‘You just don’t get me.’ The words hung in the air like a dead fish. As they sank in, they seemed to permeate the area around us with the rancid odour of one as well. About this time last year, I stood aboard the freezing deck of Thekla, shivering through some vaguely interesting small talk [...]

February 20th, 2012 Read more

The 75% increase in attendees at the AGM is encouraging in a year when it would have been easy for more and more students to be turned off by student democracy. In light of the rise in tuition fees and the disappearance of bursaries, it could have felt like no-one was listening, and that turning [...]

February 20th, 2012 Read more

In the popular imagination of the west, some countries have always been inscrutable. They are the states we place in the vague but potent category of dystopia, in part because it is an image that makes far-away places easy to understand. Everybody’s read Orwell, after all, including George Hall, who invokes 1984 in his piece [...]

February 20th, 2012 Read more

George Hall’s opinion piece on islamophobia, islamofascism, and Islam in general in issue 246 demands serious scrutiny. I am afraid Mr Hall’s obvious dislike for religion (and like for Christopher Hitchens) got in the way of his making logical arguments. I particularly have issue with his depiction of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) [...]

February 20th, 2012 Read more

In his piece about gender imbalance in mainstream pin-up photography in issue 246, Guy Sephton remarks ‘a transition to a sexy fella regularly on the opening page of a popular newspaper would seem bizarre’ and ‘a page 3 for men seems rather implausible’. In fact, The Sun used to run an occasional Page 7 Fella [...]

February 20th, 2012 Read more

A group of Plymouth University students faced the ire of the Twitter community last week when their website, ‘Uni Lad’, was taken offline following numerous complaints about its content. Featuring a collection of articles and advice columns promoting the very worst ideals of a testosterone-fuelled, fresher-fucking ‘uni lifestyle’ (but it’s just banter, right?), the site [...]

February 8th, 2012 Read more

The pressure on those in the public eye earning massive bonuses and vast annual salaries is mounting.  With the revelations last week that RBS chief executive Stephen Hester has renounced his bonus of nearly £1 million, and the head of the Student Loans Company will no longer be allowed to dodge tens of thousands in [...]

February 8th, 2012 Read more