Friday, March 29Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Author: Helena Keeble

Magic the Gathering Grand Prix London
Science & Technology

Magic the Gathering Grand Prix London

On 26 January, the Magic the Gathering Grand Prix 2018 arrived in London, hosting artists, traders and tournaments throughout the weekend. Magic the Gathering was created by Richard Garfield as the first trading card game published in 1993 by ‘Wizards of the Coast’. The game can be played by two or more players in multiple formats within two categories: constructed and limited. In 2015 the MTG community consisted of over twenty million players from 13 years plus and continues to thrive through a multinational market. The London Excel arena hosted gamers from around the world turning up to play in tournaments, meet artists, and buy, trade or sell cards to a large range of vendors. Simon George, a magic player from Norwich who attended the event, stated, ‘I had a great time, sadly I was n...
The Line of Beauty
Culture & Literature, Literature

The Line of Beauty

On 3 February, National Trust’s Sutton House played host to the ‘Late Night Library Club’, a theatrical adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst’s ‘The Line of Beauty’, marking the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality. The event featured a diverse programme, headlining Alan Hollinghurst in conversation with Jonathan Kemp. Hollinghurst is an award-winning gay novelist, with ‘The Line of Beauty’ winning the Man Booker Prize in 2004. The event started with drinks in the courtyard before you ascended to the first floor. Immediately you were greeted by characters of the novel dressed in the 80’s ‘Tory Glam’ style. On your right, character ‘Leo’ encouraged you enter and explore your creativity by colouring in a print of Margaret Thatcher. You can imagine the array of...
The Nobel Writer
Culture & Literature, Literature

The Nobel Writer

This month, the University of East Anglia welcomed previous student Kazuo Ishiguro, the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the seventh winner to talk at UEA. Since receiving his Masters degree in Creative Writing at UEA, Ishiguro has received four Man Booker Prize nominations and won the award in 1989 for his novel ‘The Remains of the Day’. His 2005 novel, ‘Never Let Me Go’, was named by “The Times” as the best novel of 2005 and this year the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature. They described him as a writer ‘who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world’. In conversation with Professor Christopher Bigsby, Ishiguro admitted his shock at receiving the Nobel award. He cla...
Life’s Greatest Taboo
Features

Life’s Greatest Taboo

Life is full of hardships and trials. We are constantly being pushed beyond our limits and so many people try to help us, but never really know how. Most of us have that special someone we can turn to - whether it’s our parent, significant other, best friend or councillor. We all project our negative feelings in multiple ways; commonly through anger or tears but sometimes it can escalate to more destructive behaviour such as self-harm. Nowadays there is a lack of understanding in regards to someone’s pain and depression, derived from the stigma surrounding mental health. How many times have we felt down and someone has told us to just ‘get over it’? Or been told that happiness is within our control? As humans we have the amazing ability to experience an unlimited variety of emotions and...
Murder He Wrote
Culture & Literature, Literature

Murder He Wrote

The Norwich Crime Writing Festival brought together a wide range of authors, from Martina Cole, to Arne Dahl. One of the key speakers, bestselling author Anthony Horowitz, discussed his new book The Word is Murder. The event was full of wonderful insights into this new book and his writing career. Horowitz initially became famous for his award winning spy series, Alex Rider, and his productions of Midsomer Murders and Foyles War. Horowitz has written some remarkable literature in a wide variety of genres. However, at The Norwich Crime Writing Festival, he admitted that since he’s “sixty-two now, it’s time to quiet down” from writing multiple genres and stick to crime writing. The Word is Murder evolved from the idea to write a book which explores the process of writing, originally ca...