goal charts
is due chiefly to O’Neill’s
management skills. Yet if
Gabby had been training with
another club, it is all too likely
that his future development
would have been checked
by another foreign import
(a scary prospect in light of
England’s already limited
array of quality forwards).
Similarly, we have witnessed
the maturing of Gareth Barry;
long over-looked by Sven yet
pivotal to Capello’s plans if the
Swiss friendly is anything to go
by. Again, would Barry have
been given time to establish
himself at another club before
another foreign import had
been shipped in to appease
the demanding crowds?
Time is increasingly becoming
a commodity in the fast-moving
world of English football. So
can we realistically expect
the top clubs to allow British
players a substantial period to
prove themselves in? Probably
not. Nevertheless, we need
only look at Liverpool’s recent
form to understand why this
should not be the case. Rafa
Benitez has spent an incredible
£129.7m in under four years on
relatively unproven foreigners
(with the notable exception of
Peter Crouch).
And the results? The fans
are disillusioned and the
players lack morale as the club
consistently fails to revive their
glory days with increasingly
average performances on
the domestic front. Further
south, a transformed Villa are
showing themselves as real
contenders for a European spot
whilst contributing five players
(compared to Liverpool’s two)
to Capello’s first team draft.
Amidst the upheaval of
English football on both the
international and domestic
front, the message is clear.
Martin O’Neill, through his
reviving work at Aston Villa,
has provided us with a winning
formula that just might save
Capello from failing where
every recent English coach has
so far.
Certainly it is no instant
remedy but it offers a glimmer
of hope for the nation’s
favourite sport; if we want
British success, we must
pressure our domestic clubs
to buy British. Trust O’Neill, it
works.
JONFEZ1

PALATINATE | MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008
Dancesport waltz to a
sweeping victory
Helene Tyrrell
ANY “STRICTLY COME
Dancing” fan would have
been utterly in awe of the
standard of Ballroom and Latin
American dancing that the
Durham University Dancesport
Team brought to the Northern
Championships. The Durham
University Dancesport Team
returned from the competition
laden with medals, trophies
and overall incredible results.
An unprecedented level
of success across the board
confirms that the Durham
team is now officially the “Best
in the North”.
In the individual events,
Durham swept up in most of
the categories, showing an
especially strong presence
in the Ballroom section. In
the Beginners Waltz the
Durham team took second
(Tom Warner & Vikki Kirby),
third (William Tutor & Laura
Wright), sixth (Finlay Long &
Emily Sole) and seventh place
Durham volleyball finish seventh in EVA Cup
Katherine Heavey
LAST MONTH, TEN members
of Durham women’s volleyball
travelled to Leeds to compete
against fifteen other teams
to qualify for the finals of the
EVA Student Cup. The teams
each played three matches, of
best of three sets, for a place in
the final eight.
Durham’s pool consisted
of Loughborough,
Leeds Metropolitan and
Southampton universities. First
up were Leeds Metropolitan.
Strong serving from Milena
Trmcic and Satomi Morikawa
particularly saw Durham
win the first set 25-16, and
though Leeds won the second
25-19, Durham rose to the
challenge and won the third
set decisively 15-5, with hitting
from Jelena Hadzic earning
some particularly valuable
points.
The second match against
Southampton was tougher
for Durham – the first set
in particular was very close,
but confident serving by
(Ben Lane & Frances Main). In
the Beginners Quickstep, first
place went to Finlay Long &
Emily Sole, and fifth to William
Tutor & Laura Wright.
There was a similar level of
success in the Novice Waltz
category, where first place
went to Milos Nedeljkovic &
Helene Tyrrell and fifth place
to Matthew McDonnell &
Jessica Breen. Milos Nedeljkovic
& Helene Tyrrell were also
awarded second place in the
“Basic” Quickstep, where
they had to dance against
intermediate as well as novice
dancers.
Intermediate dancers Iain
Carter & Caroline Henzell
impressed with a second place
result for the Intermediate
Foxtrot and in the Advanced
Foxtrot it was a Durham one-
two: first place went to Ryan
Lamb & Katie Armstrong and
second to new partnership
David Jimenez and Jen Le-
Marinel. The Durham success
carried over into the Open
Ballroom 5 dance (Waltz,
Morikawa and some accurate
middle-hitting by Alex Alonzi
saw Durham triumph 25-22.
Southampton came back in the
second set with some extremely
effective blocking and tipping
which won them some crucial
points. They won the second set
25-23, and Durham’s trouble at
the net continued in the third
set, which saw some nail-biting
rallies with each team fighting
for every point.
Finally, however, hitting by
Trmcic and some effective
tipping by Dorica Phiri saw
Durham take the match,
winning the deciding set
15-13.
Predictably, Durham’s last
match against Loughborough
proved their toughest –
though Loughborough lost
some important points as
a result of powerful but
inaccurate serving and hitting.
Often, Loughborough’s hard
spiking hit the mark, but Phiri
in particular received some
very strong hits effectively,
and Angela Routledge blocked
attempted tips at the net.
However, as the set
HELENE TYRRELL
Tango, Foxtrot, Viennese
Waltz, Quickstep), with the
same couples again picking
up first and second places.
Success was also evident in
the Latin section. Durham took
another title in the Beginners
Jive with first place going to
William Tutor & Laura Wright
and in the Basic Jive David
Jimenez & Jen Le-Marinel were
placed second. Iain Carter &
Caroline Henzell rounded up
the individual events nicely for
Durham with a third place in
the Intermediate Samba.
The university utterly
dominated in the Team Match
too, collecting trophies as the A
Team winners, B Team winners,
C Team runners-up and D Team
joint winners (with Sheffield &
Liverpool). Durham also won
the Team “Knock-Out” trophy
for the first time ever since
the event was introduced.
Team Captains Helene Tyrrell
and Jessica Breen are ecstatic
with the results and eagerly
anticipating the National
Championships in Blackpool.
progressed, Durham too ran
into difficulties with their
service, and as the receiving
also became varied, they
narrowly lost the set 25-22.
At the start of the second
set Durham’s confidence was
shaken, and despite some long
rallies and determined blocking
by Trmcic, Morikawa and Phiri,
communication difficulties and
some crucial gaps in defence
saw Loughborough take the
decider 25-10.
Despite the loss against
Loughborough, Durham’s
performance on Saturday
meant that they qualified
for the quarter-finals, and
on Sunday, they once again
played three times, this time
competing for positions 1 to 8.
Firstly they met Manchester,
but despite strong hitting
by Routledge and effective
covering by Hadzic, Durham
suffered as a result of
Manchester’s hitting and
particular tipping, at one
point trailing Manchester 2-12,
the team fought back but
ultimately lost the set 25-12.
In the second set, Morikawa
Eleven stunning wins
for dominant DUBC
Rosanna Tennant
ON FEBRUARY 24, DUBC re-
corded some of the most re-
markable results in the history
of British University Sport, as
the Palatinates swept aside the
rest of Britain to win 11 out of
14 events at the BUSA Champi-
onship and Novice Head.
On a blustery day in Not-
tingham, Durham picked up
where they had left off earlier
in the academic year, where a
set of impressive performances
at the BUSA Small Boats Head
had yielded similar results.
On this occasion, the Palati-
nates were even more domi-
nant and a field of over 30
institutions were simply torn
apart by the quality of the
Durham crews.
Durham won four out of
five events in the Division 1
category. Arguably the most
impressive performance of
the morning was from the
Women’s Championship Eight.
This was the first time that the
recently established crew, part
funded through the Martin
Proctor memorial trust, had
competed together. However
it was far from evident as the
boat, consisting of Fletcher,
Steel, Taylor, Elsy, Howse, Vel-
lacott, Bradshaw, Sutton and
Hankinson (cox), finished the
seven kilometre course in a
time of 18:26, thirty four sec-
onds in front of second placed
Birmingham.
There was a complete con-
trast in the Men’s Champion-
ship Coxed Four event where
only one second separated the
top two crews.
Unfortunately for the rest of
the field, the crews in gold and
silver were both from Durham,
and a whole eight seconds sep-
was particularly effective
on the serve, and Phiri and
setter Barbara Naesens won
important points at the net.
Ultimately, though, some
strong diagonal hitting in
particular from Manchester
proved too much for Durham’s
defence, and they lost the set
25-16.
Durham’s troubles continued
in their second match of the
day against Kent – despite
palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
www.palatinate.org.uk
arated Durham ‘A’, comprised
of, Stark, Johnson, Kouba,
Dawes and Graham (cox), from
Reading in third place.
The result was just as close in
the Men’s Championship Quad
where local rivals Newcastle
did push the Palatinates all the
way. Once again the Durham
crew was victorious, with Barr,
Fearnhead, McGing and Chin
winning in a time of 17:07, one
second in front of the crew
from Tyneside.
The second Division, taking
place throughout the middle
part of the day, catered for
the novice crews. In total over
90 boats were involved in the
Division, testament to the key
role that H.E. plays in the re-
cruitment and development of
male and female rowers.
With the acquisition of a
further two full time coaches
in the summer of 2007, Dur-
ham have an extremely strong
coaching programme through-
out their entire structure and
this was evident on Sunday
as the Women’s Novice Coxed
Four finished the shorter four
kilometre course in a time of
12:55, twenty four seconds
in front of Cardiff in second
place. It was the same story
in the men’s equivalent, with
Durham recording a time 20
seconds faster than Cardiff in
second place.
If the morning and midday
racing had been impressive, it
is hard to find words for the
afternoon Division where the
Palatinates won every single
category.
Leading the way was the
Men’s Championship Eight
who completed the longer
course in a time of 16:32, eight
seconds ahead of Bristol in sec-
ond place and a further ten in
effective serving from Naesens,
and hitting by Alonzi and
Hadzic, difficulties defending,
and Kent’s effective blocking,
saw Durham lose the close first
set 25-22. The problems at the
net persisted in the second
set, as despite good blocking
from Alonzi and Morikawa,
and impressive coverage of the
court by Morikawa, Durham
lost 25-19.
The team were able to end
SPORT 31
front of Newcastle in third.
With the 11 May Northum-
brian Water sponsored New-
castle versus Durham Boat
Race just around the corner, a
result such as this is obviously
very pleasing and the boat
comprising of Barr, Dawes,
Johnson, Stark, Kouba, Hurley,
Fearnhead, McGing and Gra-
ham (cox) will go into Spring
full of confidence.
The gap was wider still in
the other categories. The
Men’s Junior Eight completed
the course in a time of 17:22,
finishing fourteen seconds in
front of Bristol and Manches-
ter in joint second place.
The margin of victory was
extended still further in the
Women’s Championship Quad.
The crew consisting of Fletch-
er, Steel, Murphy and Brad-
shaw, were simply in a class of
their own, recording a time of
19:10, thirty four seconds in
front of hosts Nottingham.
The dominance did not end
there however. Ten seconds
separated Durham from Bir-
mingham in the Women’s
Championship Coxed Four,
with Elsy, Taylor, Vellacott,
Howes and Hankinson (cox) re-
cording an impressive time of
20:15. The day was completed
in style when the Women’s
Fresher’s Eight also took gold
in a time of 22:06.
With such a remarkable
squad performance it is dif-
ficult to pick anyone out for
specific praise. However Rosie
Gaunt’s performance consist-
ing of a gold medal in all three
Divisions was unique whilst
Henry Wallace, who stepped
in at the last moment to row
in all three categories (picking
up two gold’s on the way), was
similarly impressive.
KATHERINE HEAVEY
the weekend on a high point,
though, as they faced Bristol
in their final match. Good
work at the net by Hadzic,
Alonzi, Naesens and Trmcic,
some confident receiving by
Phiri and decisive hitting from
Alonzi and Hadzic saw Durham
win a close fought match 27-25,
25-23, meaning that overall,
Durham finished seventh out
of the sixteen teams.
 palatinate.sport@durham.ac.uk
32 SPORT www.palatinate.org.uk
PALATINATE SPORT
Superb golden goal maintains title defence
BUSA Knockouts Championship 07/08
Durham University Women’s 1sts 3
Bath University Women’s 1sts 2
Lauren Moors
THE END OF February saw Dur-
ham take on Bath University
in the Semi Finals of the BUSA
Championship, held at Not-
tingham Highfields.
Both teams had won their
previous rounds convincingly,
and Bath went in to the match
as favourites. However Dur-
ham, as current holders of the
BUSA Championship, knew
that anything could happen at
RICH GILDEA
this stage.
The start of the game saw
both teams pressing hard,
with Durham choosing to use
the wings, whilst Bath control-
led the middle. In the early
exchanges, both keepers had
to make some superb saves to
keep the scores tied.
Eventually, a fast, furious run
from Cat Horn down the right
hand side and a strike at goal
saw Durham go one goal up.
The Palatinates then knew
they had to maintain pressure
and the upper hand, but un-
fortunately Bath took this as
an awakening and came back
within minutes to score an
Durham Wildcats
net BUSA title as
Reading are sent
to Room 101
BUSA Basketball Men’s Plate 07/08
Durham University Men’s 1sts 101
Reading University Men’s 1sts 52
Emma Booth
IN FRONT OF a crowd of just
under 100, Durham turned on
the style to defeat Reading in
emphatic fashion and secure
the 2008 BUSA Plate.
The team comprising of
five National League players
from partner club, the Dur-
ham Wildcats, were simply too
strong for their opposition,
and the result was never really
in doubt.
The Palatinates made a
bright start with player/coach
Ian Hewitt (Grey) dominating
equaliser. The opposition were
playing some good attacking
hockey and it is a credit to
Durham’s short corner defence
that they did not increase their
goal tally in the first half.
Half-time and both teams
had been working extremely
hard, the counter attack be-
ing the main form of offensive
play. Durham kept their com-
posure throughout the field,
but eventually Bath broke
them down and managed to
get a strike off from the top of
the ‘D’, which was unseen by
the keeper.
The pressure was now on
Durham, and being 2-1 down,
MONDAY 10 MARCH 2008 | PALATINATE
the first quarter with some su-
perb passes and baskets.
Durham undoubtedly owned
the first quarter, and set the
standard for the rest of the
game, winning the first ten
minutes 27 - 12.
The second period started
much the same, with Durham
excelling in both offence and
defence. But Reading began to
fight back, and started to play
with more urgency.
However, they could not con-
vert the chances they created
which ultimately proved cost-
ly. Half time arrived with the
scores at 45 - 23 in Durham’s
a tactical change needed to be
made. Credit must go to the
Durham coaching staff who
brought on ‘super sub’ Kate
Gledhill, who, when Loren
Sherer hit the crossbar, was
quick to collect the rebound
and smash the ball into the
back board.
The score now at 2-2 and
Durham were fully in control
of the game, pressing Bath in
their left hand corner.
Eventually the final whistle
blew, calling for extra time.
It was in these 18 minutes
that Durham really outper-
formed the opposition. Bath
had no more than three at-
favour. Paul Elderkin (John
Snow) then began to show
why he is an England under 21
international, scoring points
for fun.
Linking up well with Andrea
Consolati (Cuths), it soon be-
came clear that the Palatinates
were not going to let their lead
slip, and with only one quarter
to go, the score was 76 - 36 to
the home side.
The Palatinates entered the
final quarter full of confi-
dence, and they completed the
job in style.
With a little over a minute to
go, Durham hit the 100 point
mark, and as Reading ran
down the clock, the final score
ended at 101 - 52.
The highest point scorers
were Paul Elderkin with 29,
closely followed by Andrea
Consolati with 24 points. These
two men must be recognised
as the players of the match,
however all the team played
together in unity and must be
congratulated on their impres-
sive feat; becoming BUSA Plate
Champions on home turf.
tempts on goal as the Palati-
nates’ fitness came to the fore.
Attempt after attempt was
made, until eventually a Dur-
ham free hit was won just out-
side the Bath ‘D’.
Struck in to the heart of the
Bath defence, Gabby Foster
managed to get a touch on
the ball, sending it pass the
Bath keeper. This was the last
minute golden goal the team
needed.
With this great effort, Dur-
ham clinch their place in the
final where they will play
Loughborough as defending
champions to try and retain
the title.