Students – Page 9 of 14

The Emphasis On Drinking During Freshers’ Week

18Oct

By Ilayda KaplankiranNo Comments

News, Opinion

The Emphasis On Drinking During Freshers’ Week

With COVID-19 restrictions lifted and a gradual return to normality, Freshers’ Week will be going ahead as planned. While some will be enjoying the social opportunities that the legendary week has to offer, others might have a less than satisfactory experience; especially when we consider the pressure being placed upon students to consume excessive amounts of alcohol during the week. Either way, there will be a mixture of responses, but nevertheless it is integral that we normalise the inability to make friends in the first couple of weeks, and the stress that resonates with joining a new community. It’s easy to forget as a second or third year how isolating the first term of first year can be. All too often, university life has been circumscribed to the pervasive stereotype that...

Marginalisation Of The Kurdish Identity: a human rights violation

18Oct

By Ilayda KaplankiranNo Comments

News

Marginalisation Of The Kurdish Identity: a human rights violation

Amongst all these humanitarian agencies who seek to protect and aid those suffering or victims of mistreatments, it is unbelievable to think that there are still constitutional restrictions entrenched to eradicate a cultural identity. Especially when it comes to a sensitive issue such as the Kurdish Question; a minority ethnicity that has fought endlessly to protect their rights, with many activists, politicians and lawyers currently imprisoned as a result. The spiralling political crisis that the question elicits today stems from nothing more than a backlash from the past. Following the break-up of the Ottoman empire in 1922, the many different ethnic groups living in the newly formed Republic of Turkey were forced to comply with ‘Turkification’ policies: a homogenising stance t...

Only Murders In The Building: the secrets in the walls

16Oct

By Victoria BurdenNo Comments

Features, Film & TV

Only Murders In The Building: the secrets in the walls

When true crime podcasts become the comforting friend of loneliness… Only Murders In The Building, one of the newest editions to hit Disney Plus, follows the story of three lonely, eccentric misfits, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) in New York City, brought together by their mutual love of their favourite true crime podcast ‘All Is Not Ok in Oklahoma’. Living their seemingly mundane lives within the same apartment building known as the Arconia, the three find themselves wrapped up in a crime case of their own after the shocking death of fellow resident Tim Kono (Julian Cihi), and team-up in an attempt to solve the mystery. True Crime podcasts are at an all-time high, and Only Murders In The Building takes the concept of a True Crime Podcast as ...

Jennifer’s Body: the Final Girl Dismantled

16Oct

By Leah EdwardsNo Comments

Film & TV

Jennifer’s Body: the Final Girl Dismantled

Warning - this article contains spoilers. With it being Halloween, a lot of us will be spending the season in various ways. Whether it is going out to the SU dressed up in costume, or snuggling up under a blanket and watching a scary movie. Nowadays, we are spoiled for choice with what films we can watch, because horror films have many sub-genres. For example, a sub-genre in horror which always fascinated me was the ‘slasher film’. This was primarily because all the slasher films of the 70s, 80s, and 90s ended in the same manner. There was always a ‘Final Girl’ who overcame the killer and survived. Admittedly there were different variations of the Final Girl trope. One could easily point out a contrast between Jamie Lee Curtis’ virginal Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978), to...

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...

The Mermaid of Black Conch Review: A Mermaid Love Story fused with Colonialism

16Oct

By Leah EdwardsNo Comments

Literature

The Mermaid of Black Conch Review: A Mermaid Love Story fused with Colonialism

Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch has recently gained a lot of publicity, having won Costa Book of the Year in 2020 and more recently, a BBC Sounds audio adaptation. Whether they’re sirens in Greek mythology luring sailors to their deaths, or tiny, doe-eyed Disney characters in colourful seashell bras, we’ve seen and read mermaids in all their forms. On the surface, the novel appears to be just another folk-lore tale, but below scratch beneath the water’s surface and it’s a deeply unique story. The Mermaid of Black Conch is not your typical white European Disney Princess, but an indigenous woman from long agow with a tribal tattoo covered torso. And, instead of a glamorous underwater paradise, the setting is a post-colonial Caribbean world. The novel takes place in April 1...

Beautiful World, Where Are You? review: Rooney’s best book yet?

16Oct

By Eva Townsend BiltonNo Comments

Literature

Beautiful World, Where Are You? review: Rooney’s best book yet?

Whether you read a hundred books a year or struggle finishing just one, you’ve probably heard of Sally Rooney, or at least her second novel Normal People. In the four years since the release of her 2017 debut, Conversations with Friends, Rooney has made herself a household name, and her third novel is acutely aware of it. Beautiful World, Where Are You? follows university friends Alice and Eileen, both on the cusp of turning thirty and both navigating romances that form the basis of the novel’s plot. Famous author, Alice, has moved back to Ireland after the pressures of celebrity life in New York proved too much to handle. Despite their less-than-perfect Tinder date, she invites local warehouse worker, Felix, to join her on a work-trip to Rome. Eileen lives in Dublin, flitting betwe...

16Oct

By A.L WalesNo Comments

Creative Writing

I Do Not Write Love Poetry

but memoirs on your arcs pilings of tobacco peppered question marks morning it is raining paraoxysms from my crown wordlessly you pour for me tempers tremors now dusk I am awake again here another drought I silhouette your body softly smoke you out Photo credits: Photo by Robert Ruggiero on Unsplash

16Oct

By A.L WalesNo Comments

Creative Writing

Gutter Talk

early mornings in plettenberg bay five am & the sun was not yet high but it was warm still and bright plett sun is a different breed rich was by my side back then & red flocks flew west when they heard that laugh hingeless & hungered & hollering oorah those ears car doors on a sedan in midsummer left open to cool him down I was in Kensington when he next called midday my time midnight his I heard the tik screech through his jangled mind & lacerate his words discordant until the teakettle boiled into a goodbye & the smack of bone on tile it was a sickening sound at night I dream of africa the waves smash against my mind & the moon is still not high ...

Bedtime Stories for a Grieving Child no. 4: Royal Holloway on Fiction

16Oct

By Zaki ChanNo Comments

Creative Writing

Bedtime Stories for a Grieving Child no. 4: Royal Holloway on Fiction

His wrinkles were gone. His crows’ feet only just starting to set in, the laugh lines around his mouth less pronounced than what I was used to. He wore his starched white business shirt, sweat faintly dripping down his brow, his hair just starting to recede. There he stood in his stiff work clothes, a handkerchief just peeping out of his pocket. “Well? Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Dad said, a hint of playfulness creeping into his voice. I smelt the cigarettes off his breath. There was pandan in the air somewhere. I tasted the ash in my mouth. He accompanied me all the way to the hospital, making small comments about the old photos that I found in his old apartment, even after he separated from Mom. He kept the different rings that they wore during their marriage, tucked ...