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Tuesday 1st March 2016, 17:00 GMT | Cambridge,UK

News

Candidates clash in CUSU hustings

The presidential election grew heated at CUSU and the GU’s election hustings yesterday, as candidates took the chance to go on the offensive.

Throughout the evening, candidates made speeches and took questions from an audience comprised mainly of regular CUSU Council Attendees, campaign team members, and journalists.

The highlight of the hustings, held in the Mill Lane lecture block, was the CUSU Presidential Debate, in which the gloves finally came off. After a subdued video debate on Sunday, watched by around a dozen viewers, and which was mostly plagued by technical issues, the Presidential candidates entered with a new confidence –[Read full story]

Comment

Week 7: H e a d s p a c e

I was a lonely child – but before you get your hankies out, I should explain that this was almost completely by choice. At lunchtime at my first primary school, I used to walk around by myself because I thought playing Mummies and Daddies was so passé. I preferred to make up stories about werewolves and secret castles. I still think of myself sometimes as a tubby seven-year-old, plodding about with my head in the clouds.

Then, one day, I got over the love of my own company and began to make friends. First one, then two, then lots, whom[Read full story]

Culture

Oscar Afterparty

When February comes to a close, so too does Oscars season. All the films that desperately wanted to get their hands of those golden statues have already been released, leaving us three months of releases that play neither to the Oscars crowd nor the bored school children during their summer holidays. There’s a general assumption that this is dry period for film, where studios release all the films that could be described as ‘curveballs’. However the complete opposite is true: if you look closely, there are some weird, wacky and wonderful films coming out in the next month. Dive in – I dare[Read full story]

Science

Taking black holes to the next dimension

Einstein’s theory of relativity is 100 years old this year. It has been placed under scrutiny like no theory before it and passed with flying colours. In the most impressive of these tests, two ultra-high accuracy aluminium ion clocks were installed one foot vertically above the other.

Relativity predicts that the higher clock, experiencing less gravity, will run slightly faster. This tiny difference was experimentally observed and amounted to one part in 1,016, or for every 10,000,000,000,000,000 ticks of one clock the other lost a tock. However, researchers at Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) have shown[Read full story]

Reviews

Film: Trumbo

“Daddy, are you a communist?” Nicola sits astride the family pony, as her father, Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston), offers a careful analogy: if she made the choice to share her packed lunch with another child who had none, she’d be a communist too. This trite reduction – with all the scope of a thought-provoking meme – is the nearest the film comes to any real engagement with the C-word. Trumbo is no history, let alone a radical history, but rather that timeless reaffirmation of the American constitution and the rights of the (white) American (male).

In 1947 the[Read full story]

Features

Cambridge, we need to talk about eating disorders

Thinking of eating disorders conjures images of painful thinness, starvation and going to any lengths to avoid eating.

For many people, including a proportion of health professionals, eating disorders are represented by anorexia nervosa and the profile of a middle-class, young white female. However, people who experience an eating disorder and are diagnosed with anorexia are actually in the minority. Increasingly, sufferers are more likely to be male, diagnoses are seen earlier than ever before and people are maintaining or even developing eating disorders well into later life.

If we make assumptions about the types of people who struggle with[Read full story]

Sport

Lent Bumps: a cox’s perspective

It’s the biggest competition in Lent and Easter term collegiate rowing. Months of ergs, weights, outings, early mornings, late evenings: they all come down to this moment. Eight men or women sit poised, blades buried, waiting to see if all of their hard work has been worth it. The coaches count down; there is silence on the river. Then a single cannon sounds. Every crew takes that first stroke together, racing forward, desperately trying to catch up to the crew in front and ‘bump’ them. Eight oars rise and sink. Eight rowers strain their every muscle. Yet there are not[Read full story]

Theatre

Review: Woyzeck

A play never finished? Death comes to take us all in the end, whether we accept it as Marie does or fight it kicking and screaming to the grave. Georg Büchner’s brilliant 25-page play has been adapted into a thrilling 90-minute student performance, and for one night more, you too can enter this parallel world lovingly created from electrical tape and desk-lamps. An audience of 11 was not justified for such a novel play, but such is Lent term and such was your Friday night.

Woyzeck is the story of a room. A room that bears witness to a dystopian[Read full story]

NEWS

Presidential candidate under fire

Presidential candidate under fire

Former Trinity College Students’ Union committee unhappy with the leadership of ex-President and current CUSU candidate

Gonville and Caius raises LGBT+ flag

Gonville and Caius raises LGBT+ flag

On the final day of LGBT History Month, the rainbow flag has been raised at Caius

St Edmund’s dodgy donor

St Edmund’s dodgy donor

Documents seen by Varsity track a series of allegations against donor who funded College Tower

Contender withdraws from CUSU presidential race

Robert Corbyn-Smith’s departure narrows the field in the CUSU presidential race to four

Evan Davis: “You really don’t want all journalists to be like me”

Theo Demolder speaks to the economist turned BBC presenter about Russell Brand, Jeremy Paxman, and the North Korean state newsreader

CULTURE

Oscar Afterparty

Oscar Afterparty

Lydia Sabatini discusses the best post-Oscar season releases.

Obituary: Umberto Eco

Obituary: Umberto Eco

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry…”

Adaptation

Adaptation

Tara Ahluwalia & Emily Young ask what makes a good adaptation, and why they sometimes goes wrong

Varsity Introducing: Georgie Henley

Joanna Taylor speaks to English student Georgie Henley, on student life after the Narnia Films

Preview: Watersprite Festival

Will Roberts talks to festival director Bernadette Schramm about women in film, Nepalese filmmakers, and what this year’s festival has to offer

COMMENT

Week 7: H  e  a  d  s  p  a  c  e

Week 7: H e a d s p a c e

In her seventh weekly column, Rhiannon Shaw talks about the importance of friendship for mental wellbeing

We must continue to fight for our NHS

As the face-off continues, junior doctors must not give up against Jeremy Hunt, says Harry Robertson

Democracy is more than putting a cross in a box

Theo Demolder continues the debate on EU membership, criticising what he sees as a lack of democracy within the institution

The luxury of Free-Speech

Free speech only means something when granted to everyone, regardless of religious persuasion, says Abdulla Zaman

Jesus cockerel row: idealism gets in the way of good

The response of activists in the Nigerian art debate does not help resolve historical tensions

SPORT

Lent Bumps: a cox’s perspective

Lent Bumps: a cox’s perspective

As college boats once again descend upon the River Cam, Sarah Doré describes Lent Bumps from the cox’s seat

Varsity 2016: the Light Blues struggle

Varsity 2016: the Light Blues struggle

Strong performances from the Cambridge squash and volleyball teams, with disappointing results

Cuppers Semis: Robinson edge through to face confident Pembroke

Cuppers Semis: Robinson edge through to face confident Pembroke

Fitzwilliam narrowly misses out on securing a place in the Cuppers Final

Varsity matches 2016: a new hope

A run of Varsity matches kick off at the weekend, with the Light Blues hoping to win again or avenge past defeats

The College Football Review: Week 12

Short but sweet, a bit like Trinity Hall’s optimism at the start of the season

FEATURES

Alcoholics anonymous

Alcoholics anonymous

An anonymous student describes their experience of dealing with alcoholism at university

Cambridge, we need to talk about eating disorders

Cambridge, we need to talk about eating disorders

James Downs discusses starting the conversation in Eating Disorders Awareness Week

Volunteering,  ‘voluntourism’ and  visions for the future

Volunteering, ‘voluntourism’ and visions for the future

Peter Martin, the President of the Cambridge University Calais Refugee Action Group (CUCRAG) chatted to Ian Johnston about his first-hand experience of refugee camps

Cambridge club scene officially better than Manchester

Joanna Taylor issues a defence of Cambridge nightlife

Volunteering with the new Kids Company

Alice Durrans tells us about her experience volunteering with Kids Company in its final days

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