Amber Brooks, Author at The Orbital

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

29Mar

By Amber BrooksNo 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...

11Mar

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music

Punk’s Not Dead

‘It's weird, on TV I see American high school bullies as the outcast punk kid, but every punk I've met has been the opposite of that. Violence is important, but we pick our battles wisely.’ Punk. It’s a movement that comes all the way from the throbbing heart of underground venues, where music becomes more than aesthetic expression. A culture that uses left-wing lyrics as scripture, and from there political presence as progressive change. Punk dwells loudly on the urban streets of anti-fascist, anti-establishment, and anti-consumerist action – the core values in which its anarchy is borne. It’s been fifty years since Punk became a fundamental part of the alternative scene, and still it resonates within contemporary society. Growing from its neo-liberal roots, Punk has now become a...

31Jan

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Culture & Literature

This is Insanity Radio

Kinga Stusik happened upon Insanity Radio by chance. After posting her successful application to Royal Holloway on social media, she was asked to come on air for results day 2021: ‘They offered me a radio show that day.’ For the last few months, she has been hosting a dedicated film show, Kinga On Film, on Wednesday afternoons. Also Head of Community Outreach, Kinga curates activities that connect Insanity Radio to the wider community: ‘I make sure your voice is heard!’ Insanity Radio is the campus station for Royal Holloway and the community station for both North Surrey and Berkshire. It has twenty to thirty thousand listeners a month and offers industry standard training to nurture the next generation of broadcasters in all aspects of media. Anyone can get involved. Will...

Humans Vs Zombies: A Society Breaking Rules

14Nov

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Lifestyle

Humans Vs Zombies: A Society Breaking Rules

How would you feel if there was a zombie apocalypse on campus? Most would be shocked or terrified, but Aston Young would describe it as ‘one of the best experiences at University.’ Aston is the president of Royal Holloway’s Humans Vs. Zombies (HvZ) society, which hosts an exhilarating 24/7 tag game that takes place across campus, six times a year. ‘I found the HvZ whilst going through the list of societies at the uni before my freshers week and immediately threw myself in. I met some of that year's committee at freshers fair, went to the socials and played all of the first games in 2019. I met most of my close friends through HvZ and I'm really grateful for it! Now, two years on, I’m President, and making sure that the society remains as welcoming as it was in my first year ...

Wild Flowers: Frank Carter and Supporting the Artists that Do Matter

14Nov

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

Wild Flowers: Frank Carter and Supporting the Artists that Do Matter

Frank Carter has become one of the main spearheads in the rock genre. He is sharp, ballsy and unstoppable. His new album Sticky, alongside his supporting band The Rattlesnakes, is a punchy, liberating, gut-blender of everything that is honest and impactful. This is the soundtrack to a group of underdog misfits who are unapologetically themselves. The album utilises their iconic British sound to piece together a drunken night out with your mates – it has the same warm welcome as a pub carpet. After headlining Download Pilot Festival and smashing a killer secret set at Reading, he is out for blood with a fourteen-date tour across the UK this November and a further European tour in February. If you can't get tickets, you're missing out. As well as the brilliant music and bante...

Back to Live, Back to Reality: Bloodstock Review

16Oct

By Amber BrooksNo Comments

Features, Music

Back to Live, Back to Reality: Bloodstock Review

It took a long time to get to Bloodstock festival. There was a four hour train from Egham, but that was nothing compared to the two years I had been waiting for live music to return. The journey was long and arduous; there was so much at stake for the performance industry who had suffered greatly at the callous hands of the pandemic. Yet there was no greater joy than standing in a field in the Midlands for the UK's largest metal festival. Festivals were the glorious beginning of bringing live music back. The government introduced pilot events to test the spread of the virus, with festivals such as Latitude, Download Pilot (A downsized version of the Donnington giant) and Tramlines. Fortunately, there were only 28 positive cases of COVID-19 amongst the 58,000 people who attended these t...