News – Page 3 of 32 – The Orbital

No Longer Standing: The Monumental Message in What Remains

31Mar

By Sofia BajerovaNo Comments

News, Opinion

No Longer Standing: The Monumental Message in What Remains

In the early hours of the 23rd of December 2021, Hong Kong University’s Pillar of Shame statue was removed from the centre of campus. It has stood there at the University of Hong Kong since 1997 and represented the numerous lives lost in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, one of the most delicate topics in Chinese politics. Recently replaced with a new seating area, no remnants of the statue remain onsite. The image of the orange twisted bodies imprinted only in memory. The Tiananmen Square Massacre has largely been erased from history in Mainland China and Hong Kong is now following suit. The Pillar of Shame stood as a symbol of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, highlighting the difference of freedoms between Hong Kong and the Mainland, a gap that is being gradually clos...

Student Union Elections: Communication, Collaboration, and Joyful Surprise!

29Mar

By Madelaine GrayNo Comments

Elections, Features, News

Student Union Elections: Communication, Collaboration, and Joyful Surprise!

On Wednesday the Sixteenth of March, Orbital Magazine attended the SU Election results night to interview some of the lucky elected officers, including NUS Delegates, School Reps, and the 2022/23 Sabbatical Officer team. NUS Delegates – Maia Jarvis, Ananya Krishna Madelaine: Well, congrats to both of you! First off, I’d like to ask what your main priority is going into the NUS conference? Maia: So, I actually submitted a proposal to the NUS National Conference, which is about making education more accessible. So, making sure there’s flexible online learning. I’ll be pushing that agenda and making sure that’s on the national stage for education, because I want to make sure Holloway student concerns are on the national stage. Madelaine: What about you, Ananya? Ananya: I t...

21Mar

By Accalia SmithNo Comments

Features, News, Opinion

One More UCU Strike…

How effective is the Strike action in creating the change it seeks? An Interview with James Smith The end of March will see the disappearance of professors from classrooms once again. Not because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but because of industrial strike action from the UCU (University and College Union). As a third-year student my university experience has been impacted by both the strikes and COVID resulting in an unexpected minimal amount of time spent on campus. In my first year there were extensive strikes which some students joined in on. Then COVID struck in March, disrupting the entirety of that year. Now, we are partly back to campus with both covid and strikes interrupting simultaneously. Professor James Smith, the UCU representative within the English department here at...

The Rise in Spiking (and Not Just as We Know it)

28Feb

By Beth McCowenNo Comments

News

The Rise in Spiking (and Not Just as We Know it)

What is Spiking? Drinks being spiked on nights out has been an issue for years. According to Better Health, drink spiking is putting alcohol or drugs into somebody’s drink without their knowledge or consent. It is illegal and is often related to other crimes like robbery and sexual assault. As women, we instinctively cover our drinks, never leave them out of our sight, don’t take drinks from strangers, and take every other precaution possible to keep ourselves and our friends safe. In late 2021, there was a frightening development in spiking. People are now being spiked not through drinks, but through injections. Incidents have mainly been reported in Nottingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Edinburgh. This type of spiking carries additional risks because dirty needles can carry infections ...

Repeating History? | ‘Munich’ and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

27Feb

By Accalia SmithNo Comments

News, Opinion

Repeating History? | ‘Munich’ and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Netflix recently released 'Munich: The Edge of War', a film adaptation of Robert Harris's book. It centres around the Munich agreement, Chamberlain’s attempt to ensure peace in Europe via the negotiation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. With Vladimir Putin’s Russia waging war on Ukraine, reading this book felt very apt for me, and terrifying. Looking up from the pages to hearing the news at the moment felt like I hadn't left the world of the book at all. Europe is facing one of the largest attacks since World War Two, leading to many people referring to the current events as the prelude to world war three. This is not the first recent Russian threat to Ukraine, but it is it’s most unjustified, violent and daring. Missiles and helicopter attacks began on Thursday resulting in...

13Feb

By Victoria BurdenNo Comments

Features, Film & TV, News

The Allure of Aristocracy

Dearest Reader, Bingeing season is upon us. It’s time to devour the highly anticipated second season of Netflix’s Bridgerton, following the plot of Julia Quinn’s novel The Viscount Who Loved Me. This season sees Jonathan Bailey as Anthony Bridgerton, who takes the lead role in the storyline. With the new season approaching, we’re going to delve into the many reasons why viewers love period dramas like Bridgerton so much. The Ability to Travel back in Time Period dramas allow viewers to experience a time that they will never get to live through, giving people a means of living vicariously through the characters and embracing the world of the 1800s. Do I really want to learn to knit? No. Would I do it to pretend I’m a debutant for a day? Yes. Fetch my carriage. Am...

13Feb

By Kianna BestNo Comments

Features, Film & TV, News

Mummy, Daddy, I’m a star!

It’s undeniable that in any industry, who you know is the ultimate foot in the door. The film industry takes the cake. With opportunities passed through word of mouth, and swanky soirée conversations becoming the new elevator pitch, is it really about working harder or smarter? Looking to break into the film industry is proving to be harder than ever. For those who can’t attend prestigious performance art schools or don’t end up on the list for fancy film parties, dreams are shattered and talent is squandered. Whilst networking is a helpful tool to put yourself out there, beyond how you’re viewed on paper, it can be dangerous territory, especially as exclusivity gets added to the mix. When I was younger and an absolute musical theater fanatic, I went to the Sylvia Young ...

Emily in Paris: Praising aristocracy, shaming the proletariat

13Feb

By Elena-Teodora ChiujdeaNo Comments

Features, Film & TV, News

Emily in Paris: Praising aristocracy, shaming the proletariat

By now, everyone’s heard about Emily in Paris. The Netflix show made its debut in 2020, with the promising concept of a young graduate learning to merge American and French cultures. Instead, it romanticised elitist ideals, from the scenery to the extravagant fashion, as we follow Emily in her time abroad. The screenwriters put the rich on a pedestal, showing how the poor taint Paris’ opulence. In their eyes, of course. Let’s not forget race and homosexuality. Although there is representation, it comes across as tokenship, with no character development. There is no question that the finished production came up short of audience expectations; the online backlash was swift. However, the high view count overtook the number of critics, and the show was renewed for a...

31Jan

By Peter VighNo Comments

News, Sports & Socs

Is this the End of the Olympics?

Tokyo 2020 Olympics. What image does that conjure up in your mind? Most responses consist of a blank stare, followed with an awkward laugh. There’s an embarrassing absence of memory for the 2020 games. What does this say about the Olympics? Maybe nothing. But it says something if in the most interconnected and social media centric era, we can’t or don’t care to remember one of the biggest events held on the planet. This raises questions to how significant the Olympics is and whether it has a place in society in its current form. So, what is the point of the Olympics? I think the first Olympics, held in 1896, has all the answers. The reward for winning an event was an olive wreath. Nothing special, but it set the tone for the event. It does not exist for money-making reasons or as...

31Jan

By Madelaine GrayNo Comments

News, Opinion

A Litany of Insults

Why women never seem to win in the world of casual sex. Modern society has undeniably done a lot for the rights of the ‘fairer sex’. The right to vote, first and foremost. The right to own property. The right to open a bank account, to work outside the home, to enter any career we may choose. And of course, the sexual revolution went some way to reducing stigma around premarital sex, decentring the myth of virginal purity. With that came the right to choose – in the form of access to birth control, as well as freedom to terminate unwanted (or unviable) pregnancies. Despite all of this, it is clear to many that in contemporary sexual culture, the odds are still strictly not in our favour. There is a litany of insults directed at women, and the way they choose to navigate the world...