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Briefing
NUSSL criticised
NUS Services Limited has once again come under fire from the LSE SU shop and Union Treasurer Gareth Carter, who told last week's UGM that the Union would either "bring NUSSL down from the inside or leave."
News	page 3
C&S U-turn
Constitution and Steering this week overruled its earlier verdict and declared LSE SU honourary vice President, Winston Churchill not guilty of breaking the Union constitution. The move comes amidst controversy surrounding pressure allegedly applied to members of C&S by the Executive
News	page 3
Passfield Refurb
The Residences Committee this week finalised plans to privatise the long awaited refurbishment of Passfield Hall. Concerns have been raised that the renovation will lead to a rise in rents, exacerbating the LSE's existing budget accomodation shortage. News	page 4
Entrepreneurship
blink writers examine the importance of entrepreneurship and why there are not enough candidates for successors to the great LSE entrepreneurs currently making such a difference in the business world.
blink	page 10-11
Buffy interview
Sarah Michelle Cellar answers questions about her new fihn, "The Grudge" and working in Japan.
B:art	page 21
blink speaks to UN Ambassador Sir Emyr Jones-Parry pages
'The most fascinating personality of our time"
B:art, page 18
Should we let the UGM rest in peace? page 6
Passfield election debacle
Sam Jones and Simon Chignell
In a surprise election result, Passfield residents voted to re-open nominations (RON) for the post of hall president on Sunday.
The highly unusual RON victory was shrouded in controversy, with numerous accusations of underhand electoral practice being levelled against incumbent Passfield president and returning officer, Jimmy Tam.
A total of 132 of Passfield's 197 students voted in the elections, with RON gaining 63 first preference votes and going on to win after second preferences were redistributed.
Passfield is often considered to be the LSE's most politically active hall. Positions on the hall's committee have traditionally been seen as a stepping stone into the Union Executive.
Jade Charles, a first-year resident at Passfield, was responsible for running the RON cam-
paign. Charles claimed to have supported RON for "personal reasons" and strongly denied having had any help from Tam or other Passfield committee members.
Nonetheless, other residents speculated that it was Tam who had really been behind the RON campaign.
When questioned, Tam remained adamant that he had acted fairly in his role as returning officer and did not intend to run again for president.
Tam's denial came in spite of rumours circulating earlier in the week that he would indeed be rerunning for president in the event of a RON victory.
As one source told The Beaver, many people considered "a vote for RON as a vote for Jimmy." Another individual was "pretty certain he [Tam] was thinking of running before higher forces intervened."
Tam and two election overseers, Rishi Madlani, the SU Residences Officer and Simon Bottomley, the SU LGBT Officer
were the only persons present at the election count.
Though there is no requirement in the Passfield constitution for a more open procedure, many residents were dismayed at the lack of transparency in the process.
Jean Chow, one of the two unsuccessful presidential candidates, claimed that details of her ballot sheet pledges were leaked to the RON campaign. The information, which was entrusted to the two returning officers, Tam and Fynnwin Prager, was allegedly used against her in RON posters before the election.
Many felt that the tactics had been unfair and unduly aggressive. One insider described the campaign as "intimidating, malicious and needlessly negative."
The posters for the RON campaign, regarded by some candidates as verging on the personally offensive appeared mid-week in the hall.
As section 9(m) of the Passfield constitution clearly
stipulates "All campaigning of an unreasonable, coercive, threatening, or unethical nature will not only be dealt with by the Returning Officers but also be referred to the Warden and dealt with through the usual disciplinary channels."
Overall responsibility for the spirit and conduct of the election, however, remains at the discretion of the hall's returning officers.
Prager stood by Tam and remained confident that the elections had been conducted fairly under the provisions of the Passfield constitution.
Another committee candidate, Jen Sparks, who ran for the position of secretary, concurred and said that "everything had been blown out of proportion" adding that there had always been a lot of gossip at Passfield.
Defending Tam, she stressed that "Jimmy wasn't behind the RON campaign" and was instead "looking to higher things than Passfield."
Arafat motion divi
Alison Ball
A student pays tribute to Yassar Arafat. / Photo: Mark Donahue
Students attending last week's Union General Meeting marked the death of Palistinian leader, Yasser Arafat with a minute of silence after the passing of an emergency motion.
Arafat, who was 75, died of multiple organ failure at a French hospital on Thursday morning.
The motion to honour him was proposed by Matt Axworthy and Farhan Islam and incorporated the Union's resolve to offer its sincere condolences to the Palestinian people and send the text of the motion to the Palestinian Delegate-General in London.
Although the motion was successful, Nick Spurrell, who voted against, immediately called quorum and the meeting was terminated early with only 145 students present.
As the motion had already
passed it was decided to hold the silence before the meeting ended but many students left before it commenced.
Amongst those to leave was the Vice Chair of the meeting, James Eyton who walked off the stage.
Justin Nolan also left. He told The Beaver that he had done so "because the same people who tried to disqualify Winston Churchill as racist were now trying to venerate an even more divisive figure."
Anti-Racism Officer Earhan Islam said that he understood that Arafat himself may have been a controversial figure but defended the intentions of the motion.
Islam commented that "Arafat symbolised, whether rightly or wrongly, the Palestinian struggle and its aspirations of statehood, and that is what I thought the motion was really trying to stress".
continued page 2
TM

News
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Silence for Arafat
Continued from page 1
Daniel Freedman spoke against the motion and left the Old Theatre before the silence commenced.
He condemned Arafat saying "I don't think a corrupt, peace-destroying, murdering, evil terrorist deserves a minute silence. A minute celebration would be more appropriate."
3rd year student Robert Dormellan added "As a student of history I found it grossly disrespectful that we give a minute's silence for a terrorist given that we had just held a minute's silence for those who gave their lives fighting for freedom against the most evil regime the world has ever seen."
Seven business motions appeared on the Order paper for the 11th of November, none of which were addressed by the UGM after quorum was called.
President of the Athletics Union Pete Davies also left without pajdng his respects to Arafat.
He expressed his disappointment that student issues are not being prioritised as he feels they should at the UGM.
Defending his absence from the silence, Davies said that he "realised that to any onlooker my actions may have been disrespectful" He went on to say that "I strongly ensure you that this was not the case. I was merely venting my frustration at student issues not being given a significant proportion of time to be discussed."
As the meeting closed, there were questions over whether the motion and the silence were really officially passed since the meeting that approved them was not quorate and therefore, technically any decision it made not binding.
It seems that for now at least, Arafat will continue to be as divisive a figure in death as he was in life.
NU5 reform rolls on
Kheng Soon Lim
Sweeping changes have been made to the organisation of National Union of Students (NUS) at a conference in Wolverhampton last week.
As a result of these constitutional changes, each constituent member of the NUS will only be able to send one delegate for every 1400 full time students studying at the institution.
Previously, the figure was one delegate per thousand students. Constituent members which have between 1000 and 1400 students will be able to send two delegates each, and no member may send more than 16 delegates.
A cap on the subscription fees for constituent members will also be created. Previously the mini-miam fee was £40 and there was no maximum fee, now the minimum fee is £250 and the maximum fee is £50,000.
However, there was said to be a mixed repsonse from delegates when the changes were approved.
Some members of the National Executive were seen hugging, but some left-wing members of the NEC such as Black Students Officer Pav Akhtar were reportedly less pleased.
The changes will mean that in future the LSE SU will be able to send just three representatives to NUS conferences instead of six at present.
There is a great deal of opposition to the changes because of fears that they will erode the level of democratic representation at the NUS.
However, the NUS denies these claims. Speaking to The Beaver, NUS Ti-easurer Martin Ings said: "The delegation ratio was set in 1922 when there were considerably fewer people studying in higher education and we thought that it was time to change it."
He continued by saying; "a conference which can exceed 1,400 delegates is often unwieldy and at times confusing and per-
haps even intimidating."
Ings also drew a comparison with the TUC Annual Congress, which has only 900 delegates, but which manages to represent all organized workers in the United Kingdom.
Members of students' unions are also confused by the capping of membership fees. Given that the NUS is struggling financially, this seems like a counter-intuitive move to make.
It has been suggested that moves to limit fee contributions may make the charge for the NUS card more palatable to union's members.
Ings explained that the fee capping proposals are to deal with the problem of larger members of the NUS leaving because they feel that they are subsidising smaller members.
When questioned about the NUS card, Ings stated that the NUS was looking into cost-cut-ting measures as an alternative to charging for the NUS card, but no other mirricle cure for the problem had yet been found.
He also added that there would be a great deal of consultation and research with the constituent members of the NUS before any changes were implemented.
NUS Treasurer Martin Ings
Banner is banned
Alison Ball
A banner reading 'Victory to Intifada, Free all Political Prisoners' was removed from Houghton Street, last week.
The banner was erected by the LSE Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Society, who were asked to remove the poster from the wall of the East building after complaints were received by both the SU and LSE security staff.
Communications Officer Khurshid Faizullaev and House Manager Bemie Taffs approached the society's stall and requested that they removed their banner.
Faizulleav said he was acting under the authority of SU Treasurer Gareth Carter, who asked that the banner be taken down despite being off campus playing football at the time.
Last year's Treasurer Jo Kibble had confronted the society after receiving similar complaints, and Carter had understood that this resulted in "a deal being brokered, that the banner would be allowed to stay should the word 'intifada' be covered and obscured from view. On Wednesday they reneged on this deal."
The society are enraged by the behaviour of the SU and the LSE.
They claim to have felt intimidated by the manner in which Security enforced the removal of the banner, and to have been called "scum" by one member of staff. House manager Bernie Taffs denies any confrontation, saying "This I suspect is making a mountain out of a mole hill".
Furthermore they accuse the SU and the school of violating their rights to freedom of speech, denying that they had ever agreed to remove the word 'intifada' from their stall.
Carter claims that the banner was from an outside organisation and was offending a large section of the LSE student demography. He says "I recognise that free speech is limited to that which does not incite racial violence and so on, and it is incumbent upon
me as the Students' Union Treasurer to always seek to ensure the well-being of all Union members on this campus."
Anti-Racism Officer Farhan Islam believes the word intifada is inoffensive when translated literally, but carries unfortunate connotations when used in the context of the resistance of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gazza.
Islam criticised the SU's handling of the incident, saying "I appreciate that LSE is a very diverse and multicultural environment with a wide range of views on the issue.
However I don't think that the SU should really take a position on interpreting slogans and what they may mean to some people and might not mean to others because, in my opinion, that just opens the doors to all sorts of problems of subjectivity."
The society's rights of free speech were defended by onlooker Steven Fox, teaching assistant in civil liberties and human rights at the LSE.
He spoke both to Mr Taffs and Mr F^izullaev about the regulations and proper procedures they must abide by, and expressed the view that they had carried out action without investigating the complaint and that it was an abuse of their position.
Dan Freedman registered a complaint about the stall, branding the banner a "call for terrorism".
He added "I don't feel a SU society, using SU funds and resources, should be effectively calling for the murder of people".
The society denies that it was being deliberately provocative.
It says the word 'intifada' means anything more than 'awakening' or 'shaking off', and that the banner might incite violence or cause offence.
They intend to defend their right to express their views, including the use of the slogan 'Victory to Intifada' by complaining to the School and SU.
Rolling in it; another pay rise for the sabbaticals
Simon Chignell
The SU Sabbatical officers have received a second pay-rise this term.
They are among those LSE staff who will be receiving more money due to an increase in the London weighting allowance.
The £212 per annum increase, to be implemented from this month, comes on top of an approximate £2,500 per year increase that was introduced during the summer break.
Both increases go against a promise made by Treasurer Gareth Carter during the lent term elections, where he assured students that he would freeze them in an attempt to save the Union thousands of pounds.
With the extra money included, LSE SU Sabbatical Officers
now get paid a pre tax total of £24,854.
The LSE's SU sabbaticals are currently the highest paid in the countiy.
When questioned about the increase; General Secretary Will Macfarlane revealed that he would be donating the extra £212 post tax pro rata in weighting towards RAG week charities.
However, other sabbaticals such as Treasurer Gareth Carter and Communications Officer Khurshid "K" Faizullaev have revealed that they will not be following Macfarlane's lead.
Education and Welfare officer Sian Errington was unavailable for comment.
Carter, who when running for Treasurer criticised his predecessor and fellow candidate Jo Kibble for accepting such
increases maintained that this latest raise did not break that promise.
"We get paid London weighting to keep the purchasing power of our salaries at parity with how they would be in the rest of Britain. An increase in the weighting is not an increase in our spending power and hence not another pay-rise," he said.
He also commented, "Constant review of the London Weighting Scheme is essential if we're to keep the same high levels of competence amongst our LSE staff."
Carter has laughed off previous criticisms of his last pay rise by saying he would donate the money to the Three Tuns bar through drinking more.
He joked that he needed to keep the extra weighting money to pay his rent at Centre Point
house situated in a prime location, a short walk from the LSE.
Meanwhile Communications Sabbatical Officer Faizullaev commended Macfarlane's actions but said that did not feel obliged to follow suit because "we are all in different situations".
Carter's supposed "flippancy" on what many students consider quite a serious issue has infuriated a small section of the student body, which was evident when Carter was repeatedly questioned on the issue in the few Union General Meetings this term.
James Upsher, who featured in a Pulse Radio debate last Thursday on the issue said that he was still "embittered not about the wage increase itself, but the manner in which Carter has conducted himself ."
The increase in the London
weighting applies to all 'lower-paid' staff at the LSE, which includes the Sabbatical Officers.
It represents a three percent increase of the London weighting and officially came into force at the beginning of August.
Criticised; Gareth Carter
To contact The Beaver HeyNS team, email thebeaver.news@ise.ac.uk
The Beaver
16 November 2004
News
NUSSL-ing in on the Union shop
Nastaran Tavakoli-Far
The LSE SU is considering disaffiliation as a way of solving problems with supplying the Students' Union shop.
The LSE SU shop is currently supplied by the National Union of Students Services Limited (NUSSL) who act as a buying consortium for students' union shops across the country.
But tensions have risen between the SU and NUSSL due to a series of delayed deliveries and alleged NUSSL interference in the shop's management.
Kate Slay, the manager of the LSE SU shop told The Beaver how NUSSL had interfered with a stationary order placed in May and suggested that she reordered from a different firm, Office Depo, who subsequently delivered the stock one month late.
Slay went on to criticise NUSSL for pressuring her to buy from suppliers who had no idea what products were needed by SU shops.
NUSSL have cut back stationary orders for the SU shop despite protests from the management. Slay was angered that NUSSL didn't seem to understand that the SU shop needed "slides for overhead projectors and index page markers and not children's science and colouring books."

NUSSL wants the SU shop to stock children's science and colouring books. / Photo: James Upsher
She added that the LSE's SU shop is not the only students' union shop to be increasing dissatisfied with the service being provided by NUSSL.
SU shops can only purchase stock from particular suppliers chosen by NUSSL.
LSESU Treasurer Gareth Carter said that NUSSL have an idea of a "homogenous" student union shop and do not take into account the fact that each SU shop caters for a different popu-
lation and hence demands different goods. Carter said that NUSSL were "getting too big for their boots."
He went on to stress that the Union shop wanted autonomy on what it could sell and not be turned into a NUSSL branch.
Carter told the UGM in his report this week that the Union was "going to either try and bring it [NUSSL] down from the inside, or leave, and let them wallow in their self-aggrandising little
world of homogeneous, centrally-managed Union shops."
NUSSL are reported to be increasingly troubled by the LSE SU's stance, having already received numerous complaints.
In a statement, NUS services conceded that "there had been real problems in implementing their new stationery supply strategy" and that they were "of course very sorry for any inconvenience that had been caused to students."
Same people, same claim, different verdict
Chris Heathcote
News Editor
The Constitution and Steering (C&S) Committee has overruled its earlier verdict and declared that former British prime minister Winston Churchill is no longer a racist and can remain as the LSE SU's honorary vice-president.
By a vote of three to two, with one member absent and the chair abstaining, the seven-member committee decided that Churchill was neither racist, nor in breach of the Students' Union's (SU's) Equal Opportunities policy. As such, they concluded that the war-time leader's election just two weeks ago could not be questioned.
The debacle began when James Caspell, Treasurer of the LSE Green party complained to the committee that he had found racist comments made by Churchill and consequently broke the Union's constitution.
After hearing Caspell's case, the five voting members present declared by a margin of 3-2, that the committee agreed. This began a process that could have terminated Churchill's term as the LSE SU's figurehead
But the idea that a democratically-elected official could be removed caused uproar throughout the Union and created bitter divisions on the committee. Two members threatened to table a vote of no confidence if the ruling was upheld whilst two others warned that they would resign if
it was overruled.
By the end of last week, many commentators claimed the issue had become a political football, with those on the right cherishing Churchill after Margaret Thatcher was rejected as honorary president and branded the left 'sore losers' after their own candidates lost the popular vote.
Eager to head off a crisis, a second vote was hurriedly arranged, though under the assumption that it would almost certainly clear Churchill.
In the end, the prediction was proved correct as Mark Power sided with his right-wing colleagues and Jimmy Tam missed the vote. By mistake, even chairperson El Barham, normally a staunch left-winger, indicted her support for Churchill.
However, the saga was not quite over, as all would have to be explained to the Union General Meeting (UGM) later in the week.
Despite the U-turn, some members of the audience were still angry that the incident had ever occurred in the first place.
Oliver Ranson, a well known figure within the SU, called for the two members who had voted against Churchill on both occasions; Vladimir Unkovski-Korica and Anna Protano-Biggs to be ejected from the UGM.
However, the two-thirds majority needed to enacted this was not reached. Nonetheless Ranson told The Beaver that "the thought that Vladimir and Anna could be ejected should be warning enough, not just for them but
Barham; the lady's not for turning. C&S was. / Photo: Mark Donahue.
for all our elected officers, that dubious decisions are noted."
But both Unkovski-Korica and Protano-Biggs responded by saying it was "highly regrettable that Oliver [Ranson] didn't get his facts right in his accusations at the UGM."
Unkovski-Korica said; "C&S's decision is regrettable, particularly having in mind the background right wing pressure," whilst Protano-Biggs added "A serious complaint was made to C&S regarding this election and Vladimir [Unkovski-Korica] and myself were simply doing our jobs."
Both finished by asserting that they would not be taking any
further action against Churchill and would not be resigning.
Caspell continued to criticise the committee for its "cowardice and ineptitude" and asked how the same committee made up of the same people could declare Churchill unconstitutional one week and the not the next.
He accused members of the committee of "shameless careerism" and of caving in to "political and executive pressure" which resulted in the constitution being ignored.
However, unless another complaint is made, it seems that the whole matter will be quietly left to lie.
Editorial Comment, page 7
Union Jack
It is an emotional bruised
Jack that has reached for his
'Mont Blanc' this week to pen this diatribe - for I have been assailed! Accused of sexism of all things - the shame of it. Jack has a great fondness for women, and even considered two of them to be worthy bridge partners.
On considering my previous words I can only conclude that Ms. Massoumi is offended by my observation of her structurally unsound undergarments, or the suggested bicycle parking. To claim these remarks are sexist is to commit the crime itself! Jack has a wide collection of underwear including a substantial number of thongs. The feminists must not be permitted to monopolise this bastion of gentlemen's intimate apparel; men the world over must rise up and oppose: this subjugation.
Jack also can direct Ms. Massoumi to any number of male LSE students whose ample posteriors would also provide an ideal resting place for ones peimy farthing. Jack, of course, has no truck with Mr Starley's new-fangled 'safety bicycles'.
Also amusing Jack this week was a spectacularly delayed attack on the quality of Mr Heathcote's reporting; there seems to something of a plot against this gender confused northerner, perhaps Mr Heathcote will learn not to announce his candidacy for Comms so early when he runs again in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
As usual the Rag Week task-force elections were an amusing insight into the minds of the sab-batical pretenders. As Mr^ Madlani headed for the stage he was joined by Mr Power, grinning like an elf on Boxing Day;; Both succeeded to join this powerhouse of electoral opportunism, let's hope they remember Rowan's warning that to raise money for a famine is insulting to people with eating disorders, and find a nice non-offensive catastrophe to use as an excuse to dress up and open a few bottles of sherry.
Of course, by some accounts, " Mr Madlani has been offered £3,000,000,000, a 140 acre Hertfordshire estate, the British Virgin Islands and the presidency of the Netherlands by one of the capital's investment banks -' surely he would forgo aU this to serve us?	:i^|;
All the excitement and : the accumulated joy of forty minutes of student politics in action was cruelly shattered at quarter to two when a disgruntled Arafat hater called quorum and the assembled masses were foimd to be seven short of a democracy. Clearly the gentleman unaware that: in death - we are all heroes.*
4
News
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Passfield renovation to be privatised, rents set to rise.
Saleem Bahaj
A decision on the renovation of Passfield Hall was reached last week by the School's Residences Management Committee (RMC). The Hall is to be put under private management, which will pay for the renovation due to conamence in the summer of 2005.
The LSE currently leases the Grade 2 listed building from the University of London. As the leasehold comes closer to expiry, the RMC has found itself imder increasing pressure to decide what to do with the property, which is in urgent need of renovation.
The project has been under discussion for the past three and a half years. Early plans were hampered by accusations of mismanagement.
For the past two years the rents of Passfield's 190 residents have been frozen in recompense for declining living conditions.
The original scheme, now scrapped, proposed an extensive in-house refurbishment to be financed and managed by the LSE. However, as The Beaver learned, a 'Value for Money' study of the scheme concluded that: "If the LSE chose to finance and undertake the refurbishment...it would expose itself to substantial risk of cost overrun. The building is old, complex, listed and full of unknowns."
To pay for the new renovation rents would have to increase dramatically to what SU Residences Officer, Rishi Madlani, described as "unacceptable levels." Nonetheless Madlani, who had originally supported the in-house scheme, considers the hall coming
under private management as "the best of three bad options."
Passfield hall is one of LSE's three 'budget halls' and with rents set to rise there will be a shortage of affordable housing.
Indeed there is growing concern that higher rent, coupled with the planned introduction of the maximum top-up fee for LSE in 2006 will deter students from low-income backgrounds.
Madlani stressed that the SU would continue to lobby the school for new and affordable accommodation for students.
However, with Howard Davies' commitment to establishing new LSE residences closer to the centre of London, and with no plans from the accommodation office for providing more low-rental accommodation, the situation seems only likely to deteriorate.
MUftuc
Passfield Hall, set for renovation in 2005. / Photo: James Upsher
UN ambassador speaks
Adrian Li
UK Ambassador to the UN Sir Emyr Jones-Parry spoke at the LSE on Wednesday on the need for UN reform and his hope that the UN will be able to face up to the challenges of the 21st Century.
Quoting Kofi Annan, Sir Emyr said the UN was at a "fork in the road". He spoke at length about how the UN might continue to function effectively in its role as the principal body coordinating international security and development. The audience was reminded that both these goals have been central to the UN's operation since the its beginnings in 1945.
Jones-Pany emphasised that the aim of UN reform was to rein-vigorate global consensus on the value and agenda of the UN, and to show that multilateralism can still work.
He also commented on prob-
lems specific to the developing world, teUing the audience that to "disregard a failing state today and was to face a terrorist bastion tomorrow" adding that "environments can and do make terrorism more likely."
Sir Emyr outlined the UK's position on the reform of the UN Security Council, speaking of their decision to support the bids of Japan, Germany, India, Brazil for permanent seats. He stated that he backs the plan to award an African seat, in addition to creating more non-permanent members of the security council. According to the former ambassador, the UN Security Council membership needed urgently to be increased to better reflect the international order.
He called the role of the UN Security Council essential in conflict prevention and that it should act and tackle emerging threats at an early stage.
Pan-European degrees set for 2010
Rob Parker
Plans to harmonise degree systems across Europe have alarmed British academics. Many fear the proposed arrangement could put an end to the highly profitable international market for Masters students, reported The Independent last week.
40 coxmtries including the UK have signed up to the Bologna Accord, an agreement to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010. Although the Accord does not specify the length of time degrees should take, most participating countries are interpreting it as three years for a Bachelors degree, two years for a Masters and three years for a PhD.
However, for UK universities, the current one-year Masters system is highly profitable and a huge attraction for UK universities.
Professor Howard Green, chairman of the UK Council for Graduate Education, warned in an interview with The Independent that if Britain adopted a two-year Masters course, "it would present a significant problem, because we would lose (our) competitive advantage."
Many remain unsure of what the full ramifications of the Accord will be.
In a statement issued earlier this week, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education assured UK universities that "The Bologna Process is simply a voluntary agreement... The intention is to make our various national higher education systems more attractive and comprehensible, by adopting certain comparable approaches to degree structures and quality assurance."
They went on to point out that there is no requirement for any of the participating countries to adopt a two-year Masters pro-
gramme, and that "UK universities remain autonomous degree-awarding bodies."
The LSE remained unwilling to speculate on the possible future consequences of the Bologna Accord. Mark Thomson, Projects Officer for the LSE's Teaching Quality Assurance and Review Office, told The Beaver that "We are at one of those points in the Bologna decision-making process where we have to wait, particularly in regard to the impact on our Masters programmes."
New proposals are currently in the process of being drawn up ready to be ratified at the ministerial summit in Bergen in May. Thomson explained that the school's position would become clearer at that point, but added that "our sense is that Bologna is moving away from the regula-tion-heavy approach towards a lighter harmonisation effort."
Students'Union Elections Honorary President
Nominations dose Wednesday, November 17 at 5:00pm
Hustings and elections will be on Thursday at the UGM
Nomination forms are available from SUReception

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The Beaver
16 November 2004
Lord Howe on taxation, inflation and Thatcher Brief News
Alexander George
For the second successive year, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe spoke at LSE last week.
In the second of the 'Chancellors Reflect' lecture series, chaired by LSE Director Howard Davis (who worked under Howe in his early career). Lord Howe spoke about his time as Margaret Thatcher's first chancellor from 1979 to 1983.
That period saw the introduction of economic policies which became closely identified with Thatcherism: the change from direct to indirect taxation, the end of exchange controls and the strict fight against inflation.
The lecture title - Can 364 Economists All Be Wrong? -referred to a letter to The Times from a number of economists (including former LSE Director Anthony Giddens) written shortly after Howe's 1981 budget, in which his monetary policy was criticised.
Howe spoke in detail about the economic problems facing the Thatcher government and the (sometimes unpopular as he admitted) policies introduced to tackle them.
As Lord Howe said at the beginning of the lecture, the chancellorship is probably the cabinet post he's least likely to be loved for. He recalled how The Guardian's Michael White had said upon his appointment to the Chancellorship that "after years in the shadow of Ted [Heath] and Margaret [Thatcher], Geoffrey can now be regarded as a menace in his own right".
Lord Howe said he felt pleased that economic figures seemed to vindicate his policies. Growth became strong in the early to mid-eighties and inflation was only 3% by the time Howe left the Treasury.
Among his responses to questions from the audience, Lord Howe said his main criticism of Chancellor Gordon Brown is that he has made taxation too complex. One feisty observer asked
Former Chancellor Lord Howe speaking at the LSE last Tuesday.
him what he thought of the fact that when Mrs Thatcher left office, the British economy was in one of its worst recessions ever.
Howe responded by telling the audience to ask his successor, Nigel Lawson, who is set to speak next week.
Too few disadvantaged students at the LSE
Mike Fauconnier-Bank
The LSE has been criticised for accepting the lowest number of underprivileged students out of 13 of the highest-ranking universities in Britain, by a new study into university admissions records.
The study, carried out by the Sutton Trust, the educational charity founded by millionaire philanthropist Sir Peter Lampl, showed that Britain's top universities had, on average, increased their intakes of students from the poorest backgrounds by nearly 50
percent, between 1997 and 2002.
However, the LSE was highlighted in the report as having a total of only 43 entrants from low participation neighbourhoods, in 2002.
An LSE spokesperson defended the School's admissions policies to the Beaver, noting that the Sutton Trust report failed to "take into account the relatively small size of the undergraduate intake at the LSE."
"Looking at the proportions rather than absolute numbers shows that at LSE in 2002 a total of 6.4 percent of our UK under-
graduates came from low participation neighbourhoods, compared with 5.4 percent at Cambridge".
The study showed that the A-level results attained by university entrants had risen since 1997, dispelling fears that grade requirements are being lowered in an attempt to meet government admissions targets.
Sir Peter, who is reported to have provided the Sutton Trust with £14m of funding since 1997, has stated that he believes that the number of students from low income neighbourhoods who are
attending universities is still disproportionately low.
Students from low participation areas currently account for 30 percent of young people in higher education nationally. However, only eight percent of students from these areas make up entrants to the so-called top universities.
A spokesperson for the school maintained that the "LSE remains committed to widening participation initiatives and recruiting the best students possible, regardless of social or economic background."
Fall in Oxbridge applications
Wanyi Weng
Oxbridge applications have declined according to figures released last week by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).
The figures, which were compiled after the first round of UCAS applications, reveal a 1% drop in applicant numbers at Cambridge and Oxford. Though small, the drop comes as a surprise to many Oxbridge colleges, which have witnessed a steady rise in the number of applicants over the past four years.
In 2002, applications reached an all time high and were up from the previous year by 15% at Oxford and 18% at Cambridge.
As UCAS disclosed, the number of students applying to university this year was up across the board, indicating that the downturn was unique to Oxbridge. Applications to LSE rose by 2.4%.
Cambridge maintained that the decline was "provisional", stressing that applications for mature undergraduates were still open. Nonetheless, the university was forced to concede that these
applicants do not usually make up a large proportion of the total.
The decrease comes at a sensitive time for the two institutions, particularly in light of recent conflicts between college heads and the newly established controversial Office of Fair Access (Offa).
With applicant numbers down, Oxbridge may find it hard to justify their case for more funding from the government. Though the decline is not necessarily indicative of a decrease in state school applicants, many fear it will certainly make the case for a more 'inclusive' application procedure harder to justify.
Sir Martin Harris, the new director of Offa, has already suggested that universities who have not succeeded in attracting more applicants from state schools or poorer backgrounds will be expected to come up with more "ambitious bursaries".
With the introduction of the new top-up fees scheme in 2006, both Cambridge and Oxford plan to implement extensive bm^ary schemes. Plans are already in the pipeline for the LSE to do the same.

Oxbridge punts, but no students.
Ramadan Feast
Members of the School community, including Howard Davies, Director of the LSE, joined the LSE SU Islamic Society to break the fast of Ramadan this week. Speaking at the event, Director Howard Davies praised the society's dedication to fostering cross-cultural understanding within the LSE. The General Secretary of the Islamic Society, Asaas Rajbee, commened that the event aimed "to give students a better idea of how Muslms went about practicing their religion on campus by bringing everyone together through the shared experience of fasting."
Mark Potoer
Passfield fire
The Fire brigade was called and residents evacuated from Passfield hall on Friday night after a fire broke out. The incident was reported at around 6 pm. Four fire engines responded to the call. All 197 students and staff were evacuated from the building and forced to stand in the cold for two hours until fire fighters gave them the all clear. Preliminary investigations have suggested that fire began in a bin on the first floor kitchen and could have been caused by an discarded cigarette. In tacWing the blaze and checking the building some interior doors were broken by the fix® brigade, but otherwise the damage was slight.
Otris Heathcote
Priest threatened
Father Javier Giraldo, a Colombian Catholic priest und^ a permanent death threat is due to speak at the LSE's Centre for the Study of Human Rights this Tuesday. Fr. Giraldo, an interna^ tionally renowned human rights campaigner, has spent the past 25 years trying to focus the world's attention on human rights abuses in Colombia, bringing him into conflict with some of Colombia's most powerful criminal organizations. As with all high profile figures, security is likely to be stepped up for the event. Professor Conor Gearty, the Centre's director told The Beaver that "The Centre liases with the School authorities on all matters relating to visits, including security".
Tanya ^japakae
Priest threatened
The LSE SU sabbatical officers have submitted a report to the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) as part of an institutional audit. In the report, the SU has highlighted several key concerns to students. Among them; the provision of personal tutors; access for students with disabilities; keeping Wednesday afternoons free; and the newly purchased building on 24 KingST^yj
6
Commenf &
sis
The Beaver
16 November 2004
MattSindairhas seen the Union General Meeting move from irrelevance to anger to pointlessness in three short years. The answer?
Let the
UGM die
I am currently a third year. In my first year LSE student politics was great fun for all concerned. As a Tory I understood that we would always, in the end, lose but any Conservative who lasted more than a week had thick enough skin and quick enough wits to find the futility of the struggle inspiring. The left-wing called us racists, passed pointless motions and generally had a great time. Apolitical centrists ignored the entire process and lived their lives in a state of nirvanic ignorance.
Towards the end of the year this peculiar disequilibrium began to fall apart. Our Union's attempt at reforming its constitution was a dire one and deservedly faced opposition.
Unfortunately that opposition settled on a process of filibuster that successfully delayed the inevitable passing of such worth bluster. In response the "Chief Executive" of the Students' Union... wept on stage.
Last year Jo Kibble's election re-invigorated all of his worst enemies; people who don't want to be politicians.

Student politics took on a grand scale as both sides put forward radical motions in a conscious attempt to become so extreme that they dragged the union's mean political opinion down their own dank hole.
This climaxed at the time of the budget where the Right's influence in various sections of the Union (this paper, the Athletics Union and international students) gave it a solid shot at killing the budget and creating a Union meltdown.
In response various members of the left-wing broke into tears at the UGM, alledged conspiracy and accused their opposition of careerism (how ironic). They even reversed their stance on the throwing of paper (always okay when nasty Conservatives were the only targets); describing it as an "assault".
Apparently the ordinary members of our student body wanted something calmer. They voted overwhelmingly for the "students not politics" candidates and sent a message that our political class has emphatically responded to. This year anyone who dares raise the subject of the world outside our walls is shouted down by previously enthusiastic revolutionaries.
The response has been a return to apathy and disinterest, with the UGM re-
established as a forum for unconvinceable hacks talking to themselves.
There are not enough "students as students" issues to be worth an hour every week and those issues that were raised have proved insufficiently interesting to attract an audience beyond undistinguished socialists.
We have a choice between a political Union where fragile left-wing students accept the reality that when right-wingers have the upper hand this does not require a CIA conspiracy, unrealistic, or a Students' Union where political discussion is carried on in another forum. Students expressed their desire for the latter at the last elections but this model includes no place for the UGM.
This is not a matter of a failure to find good motions. The most worthy of "students as students" motions are boring due to the fact that administering a successful Students' Union requires a lot of detailed, boring, work rather than because we are still searching for some golden vein of motional material.
No one enjoys letting a tradition die 'on their watch' but if we can't find a role for the Union General Meeting then we should let it die a dignified death.
Letting LooSE on TV (rpt)
Eliot PoUak and John McDermott continue to flog their dead horse and present the prime time schedule for the LSE SU television channel.
6.00pm - Tbe Weakest Link:
The LSE department of Media and Communications attempt to justify their existence in one of the premier academic institutions in the world. With Matt Wilgress in the Anne Robinson role
6.45pm - Stalkabout:
Cameras follow male AU members around a local nightspot as they attempt to grope their way to a restraining order in record time. Interactive option for female viewers - please push your red button
7.15pm - NatWest Wing:
A high-street bank attempts to 'wing it' as a sensible banking option for international students. Contains strong, although admittedly indecipherable language
8.15pm Good Will Goes Hunting (Film):
Apolitical gen sec and aU round good egg Will McFkrlane defies the politically correct and has a day out on the bugle alongside flatmate James Eyton. Starring Tory chairman Liam Fox, famous fox Basil Brush and Fox News. May contain scenes unsuitable for Guardian readers
11.00pm - Mattch of the Day
Matt Sinclair continues his attempted
'Daniel Freedman presents the history show featuring biographies of great Jewish leaders over the past 5000 years/
dominance of the entire university by presenting his own dating show, in which he chats up the nubile female populace of the LSE, trying, imsuccessfully, to avoid getting slapped
12.00am - Match of the Gay:
Simon Bottomley presents the LSE LGBT dating show. Analysis from Mark Lawrenson
1.00am - Faulty Powers:
Classic comedy as everyone's favourite Antipodean becomes editor of The Beaver. Hilarious consequences ensue.
1.30am there:
¦ Who wants to put their willy-in-
Late-night version of Chris Tarrant's popular quiz show. Insert your own description - it's all too easy for us.
2.00am - Have I got Jews for You:
As an antidote to allegations of 'dumbing dowm' on LSETV, Daniel Freedman presents the history show featuring biographies of great Jewish leaders over the past 5000 years. This week a slight twist, as Daniel discusses that renowned WWII anti-semite Adolf Churchill (err...some mistake surely - ed).
2.30am - Jim'll Fix it:
Legendary television figure Jimmy Saville makes dreams come true for ordinary people. This week, buried in an England no 8 shirt, Tottenham Hotspur shorts and Glasgow Rangers socks, Yasser Arafat finally gets his dream of being laid to rest in the Gazza Strip.
3.00am - The Bill:
Futuristic drama; the year is 2006 and students are forced to pay hefty fees to study at the LS of E. Do they get value for money? Do they balls.
4.00am - 6.00am - Open University:
What the LSE is not at this hour.
The Beaver
2nd Floor, East Building LSE Students' Union London 2AE email: thebeaver@lse.ac.uk
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Prashant Rao ,j

¦« . ' T-j.-y

MANAGING EDITOR Ben Chapman ~ CS
BUSINESS MANAGER Olivia Mantle 3
NEWS EDITORS Chris Heathcote; Sam Jones .
¦ S. :
BUNK EDITOR Matthew Sinclair
B:ART EDITOR Carolina Bunting
b .............
: SPORTS EDITORS Louise Hastie; Paul McAieavey
¦¦¦¦¦¦ s '	5
GRAPHICS EDITOR James Upsher
¦ a
FILM EDITORS Sarah Coughtrie; Daiii Ismail
;¦ ? ¦ ¦ :
MUSIC EDITORS .: Matt Boys; Ben Howarth
S
LITERARY EDITOR Ion Martea
J
THEATRE EDITOR Saatim Chowdhury ^
VISUAL ART EDITOR Caroline Bray ^
B ABOUT EDITOR Joanne Lancaster ^
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Alison Ball; Michael Fauconnier-Bank
THE COLLECTIVE
James Allen, Tracy Alloway, Alison Ball, Hestor Sarsham, Jay Bassan, Morwenna Bennett, Matthias Benzer, Jeff Berman, Sian Bey non, Alison Blease, Neshwa Bouichari, Jess Brammar, Kate Burke, Ed Calow, Gareth Carter, Simon Chignell, Brian Choudhary, Sal Chowdhury, Joanna Clarke, Simon Cliff, Dave Cole, Naomi Colvin,Chloe Cook, Owen Coughlan, Jon de Keyser, Kanan Dhru, Laura Dollin, Mark Donahue, Jan Duesing, Sian Errington, James Eyton, Michael Fauconnier-Bank, Daniel Freedman, Juii Gan, Vishna Gandhi, Alex Goddard, Ceri Griffiths, Steve Gummer, Nazir Hussain, Nawaz Imam, Stacy-Marie Ishmael; Irina Janakievska,Tom Jenkins, Angus Muiready-Jones, Laurence Kavanagh, Stefanie Khaw, Joel Kenrick, Paul K{rby,Khalyani Kumaran,Aeden Lake, Adrian Li, Kheng Lim, Van Lim, Elaine Londesborough, Will Macfarlane, Kim Mandeng, John McDermott, James Meadway, Amy Morgan, Samantha Nicklin, i Justin Nolan, Trina O'Driscolt, Neel Patel, Eliot ; Pollak, Mark Power, Adam Quinn, Saima Qureshi, Loretta Reehill, Simon Rees, Matt Rushworth, Noam Schimmel, Olivia Schofield, Ja! Shah, Marta Skundric, Elliot Simmons, Kristin Solberg, Nick Spurrell, Jimmy Tam, Nastaran Tavakoii-Far, Sarah Taylor, Chenai Tucker, Alykhan Velshi, Alex Vincenti, Eilie Vyras, Greta Wade, Jane Wakiwaka, Claudia Whitcomb, Matt Willgress, Ruksana Zaman.
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If you have written three or more articles for The Beaver and your name does not appear in the Collective, please email thebeaver@lse.ac.uk and you will be added to the list in next week's paper.
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The Beaver
16 November 2004
Comment & Analysis
The Beaver
Comment
Tight-fisted treasurer
Gareth Carter, the Students' Union's Treasurer, has disappointed this paper by refusing to donate his newly-awarded £212 pay-rise to a charity of his choice. This is now the second time he has broken his promise to freeze sabbatical wages and while it is arguable whether either was actually his fault. Carter would do well to take seriously the requests that he repay some of the electorate's good faith.
The latest of his witty lines is his retort that he needs the extra money to pay for his Centrepoint flat - one wonders why Carter decided to take a lease on a flat in one of the most expensive areas of London if he genuinely intended to live on a 'meagre' £22,053.
While LSE sabbatical officers are now paid £24,854, ULU sabbaticals get paid approximately £14,000 and their NUS counterparts make around £18,000.
Carter promised in his Lent Term election campaign against incumbent Treasurer Jo Kibble, who had, incidentally, accepted a pay-rise saying that it was out of his hands, to freeze sabbatical wages.
He claimed that this would
save the Union a whopping £20,000. It was quickly pointed out to him that the saving was in fact £8,000, and he did not actually have the power to freeze sabbatical wages.
Perhaps he should follow the example of the General Secretary, Will Macfarlane, who has kindly offered to donate his post-tax, adjusted pay-rise to a RAG week charity.
What is also appalling is the complete absence of any criticism of his adversarial stance: too many students in the Union with ambitions for election to the Executive Committee have refused to step forward in the fear that Carter, who is popular amongst the Athletics Union, could ruin any chances they might have of electoral success.
It appears that Carter is untouchable with prospective sabbatical candidates biting their tongues, hoping to win over the Athletic Union, so respectful of Carter's opinion.
Carter's willingness to take the blame for the over-budget Three Tuns project is widely appreciated. This makes his steadfast refusal to mend fences and at least donate a minute portion of the pay-rise, that he promised not to take, to charity all the more frustrating.
Disaffiliate!
Last week this paper commented on the inadequacies of the NUS but the recent emergence of actual research into NUS Treasurer Martin Ings' proposal for charging £10 for an NUS card has left us without words.
Except one: disaffiliate.
What makes Ings' proposal even more ridiculous is that for £7, a student can receive an International	Students'
Identity Card (ISIC) which awards them student discounts in locations throughout the world.
What are the merits of the NUS card? Aside from the discounts it claims to provide, there are none.
The fact is, it is questionable : whether LSE students would i even lose their discounts if the Union were to disaffiliate:
Imperial College London and Southampton University have both seen their Students' Unions disaffiliate and have retained the majority of their discounts.
Much as this paper argued last week, there is a case to be made for a body that genuinely represents students' concerns.
The NUS, however, is not that body.
The concerns of the majority of the LSE student body, largely international and postgraduate, are given only passing mention, if any.
Indeed, perhaps if the LSE were to disaffiliate, more institutions would follow suit and the resulting external shock would cause the NUS to undertake the major reforms that are necessary for it to become a truly representative body.
So Ciiurcliill isn't a racist?
Though it should never have gotten to a second vote at C&S, the committee made the right decision to declare Winston ChurchiU constitutional, swiftly evading a planned vote of no-confidence in the process.
Events of the past two weeks have caused much con-
cern as to whether members of the Constitution & Steering Committee are genuinely up to the task
Hopefully, though, it can now move on from a series of blunders and retain its long-held reputation for fairness and balance, or simply just do its job.
Letters to the Editor
The Beai^er offers all readers the right to reply to anything that appears in the paper. Letters should be sent to thebeaver.editor@lse.ac.uk, and should be no longer than 250 words. Letters may be edited prior to publication. The deadline for submission is 3pm on the Sunday prior to publication.
Dear Sir,
In response to Steve Gummer's poor understanding of what it means to oppose racism, I feel compelled to point out that, as a member of the Green Party for four years, I am not, nor have I ever been 'a Trotskyite member of the school' or supporter of the Soviet Union. I also find it astonishing that anyone can view anti-Racism as 'left-wing' in the modem context.
The process by which I complained to C&S was open and democratic: There was no motion of no confidence lodged against C&S, as exemplified by the 'Right'. There were no threatening emails, such as those sent by the General Secretaiy.
Instead there was simply a complaint put forward in a public meeting by a student concerned about the ramifications of electing someone who may well be a war 'hero at home', but it is an extremely divisive figure amongst the many ethnic groups we should celebrate at the LSE.
There is nothing 'left-wing' about preventing ethnic minorities and those with disabilities from becoming further ostracised from what is already an elitist Union.
Perhaps in future, such 'features' can focus on issues, instead of falling victim to casual journalism.
James Caspell
Dear Sir,
It seems rather erroneous of Mr Fteedman to draw the smug conclusion that he and MrVelshi were elected because people were familiar with their politics and policies.
Surely he hasn't forgotten the victory of Mr Salah Mattoo over Mr Velshi in last summer's International Students' Officer election?
Perhaps he needs reminding: Mr Velshi ran a very visible campaign, both in the run up to the election and throughout the year at the UGMs, informing the electorate of his politics, and yet was beaten by the unknown Mr Mattoo who not only didn't put up a single poster, but also declined to appear at hustings.
If any conclusion can be drawn, surely it should be that Messers Velshi and Freedman were elected because people thought them to be the lesser of the evils on offer.
Perhaps if they had campaigned, people would have had the chance to realise their mistake.
Dear Sir,
I would like to bring to you and your readers' attention the fantastic event held on campus by the Islamic Society last Friday, and also take this opportunity to thank the society and its officers.
'Can you last a Muslim fast?' allowed non-Muslims to share the experience of fasting on the final day of Ramadan with Muslim students at the School.
At 4.18pm all students were invited to break their fasts together as well as hear different talks on Islam and mix with very welcoming and hospitable members of the Islamic Society.
I was extremely grateful to be involved in the event and I'm sure it will go from strength to strength in the years ahead.
William Macfarlane General Secretary, LSE SU
Dear Sir,
All this nonsense about foxhunting is ridiculous. The bill is going to get passed, accept it, and once it does rural folk can go back to reading the Daily Mail, living on fat EU subsidies, and shooting Gypsies. Moreover, Urbanites can back to reading The Guardian, drinking fair trade coffee and calling some of our greatest heroes 'racist'. And we can all live happy ever after.
Justin Nolan
Matthew C Boys
Dear Sir,
I would like to congratulate The Beaver on condemning the decision by the Constitution and Steering Committee to rule that the election of Winston Churchill for the post of honorary Vice-President of the LSE SU was unconstitutional.
This was an outageously antidemocratic act, and the minutes of the meeting show that there were blatant political motives behind it, including an absurd connection between 'Churchill bombing Dresden' and 'Tony bombing Iraq', the ridiculous question of the 'message' his election would send to Iraqi students and Tony Blair, and the unfair and irrelevant suggestion that this is a racist and Islamophobic society.
It was sad that Britain's greatest war leader was slurred in this way, and that people attempted to bar him from being elected, at the time of national remembrance for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this country and others in war
If it hadn't been for ChurchiU and those who gave their lives in the world wars, the Committee probably wouldn't have the luxxiry of discussing the issue of racism now.
I am glad that the Committee eventually ruled the election of Churchill constitutional, although I was disappointed that most of those present at the UGM weren't opposed to the overruling of democracy enough to eject those responsible from the meeting.
It is a great honour and pleasure to see Winston Churchill elected as honorary president, and I cannot think of a better candidate.
Peter John Cannon
Dear Sir,
Last week's blink article regarding the popularity of the kaballah faith amongst pop culture's great and good struck me as rather passe.
Eliot Pollack failed to recognise that once a trend becomes universal, its ubiquity renders it unfashionable.
While last Tuesday The Beaver printed "Kaballah is the latest fad amongst the rich and famous", their respected rival publication Heat magazine ran the story "Kaballah is so over".
The astute journalists at Heat reported that although devout kabbalists Britney Spears and Madonna still sport the teUing red string on the wrist, several celebrities have removed theirs.
Characters as widely respected as David Beckham and Naomi Campbell have ended their endorsement of the religion, realising that it has had its day.
Kaballah is as last season as Ugg boots.
The Beaver's masquerade as a publication on the pulse of the latest cultural phenomena is frankly ridiculous, and Pollack's well-written academic analysis of the subject matter put me in mind of William Hague wearing a baseball cap and claiming to drink 14 pints in a day.
I urge The Beaver to print more excellent articles such as discourses on welfare state economics and commentaries on the independence of judiciaries.
Leave Heat to deal with their more morose but significantly more entertaining material.
Alison Ball
Corrections
The Beaver would like to make the following corrections:
The picture on page 31 that was credited to Stacy-Marie Ismael should have
been credited to Marta Skundric.
4
Joanna Clarke should have received a credit for her contribution to the article titled, "Library confusion" on page 5.
8
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«»llT
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Features
Features Correspondent:Tracy Alloway
blink
Editor: Matthew Sinclair (thebeaver.bllnk@lse.ac.uk)
Features
Divided We Fall
"There is no denying that. At the current time it is not so much a case of 'United we stand' as of 'United we limp" but to limp now does not rule out the fact that we will run in the future"
pg.8
^Business Mother Goose to Iron Maiden?
"If you thought sporting one of : those spunky players made you look aE hip and cool? Some people may be taking the whole portable music player fad a little bit too far."
pg.9
Why is there a lack of entre-preneurship at the LSE?
"For many, it simply becomes too : late to take the risks inherent in launching a business venture
pg.10
Rabenmiitter
'"Rabenmiitter is German for 'a bad ; mother with unsupervised kids'."
pg.i2
Politics
Foundation Trusts: Heading towards the US health care system
I "Foundation Trusts are a new type of NHS hospital and constitute the centrepiece of New Labour's reforms in health care.."
pg. 13
The Real weapons of mass-destruction
"What may be more dangerous is : the position guns now have in society. For many they are seen as the tools of empowerment and control."
pg.14
The followers of the church of business
"But now I see more and more of my fellow freshers getting this 'JP Morgan & Price Water House Coopers' flu."
pg. 15
Closing the book or opening the door?
: ."The argtiments for and against an EU constitution rest on issues of law, sovereignty, political philosophy and the efficiency and effectiveness of the EU's institutions."
;¦ __pg» t6
International
Anatynng the Analysts
"Hie information revolution has '^ven us a fascinating new abffity: " lor the first time we can actually tell the story of how we are told our stories."
pg-17

Howard Davies (left) and Sir Emyr Jones Parry (right) / Photo: Marta Skudric
Ask him how the 70,000 dead Sudanese feel about their negotiations. Ask him how toothless his organisation is without the US. Ask him why they admit countries that are about as close to becoming democratic as George Bush is to becoming Pope. And on what grounds does he think these states will listen to us when they totally ignore the desperate cries of their own peoples? These were just a few suggestions I got when I asked if anyone had any questions that they wanted answered in my interview with Sir Emyr Jones Parry. One on-looker suggested you might as well ask; if the UN were a fish what type of fish would it be? 'At least you might get a straight answer to that question'. Amidst all these cynics I was the worst culprit, not believing the ambassador, that the UN was at 'a crossroads', but agreeing more with the sentiment of a gentleman in the front row of lecture who argued it 'was dimiped in a lay-by'. Therefore I am startling myself as well as everyone else in this defence of the United Nations.
If this is Unity I don't want to see division...
The 70,000 deaths in Darfur, Sudan, have regularly been cited as a brutal failure of the UN. The cruelty of the Civil War, matched with the Government's ethnic cleansing regime nm by the Janjaweed (a group of released prisoners) has seen one of the greatest humanitarian disasters since Rwanda. Asked about this event the ambassador was clear in his message, he claimed that 70,000 deaths was a disaster but 'it would have been 700,000 without UN intervention'. Equally when asked why the UN hadn't seen it fit to intervene militarily I was told that this option had not totally been ruled out but that a fuU scale occupation of Sudan would not only take months to orchestrate (due to the perils of leading a campaign in the wet season) but that it would hit hardest the people already suffering.
The ambassador spoke of other humanitarian crises that the UN was struggling to combat, such as the 400,000 children that die each year in the undeveloped world from measles. The UN's plan in this area had been foiled by individual nations failing to vaccinate, as they no longer perceive
the disease to be a problem. Yet Sir Jones Parry seemed eager to work toward a better future and he spoke of plans of action to confront the epidemic. Fkced with this kind of problem there is little more that an organisation can do. It is not realistic to assign fault to the UN for humanity's current plight but without its assistance, the preservation of food, medical aid and maintenance of human rights would be at levels much lower than they are today. They provide constant help to many millions of destitute people; it's time to stop calling them names while they are doing it.
George Bush's re-election also seems to pose a serious problem to the future success of the UN. It was his divisive policy that led the US into a war backed by only a few UN nations (Ourselves and Spain being his two most notable allies). He has persistently acted in an overtly gimg-ho and unilateral fashion, in fact the only way he could make his past actions worse would be to ride a buffalo onto the floor of a UN summit, wearing his favourite ten-gaUon cow-boy hat and singing 'My way or the Highway' in that Southern accent we have all come to love so much. Don't rule this out.
The UN Ambassador refused to make any comment on the US elections or the Bush Presidency but he did say that the world would rally round the US as it has in the past if the policy were right. He emphasized that the US was not as isolated in the international community as it seemed and that it was vital for trust and co-operation between nations to continue. There can be no doubt that the division caused by past actions is certainly not good news for the world community, however, it seems too early to make the comparison to the failure of the League of Nations just yet. The US is still involved internationally as are all the other major nations, the challenge is to reunite them.
What future can emeige from the ashes?
When speaking to Sir Jones-Parry after the event I asked him whether he felt his tone had been optimistic or pessimistic. In typical British fashion he told me he'd tried to strike a compromise between acknowledging last year's failures and also attempting to look on to the future with a sense of optimism. He claimed that the UN
Divided we fall
Steve Gummer speaks to Sir Emyr Jones Parry, British Ambassador to the United Nations and comes away feeling terribly idealistic.
had reached, 'the end of its age of innocence'. He agreed that the world was polarised, that North and South had differing agendas and problems and that these were disproportionately represented within the UN. Yet he also sought to assure his audience that the reasons for founding a United Nations Organisation had remained since its foundation in the post-world war world. The UN charter speaks of the need to 'maintain international peace and security'. With the relatively recent rise of Al-Qaeda and the spread and dangers of global terrorism it is hard to think of a time when this unified statement of intent has been more relevant.
It is clear to see that at the 'crossroads of its being' the UN is not simply standing still. The Security Council have mapped out a strategy suited to the present-day terrorist threat. At its most basic level it is known as the foiu: P's; 'Prevention of con-fUct, Pursuit of the rule of law. Protection of the peoples of the UN and Preparation', so as to be ready for the threats of the modem world. Equally reform of the Security Council is still being sought. There is talk of adding four more nations; India, Germany, Italy and Brazil. P\irthermore, proposed changes indicate that there could soon be two African nations on the council. However the Ambassador did reveal that even if these changes occur, a transformation of the veto system would be very unlikely. The UN is begirming to change its most sacred institutions to accommodate the modem world.
So where do we go from here?
Arnold Schwarzenegger armounced one possibility at a Republican Convention before the election, I know I can't believe I'm quoting him either:
'If you believe that this country, not the United Nations, is best hope for democracy, then you are a Republican.'
We could take the Terminator's advice and abandon the UN; we could flee like rats from a sinking ship. However this is defeatism in its worst form, as to act in this way is to admit that humanity, as a collective group, will never be anything greater than the sum total of its parts. The future of the UN is wobbly. There is no denying that. At the current time it is not so much a case of 'United we stand' as of 'United we limp' but to limp now does not rule out the fact that we will mn in the future. The only certainty of the moment is that 'divided we fair. Our global community has problems that cannot be fixed by one state alone, or by many states pulling in different directions (as the case may be at the moment). We must look back and remember the mistakes that have been made in the past, that is vital, but we should not fixate on them to the point where we abandon the possibility of a successful institution. To quote Sir Emyr Jones Parry:
'We are where we are and we must accept it to progress'.
The Beaver
16 November 2004
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9
Features
From Mother Goose to
Iron Maiden
Stefanie Khaw examines the history of the digital music player and what the next phase in the development of this technology might be.
The history of recording technology owes its humble beginnings to Thomas Edison's work on the telephone and the telegraph. The man who gave us the light bulb was working on a machine which could record telephone messages through indentations on paper tape. Some sort of 19th century answering machine, I suppose. Putting together a sketch of his plans, his mechanic reportedly built the first phonograph within 30 hours. The first words ever recorded? Upon completion, Edison immediately spoke into the machine and to his amazement, the words 'Mary had a little lamb' played back to him.
Sony launched the world's first Walkman in 1979. Not meant for the masses, it retailed at a hefty $200. By 1981, cheaper and smaller versions were being produced. Today the portable audio market is flooded with a whole range of gizmos. On your journey home today, look closely at the people in your tube carriage. You're likely to spot one or two of them listening to a portable music device of some sort, be it the Sony Discman (why darling, that's SO last century!) or one of the many MPS players which are flooding the market at the moment.
Apple's iPod is hailed as the undisputed market leader in digital music players. Thanks to an excellent product marketing and advertising campaign, Apple reported its highest fourth quarter revenue in nine years.The company saw a 500% increase in iPod sales over Q4 of 2004 compared to the same period a year ago. It also reported a net income of $276 million, compared to $69 million in 2003.
But enough with statistics. It is just not easy to say no to such a functional (up to 40GBs of memory, that's about ten thousand songs) not to mention ergonomically designed device (the iPod minis come in five delicious colours: silver, gold, blue, pink and green). Nonetheless, ask any tech boffin and they'll tell you that Apple's stylish offering is not the only kid on the block. According to CNN.com, Singapore-based company Creative Technology is doubling its range of digital music players from eight to 16 by the end of the year. Not only does Creative's 'Zen' store music it also accommodates up to 85 hours of video. Products from the likes of Sony, Rio and Samsung, just to name a few, are also available on the market.
And from the humble beginnings of everyone's favourite nursery rhyme, today we blast 'I'm a Slave 4 U....' and 'F*** You'

on our portable music players. Thank God for the headphones, less we intrude everyone else's personal space with loud cacophonous sounds. Not everyone likes heavy metal. And thank God for headphones, less everyone will know you're listening to some pop princess' latest single. Everyone likes Britney, we just refuse to own up.
And if you thought sporting one of those spunky players made you look aU hip and cool? Some people may be taking the whole portable music player fad a little bit too far. Anyone heard of Oakley's Thump sunglasses? Slick shades with a built in MPS player. What about Virgin's latest offering? Not quite as bling bling as it sounds, the Virgin Pulse is a tiny silver MPS player which you wear on a chain necklace. An electronic jacket which plays MPSs and doubles as a cell phone was introduced in the middle of this year at a fashion trade fair in Germany. The mpSblue jacket comes with a head set built into the collar and a fabric control button on the left sleeve.
High-street clothing retailer, Gap ventured into the wearable technology arena last Thursday by launching a machine washable fleece jacket with a built-in radio for kids. The jacket, retailing at $68,
has a waterproof FM radio control panel sewn into one sleeve, a detachable power pack hidden in a pocket and removable speakers built into the hood. Horrendously named the 'Hoodio' (hood + radio = hoodio; yeah, I don't get it either), it will go on sale in GapKids stores across the UK, America, Canada and France on November 16.
A couple of techies in Japan have developed speakers made from cloth woven with copper wires and magnets. Described as a breakthrough by The Nikkei Biz Daily, these bendable and foldable speakers generate sound from the vibrating cloth. According to Japanese firm, Mikasa Shoji Co., the bendable and foldable speakers could be wrapped around your face. Tech-sawy they obviously are, but we won't give them any points in the fashion area.
However, it is reportedly not the first of its kind, according to tech web site thein-quirer.net. Dutch bulb-makers, Phillips, had apparently worked on some form of wearable computers 14 years ago. The 'PC-on-a-tie' would have its microprocessor placed in the knot of the tie. Evidently, the idea never materialised. So now we'll just have to wait in anticipation for the mass-marketing of this new Japanese invention. (Is it a loud speaker? Is it a pashmina?)
t '
Musinas
Chrismukkahm adanwalipasch-abaisakhiwe-sak...
_Matthew Sinclair
Dr. Jonathan Romain, Rabbi at Maidenhead Synagogue has endorsed Chrismukkah, an attempt to reconcile Christmas and Hannukah for mixed faith families by an American Jewish-Christian couple. In response to high levels of intermarriage they wanted to ensure that there was a holiday available to those who feared that a commercial Christmas would edge out a conservative Hannukah.
In these days of flamboyant religious warfare and exploding Muslims it is nice to see people working together across religious boundaries. Once Chrismukkah is established Christians and Jews will be able to buy each other presents. Once trade relations are established there will be a powerful disincentive to conflict between the two groups; any degradation of relations will lead to an impoverishment of both parties. Economics strikes again.
If we can manage to bring other relations into the mix we might manage something special; spreading the commercialisation that Christian-Pagan festivals enjoy like a beautiful cancer throughout the religious world. Commercialised holidays have been defended in this section before as harmless fun. I would argue that their deep lack of politics or meaning is helpful in providing a situation in which different groups can interact on a simpler and friendlier level. Just one day of the year when people can get along.
Diwali provides an excuse for some of the world's most spectacular fireworks displays. If everyone were to celebrate this, currently Hindu, festival then such a prodigious quantity of explosives would be expended that arms companies would find their current market, killing people, no longer the best source of revenues.
Pascha is the Russian orthodox Easter Day celebration. Recognising this as part of our grand celebration axis would mean we could consume copious quantities of chocolate for a second time each year. Great fun.
Baisakhi is a seven day festival. This means we can add some scale to Christmas; testing our constitution by tiying to combine this with Christmas dinners and the implications of Pascha detailed above.	'
Wesak is a Buddhist festival; Buddha day. What with the frenzy of different customs, ceremonies and celebrations we have built up for our seven day festival we will need a little time to relax. Contemplating the Buddha might do the trick.
I've left religions out. I've ridiculously misinterpreted those that are included. But we're already getting something of the outline of the ideal McDonalds Christmas. A shapeless and innocuous goo but one that leaves the world a more peaceful and less intense place. Chrismukkahmadanwalipaschabaisakhi ,.Wesafc;;;T X. J
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Business Correspondent: Aanchal Anand
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Business.-:.^	...
Why is there a lack of entrepreneurship at the LSE?
Shehzad Bhunnoo asks why LSE students don't show much entrepreneurial flair.
LSE students lack entrepreneurial flair. In a university packed full of some of the most able and financially aware minds from across the globe, it is surprising to find such a reserved and predictable attitude when it comes to business and career paths.
The holy graU for many LSE students is investment banking, with the majority of students being closed, and probably unaware, of the alternatives. AA^th such a strong presence for the monotonous heap of finance related societies, the investment banks dominate LSE with their marketing and recruitment drives, leaving little space for students to consider starting their own business.
So you've gone down the typical route of an LSE graduate and now you're a rich banker. You've got a big salary, maybe six figures. You're looking forward to a huge bonus. You've achieved the same tired old thing as all those before you. You work for the owners of the company. You work for the government. You work to pay bills. You find it easier to pursue a tjrpical career you have been given than to explore the power you have to change it. But you'U be rich so what does it matter?
'For many, it simply becomes too late to take the risks inherent in launching a business venture - the stakes are too high.'
If you're smart, you'll think differently. You'll realise that you shouldn't work for money; money should work for you. It's time to gain financial intelligence and conquer the Rat Race.
So instead of aspiring to work for a company, why not move towards launching your own? The typical response is "gain industry experience, then start a company" , but after working in an investment bank for a few years it fast becomes clear that once you're in, only the most determined will step out to launch a company inde-
pendently. As a 21 year old starting on a 40 grand salary, spending is anything but responsible and after a few years there are too many commitments - that sexy car, a mortgage, maybe even starting a family. For many, it simply becomes too late to take the risks inherent in launching a business venture - the stakes are too high.
The time to get into business is now. Many top entrepreneurs share this view -they advise students to take the plunge on graduation and not waste any time getting 'industry experience' which actually offers them no advantage over anyone else - who the hell looks at your CV when you're launching a new venture? What you need is a solid business plan. In fact, for sales & traders in particular, so much of their time is spent in a reactive role - waiting for markets to move or clients to act - that the proactive instinct required as an entrepreneur disappears and you're left stuck in front of 6 flat panels until you can no longer read what's displayed on them.
So you can get rich as an investment banker. Bear in mind though, that to make the cash many students dream about, you've got to be exceptional. Like the best traders, top entrepreneurs take the risks,
but the difference is that entrepreneurs reap the whole reward. You can make a lot in investment banking, but you wiU never become filthy rich. You'll never join the ranks of the real business people, the entrepreneurs who have created the organizations for which you work - people like Branson, Gates, DeU, Jobs, Green... or any of the other super-rich business elite who took the risks, went into business and have reaped the rewards.
It is tough though. At the LSE it is difficult to see beyond the cloud of investment banking and think clearly on a different level. The LSE places very little focus on entrepreneurship from an academic or more applied perspective. The closest offerings are those of the management department, which remain pretty far removed from business startups and cater for those heading to already established organizations rather those looking to establish one. Enterprise LSE attempts to bridge the gap between academia and business by facilitating commercial application of the school's expertise and intellectual resources through consultancy. However, there still remains a need to increase entrepreneurial awareness and opportunities.
I am not suggesting that everyone should abandon their careers to become entrepreneurs, merely that they should open their eyes to the possibilities.
Past Successful Entrepreneurs of the LSE
Isabella Steger gives the histories of a couple of LSE's most famous entrepreneurs.
Stelios Haji-loannou

1^.

%
Stelios Haji-loannou in front of his most famous creation.
George Soros
Bom in Athens, Greece in 1967 of Cypriot origin, Stelios Haji-Ioannou graduated BSc in Economics at the LSE in 1986, later completing a MSc in Shipping Trade and Finance at City University Business School. After graduating, he worked in his father's shipping company, Troodos.
Stelios' first venture was the shipping company Stelmar Tankers, which was listed on the NYSE in March 2001. He is best known, however, for pioneering 'no-frills' services of which easyJet is the most famous - the deregulation of the European airline industry in 1995 provided him with the perfect opportunity. The airline was listed on the London Stock Exchange in, 2000.
The easyGroup was created in 1998, and services expanded to include low-cost Internet, easylnternetcafe became the world's largest chain of Internet cafes and the cheapest way to surf the Internet. It started trading in June 1999. easy Car provides a low-cost rental service, and started trading in April 2000. Other ventures include easyValue.com, a service which compares online shopping, and easyMoney, an online financial service.
The secret behind the easyGroup's success is cutting out completely unnecessary costs. The majority of transactions are conducted over the Internet by credit card; there are no free meals on planes, and Stelios himself doesn't employ a secretary or use paper in his offices.
EasyJet's stock is at $6 after going public at $4.30 on the LSE. With a market cap of $1.6 billion, it boasts a multiple 50%
higher than that of British Airways. In 2002, Stelios ranked 327 in the Forbes World's Richest People list, with a net worth of $1.4 billion.
Despite his immense success, Stelios is friendly, down-to-earth and approachable, preferring people to call him 'Stelios'. His office in Luton is a bright orange metal shed, and he sits with the rest of his staff in an open-plan room. Yet Stelios does not disregard the fact that his father was a millionaire and he had daddy's money to start with. "My biggest break was when it dawned on me that not everyone flies business class,' he says. 'It's difficult to think like that when you're brought up in a wealthy family. I'd just never imagined you could make a business ruiming a cheapo airline!" (Sunday Telegraph, 2 April 2000) Life must be tough when you're a billionaire.
easyCinema and easyDorm are projects being considered for the future. Meanwhile, Stelios is currently single and enjoys sailing, and frequently appears on most eligible bachelors lists.
Some tips from Stelios on entrepreneurship:
Always look for a price elastic demand curve.
Take out as much of the frills as possible.
Do not delegate entrepreneurship. Make your own mistakes, oversee everything yourself.
Under promise and over deliver.
Customers are rational; they expect the right product for the right price.
Bom in Budapest in 1930, Soros is possibly the best-known entrepreneur and philanthropist in the world. He fled from the Nazi occupation in Hungary to Britain, and graduated from the LSE in 1952, finally settling in the US in 1956. While at the LSE, Soros was profoundly influenced by the works of Karl Popper.
In America, he set up a highly successful investment fund, the Soros Fund Management LLC; his speculation that the pound was overvalued earned him $1 billion in a deal in 1992. He earned the nickname "the man who broke the Bank of England". However, his negative currency speculation of the Malaysian ringgit in 1997 and the subsequent Asian financial crisis led to severe criticism.
Not all wealthy entrepreneurs are money-grabbing and heartless - Soros is
one of the few businessmen known more for his philanthropy than his business achievements. He spends billions supporting causes he believes in, in the form of the Open Society Institute as well as a network of organizations active in over 50 countries. The OSI is dedicated to the development of civil society, education, human rights, press freedom and so forth. His most recent project, and one which he claims is the "central focus of his life", is to prevent George W Bush from taking power, to which he has contributed more than $15 million.
Unfortunately, money can't buy everything. However, all entrepreneurs should take a leaf out of his book: "I'm not doing my philanthropic work out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it."
The Beav4?r
16 November 2004
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Business
Business Correspondent: Aanchal Anand
atlve
What makes an economy move? We always hear talk about land, labour, and capital, but the force that drives the mechanism is enterprise. The French word 'entrepreneur' literally means 'one who undertakes'. By defining entrepreneurship and identifying its beginnings, the benefits of entrepreneur-ship to the economy will be evident.
Entrepreneurship is about promoting creativity and having the initiative to constantly invent new and better ways of approaching economic challenges. This was shown in a study carried out by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Published in 2000, the GEM study showed a strong positive correlation between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth.
In fact, entrepreneurship is directly related to the question has been troubling economists since the time of Adam Smith: why are some nations rich while others are poor? Mancur Olson of the University of Maryland offers an explanation: there are huge opportunities for mutual gain that continue to go unrealized in the less developed areas of the world.
In 1950, Joseph A. Schumpeter argued that capitalism is directly tied to the role of the entrepreneur. Though rejecting the claim that it was perfectly competitive, Schumpeter believed that the market was driven by what he called "creative destruction.
The entrepreneur is not only an innovator, but also a leader. In coming up with new ways to meet demand, earn profits and ultimately raise living standards, the entrepreneur often has to open doors that humanity as a whole never realized existed.
Opportunities arise as changing consumer needs affect the business environment. As they exploit these opportunities, entrepreneurs contribute to the economy through a process known as the multiplier effect. What would the world's economy look like today without the enterprise of companies like Microsoft and Amgen?
Sam Walton's innovative yet simple business model has seen Wal-Mart sit at the top of the Fortune 500 list in 2004, causing the circulation of uncountable billions through the US economy.
Every time an entrepreneur successfully invents a new product, designs a new
'The entrepreneur is not only an innovator, but also a leader.'
service or improves the production of an existing good, consumers are more willing to spend, and the economy as a whole is stimulated.	¦
In becoming an employer, the entrepreneur is accountable only to herself. Her incentive is profit maximisation and innovation is essential to surviving in a competitive environment. Along with the invention and innovation of new goods, improvements in productive efficiency and the identification of future potential are ways of instigating economic growth.
Entrepreneurs look to optimise the resources available to them in the form of land, labour and capital. In doing so, they raise standards of living across the board and help carry the economy into the future.
It should be obvious, therefore, that the economy benefits from an institutional framework conducive to entrepreneurship. In the US, national policies have proven pivotal in allowing entrepreneurship to thrive. Communism, on the other hand, has shown that a tightly controlled economy produces disincentives to innovation.
This leads to an inevitable stagnation of the economy. China, currently pushing dynamic entrepreneurship extremely hard.
What makes the economy tick? Minh Do and Vishnu Hariharan on why entrepreneurialism is central to providing the dynamism necessary for success.
is reaping the fruits as its economy continues to grow. Nearer to home, the UK government has recently realised the value of entrepreneurship. In a speech to a business conference in Birmingham, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown said: "Rewarding enterprise is, for us, central to a renewed British National economic purpose".
The Labour government has taken some action on this commitment. In its first year. New Labour cut capital gains tax from 40 percent to 10 percent for long term business assets. Small business tax has also been cut from 23 to 19 per cent. The government is hoping that pushing an entrepreneurial Britain will sustain the growth of the UK economy.
However, Stelios Haji loannou, a former LSE student and the founder of Easyjet, believes that enterprise is not in the social psyche of the British. He cites the main reason being 'attitudes to risk'. "In America a past business failure is almost a badge of honour". Hopefully, Gordon Brown will follow through on promises to change laws to de-stigmatise non-fraudu-lent business failure.
However, Stelios still rates the British as more entrepreneurial then European cousins in France and Germany, while mentioning that Britain is the best place to do business in Europe.
Entrepreneurs are needed now more than ever for their risk-taking, visionary qualities. 43% of teenagers have definite plans to start their own business, a great start, but fewer than 30 % of young people gain enterprise experience at any point in their school careers.
If this figure increases, the economy gains, consumers gain, and most of all the entrepreneurs gain. The most important thing is to take the first step.
Just one example of entrepreneurial success.
Entrepreneurial Qiidtes
"There will come a time when big opportunities will be presented to you, and you've got to be in a position to take i|: advantage of them."	"' l
Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Inc.
"There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own."
J. Paul Getty, Former oil tycoon and once the richest man in America
"Change is the law of life. And those who, look only to the past or the present are :: certain to miss the future."
John F. Kennedy, former president of the
United States
"A man's worth is no greater than the , ;i worth of his ambitions."	>
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, former Roman Emperor
"Those who enter to buy, support me. Those who come to flatter, please rae. i Those who complain, teach me how I may please others so that more will come. : Only those hurt me who are displeased but do not complain. They refuse me permission to correct my errors."
Marshall Field, entrepreneur
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary"
Vidal Sassoon, entrepreneur
"I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of enei^r and enthusiasm and hard work."
Harry Truman, former U.S. President
"If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't! If you want to win, but think you can't, It's almost a cinch you won't. If you think you'll lose, you're lost; For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow's will; It's all in the state of the mind. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger and faster man, But sooner or later the man who wins Is the man who thinks he can."
Walter D. Wmtle
"The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't do." Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist
"One can get anything if he is willing to help enough others get what they want.'* Zig Ziglar, salesman
'Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.'
Chinese Proverb
'When all resources; food, wildlife, trees, fuel, are destroyed, man will not be able to eat money.'
Native American Proverb
"The rich buy assets. The poor only have expenses. The middle class buys liabilities they think are assets."
Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur
and investor
"Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners."
Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur
and investor
12
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The Beaver
16 November 2004
Hacktivist
School Daze and Government Craze
Tracy Alloway
I'm sure all of us can remember our grade school days. Life was simple then. We learned our ABCs, our arithmetic. a bit of science and history, and still had time for lunch and recess. It was a blissful period when controversies were few and course syllabi rarely questioned.
Well, not anymore! The educational system has become the premier global platform for political infighting and the foremost battleground for the control of a nation's young minds. Today's educational censorship is much more subtle and less inclined to promote direct outrage. In fact, educational campaigns today make the whole "Japanese history books leaving out WWII atrocities" scandal look down right primitive.
More worrying is the slow spread of creationism into American public schools. Just last week, a Wisconsin school revised its curriculum to allow for the teaching of creationism in its science classes while Georgia's education chief tried to take the word "evolution" out of the curriculum altogether. Stickers have cropped up on schoolbooks in Atlanta with the words "This textbook contains material on evo lution...Evolution is a theory not a fact..."
Proponents of such measures are argu ing that a wide variety of "theories" need to be presented alongside mainstream evolutionism. Fair enough, but it's almost certain that they'll be focussing on the Christian creation myth. I doubt anyone will be giving 10-year-old Iroquois Native Americans credit for saying North America developed on the back of a giant turtle.
Meanwhile H.R. 3077; the International Studies in Higher Education Act, is sitting in the Senate awaiting approval. In essence the bill proposes the creation of an advisory board that would monitor federal funding for Middle Eastern studies in American universities. The board would have the power to recommend withholding funding from schools that, in their view, are seen as critical of U.S. foreign policy or (given the Jewish-lobby's intense support for the bill) possess an excessively anti-Israel bias. If passed, the bill would constitute a direct attack on freedom of speech and would severely diminish whatever constructive political dialogue that remains in America,
On the other side of the world, Germany also seems to be engaging in education-diplomacy. The German government is offering English history teachers an all-expense-paid trip to Berlin, in an effort to discourage the "Nazi" stereo type in English classrooms. Whether or not this attempt succeeds (and let's face it, WWII just tends to be more exciting for 12-year-olds than Cold War detente) I say giving those underpaid teachers a free vacation from their demanding pupils can only be a good thing.
There you have it - a glimpse at the steady creep of domestic and international politics into the realm of education. So the next time you hear your American niece or nephew calling dinosaurs "Jesus ponies" or your younger English sibling extolling the virtues of Willy Brandt, try not to look too surprised....
business
Rabenmiitter
Aanchal Anand on bad mothers and working women in Germany
Karin Dorrepaal became the first woman to be named to the executive board of one of the 30 blue chip companies listed on the German Stock Index, pharmaceutical giant Schering.
Probably the only language to have such a word, 'Rabenmiitter' is German for 'a bad mother with unsupervised kids'. With every third woman having to choose between a child and a career, lamentable statistics reveal that Europe's largest economy adopts a step-motherly attitude towards its women.
While 50% of all university graduates in Germany are women, the niunber seems to dilute beyond recognition when you begin to look for women in boardrooms.
Conspicuous by absence, women in Germany still battle stereotypical attitudes in the work place that they are not motivated or suitable enough for the job or are not serious enough about their career as they will get married and leave the firm when expecting a child. Consequently, in the words of Margaret Moing Raane, the Deputy Leader of the Service Sector Union of Verdi, "every third woman decides not to have a child because she'll have to give up her career"
A glance at statistics from other countries might allow you to assume that the German Woman is yet another victim of the glass ceiling phenomenon. In Germany's case the problem goes deeper Everyone agrees that in the UK, US and France considerable wage gaps exist,
unemployment rate is higher among women etc. etc, but if one were to compare cross country statistics for women in the work force, the Germans produce some of the worst results in the developed world.
Whereas 50 and 52 percent of managers are women with children in the US and UK, it is a diffident 10% in Germany.
Moreover, only 11% of German Companies have women in management positions! To top it all, Germany has the largest gender
income gap at 20% (four below the European average) and the lowest female employment rate in the EU. And if that wasn't enough it is a demographic bomb waiting to explode with a birth rate of almost 1.4 children per woman (Ranked 181 in 190 countries) at a time when it is estimated that by 2050, a third of the population will be above 60.
So what makes the life of a German woman so much worse? The answer lies in an unexpected- and I daresay- a previously ignored blimp on the radar. Germany has a highly underdeveloped day-care infrastructure. Without adequate day-care, women feel compelled to stay home with their children and leave their jobs or not have children at all.
Leaving their job till the time their children are old enough is also not a smart way out. In an increasingly competitive world, five to six years off the job can reduce chances of being re-employed by over 80%. Understandably, just under 75% of women in Germany are doing secretarial jobs that don't pay much and provide very little- if any- opportunities for going up the ladder
The issue now has acquired its political dimensions (Chancellor Elections next year!!!) as no party can afford to sideline half the population of the country. This July the Minister for Women and Family Affairs, Renate Schmidt started a two-year initiative called the "Alliance for the
Family", a programme that intends to make the German corporate culture more family and women friendly by providing flexible working hours, longer and better paid maternity leaves and office day care amongst others.
But somehow this idea doesn't go in too well with the corporate world. A survey by the Hertie Foundation published in July 2004 exposed that 90% of German firms feared the costs of setting up office day care, which amounts to an estimated initial cost of 25,000 euros followed by a monthly 650 euros. In fact the Foundation awarded only 70 out of three million companies nationwide a certificate for having family friendly pohcies!
The interesting question, however, is whether or not this investment is worth making in the long run. As is increasingly being discovered, a softer, more' feminine' approach towards clients is becoming the new business mantra. The need to be a man in the corporate jungle is passe! Strong communication skills and empathy, where women score, are crucial to attract and maintain clients for repeat businesses.
To recollect Harriet Rubin's Princessa: Machiavelli for Women: Women, beware of playing by men's rules for you shall do a better job following your own! In a world of technical and intellectual convergence this may well be the only way of ensuring competitive advantage over rival firms. But I wonder if Germany is listening.
The Beaver
16 November 2004
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Politics
Alan Milburn - key figure in the introduction of foundation trusts.
Foundation Trusts: Heading towards the US health care system?
Dimitrios Rovithis maintains that current health reforms, aim to switch the responsibility of health services from the government to the private sector.
Foundation Trusts are a new type of NHS hospital and constitute the centrepiece of New Laboiirs' reforms in health care. They are independent, non profit organisations which have more freedom from government control. They are only being introduced in England, operate under license, and are subject to scrutiny by a regulator. Currently, only those trusts which win three stars in the annual NHS ratings are allowed to apply to become Foundation Trusts. Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair has said that every NHS Trust in England could obtain Foimdation status within five years.
The purpose of the introduction of these new types of provider organisation is twofold; to make hospitals more accountable- to local populations and by freeing them from central control to give hospitals the flexibility to improve the services that they provide (for example by developing more innovative and effective ways of cutting waiting times). The key differences between Foundation Trusts and existing NHS Trusts are that the board comprises of local people, patients and staff as elected members; they have more freedom to invest and dis-invest coupled with the right to work with private partners from any industrial sector; they can retain surpluses for investment in the development of services; and they may have some advantages in recruiting and retaining staff.
Unions, however, have condemned government plans to create free-standing Foundation hospitals in England as they establish a two-tier health service and pave the way for wholesale privatisation of the NHS. The attack on the centrepiece of government health reforms widened into a more general onslaught on government's drive to increase competition and private sector involvement in delivery of public
services. A motion, carried vmanimously, rejected the notion that Foundation Trusts would democratise the NHS and were a form of common ownership. It said they would leave other hospitals worse off, attract staff and resources away from them, compete against them for patients, and entrench inequalities in health provision.
The first wave of ten NHS Trusts that were granted the freedoms was on 1 April; another ten followed on 1 July. One of the first Foundation NHS trusts, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is already facing official intervention after recording a budget deficit!
Foundation Trust regulator Monitor has sent in advisers after a significant gap between the Trust's forecast and actual results in its first quarter. Monitor has not revealed the size of the deficit but the Trust has estimated it may face a £4 million shortfall this year. It is the first time the regulator has had to use its powers in this way following the reform of the NHS under the Health and Social Care Act 2003. A Monitor spokesman said the Trust was expected to have a small surplus but actually recorded a financial deficit.
The Trust could lose its Foundation status if the acute financial problems are not solved but Monitor said it was a long way from reaching that situation. According to the Trust chief executive, Mr. David Jackson, these financial problems were mainly because of external cost pressures. He also added that "as an NHS Foundation Trust, we are piloting the new fimding systems for NHS hospitals and we no longer have access to financial support from the wider system". Other NHS hospitals in the past have also gone into deficit but they were bailed out by the government with a supplementary allocation. With
Foundation Trusts however things are obviously different. They cannot ask for government help anymore as they lost this option when they claimed the privilege of independence from Whitehall control.
All that said, the policy is clearly not going well. In July, four of the first wave of twenty Foundation Trusts were demoted from three to two stars. Other Foundation l^sts also face similar financial pressures. Public investment in the NHS is of course always welcome but it is evident that the government had made no real assessment of how markets and competition would deliver improvement. Will there be real involvement of local people and what powers wiU they in fact have? Does the Trust's business case make sense? What will be the impact of the Trust's plans on other providers within the local health economy? These are only some of the questions that remain unanswered.
If the objective is to improve the care available to the local population, then there is no evidence to support the conclusion that the new arrangements will ensure this. It is also hard to believe that the arrangements in place at the moment are likely to be adequate to ensure the robustness and fairness of the system of health care as a whole in local areas served by Foundation Trusts. It will require strong intervention by the regulator to remedy this, which is practically impossible. Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust chief executive's statements indicate that the government is basically experimenting at the moment. It also indicates that by attempting switching the responsibility of health services to the private sector, the fundamental NHS principles of universal coverage and free health care at the point of delivery are seriously undermined.
_is
The Right Approach
Good Riddance
Daniel Freedman
After 5 weeks of a peaceful (by LSE standards) campus, the far-left are up to their old tricks again. First they put up a "victory to the intifada" banner, and then put forward a motion for a minute silence to honour one of the 20th-century's bloodiest killers, Yasser Arafat. That anyone would even attempt to use a Student Union society to effectively incite murder, or want to celebrate the life of someone who spent his life murdering people, is beyond me, but welcome to the LSE.
What might they have been thinking about in their minute silence? Much to contemplate, the Cairo-born, KGB-trained, father of modem terrorism had quite a legacy: Hijacking and blowing up airplanes (inspiration for Bin Laden and 9/11); massacre of school-children in Maalot (a model for the massacre of Russian school-children in Beslan); the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics; and the assassination of U.S. diplomats in Sudan.
Then there's: the destruction of: Lebanon as an independent, democratic state; the robbery of his own people (hundreds of millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts); and the totalitarian state he operated. Not to mention the most repugnant Jew-hating education system since the Third Reich that he ran in his fiefdom.
If any time was left, they might have paused for a moment on the buses, cafes, schools, shops and hotels filled with civilians that he sent his minions to blow up. Or any of the other weapons from the terrorist arsenal he was fond of and used indiscriminately.
In the end, Arafat - and the intifada he launched deliberately in September 2000 after rejecting the historic peace agreement brokered by former-U.S. President Bill Clinton - failed. The aim of the intifada was to use terrorism to try to cripple and destroy - psychologically and physically - Israel. But Israel shock^ the terrorists, and their supporters, by showing there is a military solution to terrorism.
The first part involved targeting the terrorist leaders. All-knowing Westerners of course echoed the words of Hamas -after its head Yassin was killed - that assassinations would simply "open the gates of hell." Or to borrow Bret Stephen's metaphor, they saw the Palestinians as weeds: Mow them down, and they'll come back at you thicker and faster. But that didn't happen.
The only people who entered the gates of hell were more Hamas leaders, and the rest were too busy trying to hide than to plan more attacks. Note, unlike what they preach to their followers - they value their own lives. The second part of the solution was building the security fence - making Israel near impenetrable.
And both have been successful. The intifada is over, and a semblance of normality on both sides has resumed - or as much as is possible given the corruption and terror that Arafat operated. But now that Arafat's-era, like his intifada, is over, there might be hope for peace -obviously depending on the new leadership that emerges. But either way, good riddance.
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The Beaver 16 November 2004
Features
Features Correspondent; Tracy Alloway
Hannah Roberts and Callum Watson argue that regulation of the arms trade and anti-proliferation measures have so far neglected the greatest instruments of suffering: small arms.
The situation of armaments has got so out of control that it is estimated that there is one weapon for every ten people in the world.
This is a huge number of weapons, for which many are not being regulated. Instead of arms being sold legally to police forces, which use small arms in accordance with the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, and states' militaries who use aircrafts and armoured personal carriers in accordance with international humanitarian law, they are being illegally sold to corrupt poUce forces which are poorly trained and use arms for torture and extra-judicial killings; governments where the weapons are being used against civilian targets instead of military objectives; and non state actors such as terrorist and aggressor groups who are problematic to control.
It is not to say that the unregulated proliferation of weapons is solely arming illegal and inhimiane groups. The issue is far more complex.
Where there are weapons there is an increase in armed violence because groups not perceived as holding the 'legitimate' use of force insight fear. This leads insecure groups to arm themselves, which is perceived as a threat and thus the cycle for the proliferation of weapons is intensified and maintained. Consequently this creates climates of fear, repression and extreme danger.
Millions of people are now living in fear of armed violence from Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles to the civil war within Indonesia. Even in Britain, which has one of the lowest death rates resulting from the misuse of small arms, there are still people living in fear of gun crime.
What may be more dangerous is the position guns now have in society. For many they are seen as the tools of empowerment and control. It has been stated by a former youth worker in north London (2002) that now 'Children come out of school talking about guns.
The mentality is so much more vicious now. They don't talk about beating each
other up. They talk about killing each other.
The simple fact is that with a gun, you are someone, you can hold your own. Without one, you are a dead man.' This statement highlights the difficulty in controlling gun use with its connotations of power, masculinity and strength.
However, it also shows that efforts need to be made to alter this mentality, which would be the hardest aspect in contrplling arms but the effort needs to be made. Is it worth letting one person die every minute due to arm misuse? No it is not. The consequences out weigh the difficulty of gaining control.
These consequences of uncontrolled proliferation and misuse of arms by governments and armed groups is that it takes a massive toll on lives, lead to the loss of livelihoods and lost opportunities to relieve poverty.
Many innocent civiUans lose their lives every year when caught in the cross fire of illegal small arm use. As was with the case of sixteen year old Camila Magalhaes Lina from Rio de Janeiro who lost the use of her
legs in 1998 when she was hit by a stray bullet in a shoot out between thieves and private security forces, while walking home from school.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire) three million people have either been killed or died from hunger and disease since August 1998 as a consequence of the conflict there. This has been perpetuated by the continuing supply of arms from the EU, China, Israel, USA and third part supply from other countries in Africa and Eastern Europe. Most of these weapons were initially supplied in line with current national and international legislation.
The issue is not specific to one country or region. It is the responsibility of all states to ensure that every year, throughout the world, more than half a million people are not killed by armed violence, as is the case now.
It is their duty to ensure that people should not die or suffer horrific consequences from the uncontrolled proliferation and misuse of the weapons they have sold or the weapons they allow to be imported into their state.
This means that nation states must act responsibly within their own borders to prevent the misuse if arms by; ensuring responsible use of firearms by their armed forces, taking swift action when conflicts have ended, enforcing or creating legislation to control the existing arms trade and insure that perpetrators of human rights

Conflict in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo can cause untold suffering for the populations caught in the crossfire.
and humanitarian law are brought to justice.
They must also try to rebuild confidence in the possibility of non-armed security and develop sustainable livelihoods for those people who are dependent on arms sales. It also means that is necessary for the nations of the world to work together to implement a common trade and regulation treaty for arms because arms do not move themselves.
As combating terrorism increasingly becomes higher on the agendas of the world's governments and the horrors of the under-regulated arms trade become more evident year on year, there have been international initiatives to limit the transfers of arms.
However, these have focused largely on weapons of mass destruction (which kill far less people than small arms do on an annual basis) a.nd the illicit trade of small arms. (It is reckoned that 80-90% of all illegal arms deals state in state-sanctioned trade.)
Additionally, these initiatives have often not been ratified by their signatory's governments and legislation has only been binding nationally and not internationally. Also these treaties frequently do not cover re-export of arms or supply through a third country.
There is hope however. In 2006 the UN will hold a review conference on small arms where the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be discussed. This aims to put many of the points of previous treaties into international law, such as the Geneva Conventions, the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention against Genocide.
The treaty will make supplier countries responsible for ensuring that weapons exported from their countries (even if they were not produced there) are not used in defiance of international human rights or humanitarian law.
Arms do not need to be outlawed; there is a legitimate case for them- within wildlife management; wars fought within the confines of international law; and for police officers who for the defence of civilians lives and their own must be trained to deal with armed threats.
Arms must be regulated to insure that those people who would not use arms for legitimate means and who are not trained under the UN's 'use of force and firearms' are kept from using dangerous weapons, which have kill one person every minute.
The Beaver
16 November 2004
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Features Correspondent: Tracy Alloway




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The followers of the 'Church of Business'
Arthur Krabbers laments the LSE's newly founded religion
"Vt's all 'bout the money, It's all 'bout the
i dum dum......., And I don't think It's
^ funny, to see us fade away. It's all 'bout the money, It's all 'bout the dum dum..., and I think we got it all wrong anyway.'
Surprisingly wise words from Meja, the cute popgirl who sang the song 'All 'bout the money' (I wouldn't be surprised if this was the first time any one from the music scene was quoted in these pages of The Beaver...)
Singing that, it almost seems as if she had the brains to study at the LSE.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if she did. Because those sentences sum up for me the general attitude of many a LSE student.
I have only been here for several weeks. I am a fresher, fresh from the careless environment of secondary school. The environment of going out with friends, going out some more, talking shit and carrying a general 'whatever' attitude towards the rest of the grown up world.
As long as you had beer and football, the world would keep turning. My fellow freshers and I have landed here at
'But now I see nnore and more of my fellow freshers getting this 'JP Morgan & Price Water House Coopers' flu:
Houghton Street. The starting blocks for the big rat race. Walking into Fresher's Fair in the first week of school and being attacked by a multitude of employment societies.
Societies that teach you how to successfully flirt with your potential employer, through CV boosting sessions, networking drinks and internship fairs. Most of us joined these eager clubs anyway. I mean, who doesn't want to have a hip and trendy Business Society t-shirt? ¦
But now I see more and more of my fellow freshers getting this 'JP Morgan & Price Water House Coopers' flu. They are sitting behind the library computers like zombies, trying to find 'anyintershipata-bankwilldo.com'. Now let me tell you, this flu is far worse than the infamous fresher's flu, this flu lasts!
Before you know it, your Internet Explorer Favorites will be filled with Banking and Finance Agencies. Soon, your evenings will be filled with sitting in sweaty rooms, listening to people in suits talk about the big world.
Noting aU the (semi) advice that is being given to you. 'Start on time. Think before you say something. Always focus on your positive side.' It's all the kind of advice Granny could have told you if ever you were to visit her, but it's of course much better coming from a manager at Deloitte. It seems to me, the 'Church of Business' has many followers at LSE. And they do mean business!
They never keep their faithful eye off the ball. They focus on the sole and supreme religious desire: to become a number one investment banker (ironic, by the way, that most of these people don't like Maths). They can already see themselves counting their money and driving in their Jaguar to work, whilst ignoring the homeless person because they 'really don't have any spare change'.
Don't get me wrong, I don't have any personal grudge against the banking industry or against thinking ahead while you're at university. Go for it! It is helpful having some form of income after you say goodbye to Houghton Street.
But clearly this is not everjrthing there is to studying at LSE. If there is one thing my secondary school teachers taught me, it is that being a student is really the best time of your life! And 'having a good time' in my dictionary doesn't equate to 'jumping from CV drilling session to career presentation'.
There is far more that the LSE and London has to offer us. Here we have the unique opportunity of meeting and speaking to people from all over the world. We can hip-hop from continent to continent, without crossing any borders! We can join innumerable societies, start new hobbies and practice all kinds of sports. And that was just the LSE bit... The things London supplies us are just too many to name. Like a famous person once said 'If you're tired of London, you're tired of life.'
Then one more, final, objection to my extreme business minded friends. What if, one day, you were to lose all of what you worked so hard for? Say MorganStanley fired you, or you had an accident. What then? The end of life? I doubt it. Life is not only about satisfying short term desires, like money, success and fame, but much, much more.
I know this all sounds like the morale of some chick fUck movie, but life is really not about these useless and temporary things. It is about friendship, love and spirituality, the best products us humans can produce that can withstand external pressures.
So, have fun while you still can. Now that you're not yet stuck in a cubicle yet...
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The Beaver
16 November 2004
Features
Closing the Book, or Opening the Door?
Ruby Bhavra asks whether the recently ^ signed constitution is the 'tidying-up' exercise it is being sold as, or a larger and more significant step for the EU and Britain.
The debate about whether the EU should adopt a constitution has been protracted and controversial. In July
2003	the Constitutional Convention, created at the behest of the European Council and headed by former French President Valery Giscard D'Estaing, adopted a Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe. After much debate, on 18 June
2004	the European Council agreed to accept an amended version of this text, and submitted it to national parliaments for ratification. In many member states the constitutional treaty will also be the subject of direct popular votes in referendums. The arguments for and against an EU constitution rest on issues of law, sovereignty, political philosophy and the efficiency and effectiveness of the EU's institutions and procedures. To a certain extent, such issues do advocate the implementation of a constitution in the EU.
First of all, the constitution brings together for the first time the many treaties and agreements on which the EU is based. It defines the powers of the EU, stating where it can act sind where the member states retain their right of veto. The EU is a very large international organisation with a considerable number of competencies and seversil fimdamental institutions, and since May 2004 it has 25 member states. The US, Germany and Switzerland have constitutions which define the limits of central power and the areas in which the states have autonomy, and hence, the EU should in this respect be no different.
Secondly, the current treaty-basis for the European Union is enormous, Eimbiguous and extremely complicated. It is difficult to keep track of each new Treaty that amends the existing treaties. The adoption of a constitution wiU make the EU much more 'user friendly.' The EU currently suffers from the fact that many of its citizens do not know what it is or what it does. EU citizens either do not know
'Citizens do not identify themselves with the EU in the way that citizens of the USA self-identify as American.'
where to look for this information or are deterred and intimidated by the size of documents, such as the Treaty of Rome and the Maastricht Treaty. Thus, having an easily digestible constitution wiU mean that the EU's citizens can easily find out what the EU is and what it does.
In addition, since the Maastricht Treaty, citizens of EU member states have possessed parallel citizenship of the EU. However, there is still a lack of European 'demos' in the EU, as European citizens do not identify themselves with the EU in the way that citizens of the USA self-identify as American. An important part of the patriotism of Americans is 'constitutional patriotism;' pride in their constitution and civic institutions. The European Union aims to bring about ever closer union between the peoples of Europe, and therefore it should foster a shared sense of 'European identity' by adopting a constitution, in which every citizen of the EtJ can take pride.
Furthermore, the European Court of Justice has long regarded the founding treaties as the constitutional documents of the European Union. Many commentators have noted the efforts of the ECJ to"consti-tutionalise" many principles, such as direct effect and supremacy of Community law over the domestic laws of member states and the increasing protection of human rights. The ECJ has often been accused of "judicial activism" in over-stepping the legitimate boundaries of courts in a democracy. By implementing such

Giscard d'Estaing: How will history record the constitutional pioneer?

The Strasbourg based Parliament is set to gain significantly under the new rules.
jurisprudence in a democratically ratified constitution, the EU can assert and emphasise its states as a democratic body, rather than an elitist project which is separate from the citizens of Europe.
On the contrary, there are many issues which undermine the EU having a constitution. Treaties such as the Treaty of Rome and the Maastricht Treaty already define the powers of, and relationships between the different institutional actors, and therefore is there a great need for an EU constitution? Enlargement should not be the key issue to alert the EU to the need for a constitution. The Treaty of Nice was meant to have made the necessary amendments to facilitate enlargement. If it has failed, then we can simply amend the existing treaties again.
Secondly, it is true that the founding treaties are long and, in some places, they are rather obscure documents. It is also true that many EU citizens know little about the EU. However, a concise constitution is not the solution to these problems. Whilst the treaties themselves might be intimidating, many pamphlets, books and websites exist that successfully summarise and explain such documents. The EU also provides many European briefing units across Europe to educate citizens about the EU. Hence, the job of providing a simplified and accessible explanation of the EU is already done successfully without a constitution, and if there is still widespread ignorance about the EU then this is unlikely to be solved by,|he introduction of yet another legal document, which is over 200 pages long and written in ambiguous terms.
Leading on from this, there is no consensus for a United States of Europe. Most citizens identify themselves more with their nation-states rather than with the EU, and the notion of federalism is clearly an undesirable phenomenon. The EU is an organisation in which twenty five nation-states cooperate with each other, and where necessary, these states pool their sovereignty in order to tackle common problems. Member states pursue their own
interests within their own constitutions, and the EU is more of a useful instrument of nation-states rather than a challenger to these states for the patriotism and loyalty of their citizens. Hence, as a major facet of federalism, is there really a need for an EU constitution?
Moreover, the adoption of a binding constitution wiU not increase democracy in the European Union. Instead, it will tie the hands of democratically elected governments in the member states and force them to an even greater extent to be subordinate to the judges in the ECJ. Enshrining the decisions of the ECJ in a supranational constitution wiU mean less flexibility than the current EU regime, and it will be more difficult to change the constitution to coincide with the wishes of the member states than it is currently to amend the existing treaties.
In conclusion, there is much debate around the issue of whether the EU constitution is a positive or negative step for the European Union. To a certain extent, it is true that perhaps the EU needs a confined document defining all rules and powers of the EU, as there are many treaties in the EU. However, if the EU is an organisation where national-states are more concerned with their interests rather than on a European scale. Is there a need for a global book of rules? All member-states have some sorts of constitution, some codified, and some imcodified (like the UK), and thus maybe the constitution is not needed in the EU. The UK has worked successfully without a codified constitution; however such a comparison with the EU is not practical, especially now that the UK's "rule Britannia" days are over. Democracy is also a central issue in this debate, but can such a term be applied to a large and ever-growing EU, which experiences different levels of democracy? Perhaps an EU constitution will solve wide-scale problems in Europe, and stop EU institutions exceeding their power, but will it in the end take sovereignty away from member states? Is it paving the way for a United States of Europe?
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16 November 2004
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Features
Analyzing the Analysts
Joshua Bellin searches for meaning in the press coverage of Arafat's illness and death.
Yasser Arafat, the newswires told us, had the flu; a bad flu, certainly, but only the flu. But then he didn't have the flu at aU: he had leukaemia. No, we were soon after told, it was just the flu all along. Later we were told he had a low platelet count. Then, from some sources, we learned he was dead, and President Bush even asked God to bless his soul. We quickly found out that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated, and that not only was he not dead, but he was conducting affairs of state, sending his congratulations to President Bush on his re-election. He was in a coma; he wasn't in a coma. He was on life-support; he wasn't on life-support. Then he was dead, really dead, but some of us wouldn't believe it until the funeral; it seemed not impossible that Yasser Arafat, the man who survived a fatal plane crash in 1992, and who more recently survived efforts by the United States and Israel to make him irrelevant, could survive death itself as well.
The information revolution has given us a fascinating new ability; for the first time we can actually tell the story of how we are told our stories. Sit in front of Google News and refresh the browser window every five minutes. As events occur around the world, the newswires move into action; first with vague and sometimes contradictory reports, later, as the details come in and are verified, a more coherent picture usually emerges. Finally, breaking news gives way to analysis of what, by then, has usually become an accurate and coherent narrative of the event in question. Very nearly all important news stories follow this pattern.
In the case of Arafat's illness and death, something went terribly wrong. Contradictory reports continued day after day, until almost the very end. For every fact uncovered, a denial quickly emerged. In this case, even the greatest cynic would be hard-pressed to blame the weeks of convoluted reporting on a sensationalist head-
line-grabbing yeUow press. The problem was not with the reporting; the problem was with the subject of the reports.
When a senior advisor to Arafat told french television that the Chairman expressed his congratulations to President Bush - while it seemed the Chairman was probably in a coma or worse - some of us were reminded of the time Saddam's Information Minister flatly denied the presence in Baghdad of Coalition troops who happened to be around the comer. In both cases, it was as if words themselves could reverse the reality of a leader losing control; in one case of his regime, in the other of his body. The difference between these episodes is that whereas the claims of Saddam's hapless regime were ludicrous, even laughable; the world might be forgiven for believing that Yasser Arafat could be both dead and alive at the same time. After all, Arafat had been both terrorist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, guerrilla leader and statesman, "irrelevant" and "the son of Palestine and its symbol" (as he was caUed when his death was officially announced on Thursday).
Arafat could be all these things at once because the international community allowed him to be. AU of us with a position on the conflict chose to see him only as we wanted to see him, or, as we wanted him to be seen by others. In doing so, we aU allowed him to be fundamentally misunderstood. Arguably, at the grave price of the last foiur years of the Intifada and escalating violence. In retrospect, we need to ask ourselves how we allowed a man with so much clout and influence to declare his acceptance of a two-state solution while at the same time doing nothing to end the myth, so ubiquitous in the refugee camps, that one day family homes in Jaffa and Haifa would be reclaimed. We need to ask ourselves how a man who praised child "martyrs" on television became so widely trusted as a partner for peace. We might also ask ourselves how it came to pass that.


ISasser Arafat: One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
The death of the Palestinian leader has been met with an outpouring of grief,
despite promises of reforms within the Palestinian Authority, the "father of the Palestinian people" never even appointed a successor. Ultimately, it was this duplicity that served Arafat so well both at home and abroad.
Whether Yasser Arafat was a hypocrite or not is far too simplistic a question. A more apt one would be whether the world held him to account or whether it bought into and reinforced his own self-serving myth; a myth so large and ultimately believable - mostly because we wanted to beUeve it - that even seasoned reporters could not seem to sort out the conflicting reports of leukaemia or flu, coma or recovering, dead or aUve, fact or fiction. Perhaps it was only when we saw the headlines change and fluctuate on Google News that we began to realize how large and powerful his myth had become, and how unreservedly so many of us had bought into it.
Arafat may not have survived death, but his myth certainly will. The ghost of Arafat lives on through the mouths of those who claimed that a deteriorating body was in fact stable and recovering. It is the same ghost of doublespeak which unfortunately continues to make promises of reforms that prove empty; the same ghost which continues to dream of two states living side by side in peace, although that dream will still crash and bum on the buses and markets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Peace cannot be built out of lies; it requires a solid foundation of trust, including trust between a people and its leaders. Palestinian leaders will forfeit that trust if they continue to call a dying body heall^iy, if they continue the doublespeak and the unfettered duplicity. The cost of this would be extreme; Palestinian cynics have elsewhere to turn, most notably to Hamas.
'Love of peace will not develop overnight, but that is not to say it cannot develop. If real, trustworthy partners in peace emerge. It can and will.'
With Arafat gone the Palestinian Authority may risk losing its core base of support. If the new Palestinian leaders are, as they say, truly men of peace looking for a negotiated settlement, then they must aim to be sure that the settlement is legitimate, that it is more valuable than the paper on which it is written.
"Peace," Julien Benda wrote in the decade before the Second World War, "if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war but oh the love of peace;^ Love of peace'-will not develop overnight, but that is not to say it cannot develop. If real, trustworthy partners in peace emerge, it can and will. If, however, the style - not to mention the substance - of Yasser Arafat's leadership continues, then the task will be made all the more difficult, if not outright impossible. While Palestinians moum the man who by all accounts brought their cause to the foreground of intemational politics, the world should at the same time reflect on the mistakes made in the past and the opportunities for the future. At the very least, change is now possible, and the pessimists need not be proven right.
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The Beaver
16 November 2004
art
Edited by Carolina Bunting
Music
Scissor Sisters page 22
About
Retail Therapy page 26
The Marriage of Line and Beauty
carolinebray gets swept away in the high voltage vortex of Percy Wyndham Lewis.
'The bone beneath the pulp': Drawings by Wyndham Lewis
Dates: 14 October 2004 to 13 February 2005
Venue: Courtauld Inbstitute of Art Gallery, Somerset house, Strand Admissions: £5, £4 concessions, free for students.
Opening hours: 10am until 6pm daily. Contact: 020 7848 2526

Percy Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis, writer, critic, polemical journalist, artist and in the words of T.S.Eliot, 'the most fascinating personality of our time.'
Lewis was born on yacht in 1882 and later became a prominent figure in the avant-garde modernist movement of the early twentieth century. Known for his self-assured existentialism, Lewis's Rebel Art Centre gave birth to Vorticism around 1910. One of the most vibrant yet short lived art movements in Britain, it brought to the fore talents such as Nevinson, Gaudier-Brzeska and Wadsworth. In 1918, Lewis secured himself the role of official war artist which at times forced him to sacrifice powerful and provocative Vorticist features from his works. The Second World War saw Lewis enter a period of forced exile during which he felt 'suffocated' in Canada by 'economic compulsion' and here he again became an official war artist. Lewis began to lose his sight in the 1940s due to a tumour and produced his last artistic piece of work in 1951.
Lewis was renowned not only for his art but also for his literary career in which he produced works such as his Nietzschean novel Tarr, his dramatised radio broadcast featuring The Human Age and politi-
cal book The Hitler Cult. The only constant element of Lewis's career was his intellectual elitism and famous persona. He viewed the world through the duality of opposites - art versus life, reason versus emotion - and the diversity of his art displays: realism, abstraction, symbolism and fantasy. Lewis died in 1957 due to kidney failure, leaving a legacy of exceptional draughtsmanship and startling originality.
Until February the Courtauld Gallery humbly dedicates one room of its modest space to this leading modernist and mysterious personality. The show comprises solely of his drawings and simple sketches - some of which sparsely adopt water-colour as a complementary medium - and introduces one of the finest draughtsmen of our time.
The perplexing wonder of Lewis is that he manages to create so much from so little. The first portrait in the exhibition (1903), thought to be of Alfred De Pass, is comprised of the simplest and most sparsely used lines. Yet De Pass's face and demeanour projects off the page and into the room. The shading too is frugal, making the untouched surface of the paper mould into a solid form. The whole front of the face is left barely untouched by shading. However, the eye is led to fill in what isn't there but is only cunningly hinted at in Lewis's strong, stern and suggestive lines.
Eight years later and we see Lewis produce a portrait of himself (1911), this time angular and heavily influenced by Cubism. In a letter dated 1965, to the owner of the portrait from his wife, Froanna, she writes, '1 know that glare so well...one can never say Wyndham ever flattered himself.' This comment captures the essence of the piece. The dramatic contrasts of light and dark in shading, raw-boned edges and confrontational stare send a shiver down the spine. Within the strokes of the pen is hidden the carefully nurtured persona that was so important a projection in the eyes of the artist. He created a truly aggressive and unflinching image of himself which would later be reflected in the bold contours of his Vorticist works.
For me, his most impressive sketches are those of various nudes drawn over two decades. The show has a small selection of these, the first and finest being a taut line drawing dating 1919-1920. Although the drawing of the nude was nothing rad-
ical (Goya had been the first to illustrate pubic hair in a full realistic nude) Lewis's take on the subject was. He would present the model in unusual positions, often not drawing the full figure and pushing part of the form off the page. Sparse linear lines depict mechanistic bodies yet they are so expressive, so human in their hints of automata. His Nude (1938) adds a yellow chaise-longue to the composition and his Nude on Sofa (1936) again articulates Lewis's appreciation of colour as a powerful tool. The single shade in each highlighting the simplicity of the black and white human form and accentuating the voluptuous curves of each model.
Lewis was also highly regarded for his portraiture - The Due de Joyeux Sings (1932-33) see him satirising his good friend James Joyce in a portrait of the writer as a nobleman; clad ostentatiously in garter, gown and carrying a scroll. The intricate geometric details on Joyce's garb adds a clownish feel to this distinguished figure as he glides elegantly across the page in a flow of self-righteous grace. Joyce and Lewis had been close companions but Lewis wrote a scathing attack on Joyce's 1927 publication, Ulvsses causing the relationship to cool dramatically
Beyond the merely visual, Lewis also produced loaded sketches such as Mother Love. Here we see two nightmarish figures, one clothed in military attire, sitting on the knee of a menacing depiction of the Mother country. The soldier ignorant and unquestioning in his resemblance of the ventriloquist dummy. Red Figures Carrying Babies and Visiting Graves (1951) later portrays unmarked soldiers graves and figures reminiscenof French soldiers from the First World War. The aforementioned piece was the last to be produced by an aging Wyndham who
Timon of Athens
was slowly loosing his sight. Yet the technique adopted is masterly and detail minute. The babies sway helplessly in the arms of the soldiers and the vertical composition gives an air of strict regimented form to the piece. Though the figures no longer represent the realistic accuracy of his earlier nudes their abstraction is entirely deliberate. An indication of the powerful collaboration between Lewis's vision and the vision of his mind.
I would highly recommend this exhibition to all. It is a 5 minute walk from the LSE and the small room will take no more than 30 minutes to look at. The pieces are unique to anything else on show in London currently and are regarded as rare in their style. The works of Lewis and his contemporaries are difficult to find, mainly due to the severing of their output during its peak at the start of World War One. So make the most of this fabulous opportunity. There are also a number of more abstract sketches and culturally inspired drawings from Lewis's trips abroad being exhibited, all well worth a pensive gaze.
On the onset of the final stages of blindness in an article to Listener Magazine in 1951, Lewis wrote, 'Pushed into an unlighted room, the door banged and locked for ever, I shall...have to light a lamp of aggressive voltage in my mind to keep at bay the night.' Yet it is evident long before this rousing comment that Lewis's mind is aflame with an electrifying talent in perfect sync with the strokes of his tool. Line and beauty, beauty and line. One and the same when at the mercy of Percy Wyndham Lewis.
Reclining Girl
The Beaver
16 November 2004
B:art
19
film
edited by Dani Ismail and Sarah Coughtrie
"Me In Kamp F - what's that, some kind of gay prison story.

\
Churchill: The Hollywood Years
daniismail's verdict - Churchill is NOT unconstitutional
Director: Peter Richardson Starring: Christian Slater, Neve Campbell, Harry Enfield Running Time: Not very long Certificate: 15
Release Date: 19^*^ November
It's necessary to start this review by warning you of the atrocities that were made in the making of the script. That Winston Churchill, one of the most revered and saluted wartime heroes of contemporary history (of course, that comment is debatable if you take any of last week's front page article into consideration) is turned into a cigar smoking, tanned, attractive, rapping American Is the least of your worries. That Hitler is continuously mistaken for Charlie Chaplin is amusing. Joseph Goebbels dressing up as the devil is pure brilliance. Neve Campbell assuming the role of Princess Elizabeth with a dire British accent makes you want to pull
your hair out. All in all, however, this ridiculous caricature of history gone the route of CocaColisation is, at the very least, a crowd pleaser.
The strength of the movie lies in the cast, boasting British comedians that will satisfy viewers of all ages. Harry Enfield delights as a drunken King George V, completely blind to the fact that it is indeed Hitler that he is housing in his palace, not Charlie Chaplin. Watch out for the scene where a cabbie (apparently Hitler took black cabs) (oh, and the night bus too) questions Hitler about his film where he ate his boot, and then is brutally shot. Bob Mortimer and Vic Reeves are utterly believable as limp wristed, camp palace servants. However it is pitiful that Neve Campbell ruins this ensemble, as she comes off farcical and wholly lacking in any royal airs.
The film rushes along its plot as if it is desperate to reach the end. Many scenes appear to be the climax, and as funny and
incredulous as the one liners were, it wouldn't have been entirely a bad thing had the film finished earlier, short as it was. The spoof factor was stretched thin and you felt that the actors, excluding Enfield, who as a drunken fool was oblivious to his surroundings, were aware of the ludicrousness of the whole affair. I am all for changing history but the Americanisation of history must, without exception, be deemed a viciously bad idea.
All in all, it was enjoyable and Christian Slater is gorgeous. The fact that he walked into the cinema before the start of the film and giggled at us before rushing off to One F/ew Over The Cuckoo's Nest may have added to my glee and schoolgirl excitement.
Watchable, but don't go to the film, discover it's a piss take, and declare Hollywood unconstitutional.
NR
Season
Horror
The National Film Theatre's History of the Horror Film Season will be running throughout November and December, showing some of the best horror movies ever made. Be warned: somehow, shockingly, Cabin Fever has been overlooked.	Check	out
http://www. bf i. org. u k/ showi ng/ nft/ h orror/calendar/titles.php for full listings including...
Tiie Texas Ciiainsaw Massacre
The ultimate slasher flick and one of the most chilling movies ever committed to film. If you haven't yet experienced leatherface's wrath, the big screen is the place to do so.
Monday 13th December 6.20 Wednesday 22nd December 8.40
Thursday 30th December 8.4S
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A politically charged horror about "pod people" infiltrating human bodies, stealing their souls and making them into cold, emotionless clones. Can be a bit silly, but hugely entertaining all the same.
Sunday 21st November 8.30 Wednesday 24th November 8.30
Night of the Living Dead
First in George Romero's classic zonnbie series, and a rennarkable, darkly comic horror flick.
Thursday 11th November 8.30
In your local Blockbuster...
In your local cinema...
The Incredibles
Featured in the paper last week. The Incredibles is hitting the cinema on Friday. A family of superheroes are called out of retirement to rekindle their glory days.
Taxi
Cute Jimmy Failon of SNL fame stars and Queen L^ifah of 'I'm an annoying tacky slag' fame team up in this mad cab ride caper around the big apple. Joined by busty Giseie Bundchen and her Brazilian supermodel friends as bank robbers, this highly unlikely set up
sounds alright.
Being Julia
Annette Bening is an ageing stage actress in the 1930's, whose career is waning and marriage is rocky. She decides to face her mid-life crisis by shacking up with an American half her age, but when she realises he is using her to better his career, she embarks on a creative choice of revenge.
Duck Season
A couple of Mexican teenagers while away on a Sunday afternoon, engage in the typical sort of conversation you expect from sexy kids
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban
Certainly the most ridiculously titled movie out this week, and I hate seeing children happy so I loathe this vacuous franchise on general principles. In an ideal world I'd advise anyone to download it for nothing from the net, but that would be illegal, and we at Beaver Film would never advocate such a thing. Ever. ^
Around the World in 80 Days
It may be that I've graduated from cheerful loopiness to full blown paranoid
mania, but I suspect that evil distributors are releasing all these kids movies as some kind of sick joke at my expense. If you have small children to entertain, for god's sake show them the classic The Sword in the Stone instead of this vapid drivel.
Sixteen Years of Alcohol
Disturbing drama about trials, tribulations and chequered pasts in Edinburgh. Dark, gritty and so Trainspotting it hurts. In fact, Iggy Pop is even on the soundtrack, and I'm sure I speak for us all when I say that's never a bad thing
20
B:art
The Beaver
16 November 2004
^^emetnber, there is no I in Team America"...*paiise*../l^es there is
//



Team America: World Police
simonessex discovers even marionettes can take the piss out of America
Team America: World Police is Matt Stone and Trey Parker's (South Park, Baseketball) gut-wrenchingly funny new film, and stops at nothing to shock and entertain. It features a cast made up entirely of marionettes, and plays like an uncut eighteen-certificate episode of Thunderbirds.
Team America are an elite force that are called in to save the world from all kinds of terrorist threats, and they go about doing so by blowing up pretty much everything in sight. For example, the film's opening scene sees the team thwarting a terrorist attack in Paris whilst inadvertently obliterating everything around them,
including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe. After killing the terrorists (Osama Bin-Laden is blown up in the Paris Opera House by a heat seeking missile), the World Police are surprised to learn that the Parisians are not all that grateful. This is so achingly funny that it is easy to overlook just how clever a commentary the act is.
Indeed, the whole film is far more clever than Stone and Parker would want to admit. Everyone is satirised, and for this reviewer it was a pleasant surprise to find that for once the liberals - to be specific, liberal Hollywood stars - get lampooned as much as the conservatives do. Sean
Penn, Alec Baldwin ('the greatest actor of all time'), Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are all members of the Film Actors' Guild, or F.A.G. Through their hatred of Team America they decide to support North Korean dictator Kim Jong II, even though he wants to destroy the world. As Alec Baldwin puts it 'that is the F.A.G. way'.
The movie as a political commentary is brilliant, but it also stands out as a laugh-out-loud musical. With songs like the brilliant 'Freedom isn't Free', the Broadway number 'Everyone has AIDs', or Kim Jong ll's solo 'I'm so Ronery', every track is inspired. I don't think I have ever heard an
Director: Trey Parker
Voices: Trey Parker, Matt Stone,
Kristen Miller
Certificate: 15
Release Date: 14 January
audience laugh as loud as they did during
the film's theme song ('America: fuck
yeah!/ Coming again to save the mother-
fuckin' day, yeah!').
Outrageous and hilarious in equal measure, this is definitely not for everyone. All those either easily offended or without the ability to poke fun at themselves or their politics should not see this film. Ever. For those of you with a twisted sense of humour and who want a brilliant time at the movies, I urge you to go and see Team America: World Police
Sleepover
janewakiwaka rightly slates crapola-fest.
Director: Joe Nussbaum Starring: Alexa Vega, MIka Boorem, Running Time: 97 min Certificate: PG Release Date: 17th December
In a world where your lunch time spot is more than just an eating place - but defines 'who you are', Julie and her 3 friends must go on a scavenger hunt during a sleepover against the four most popular girls, in order to guarantee the coveted lunch time spot in high school, or end up sitting next to the dumpsters where all the losers hang out. I wonder what happens when it rains?
Obviously, things aren't all that simple. Julie and co. must overcome the trials of sneaking out with the help of her older brother, home from college, despite promising to stay in, while her father is fixing the plumbing (her mother's out clubbing)
and not getting caught by the deranged security guard. Tasks include stealing the boxer shorts of the guy she's in love with and sneaking into a club under-age. Gripping stuff.
It's a bit unrealistic. 1 mean, within one night, the most popular guy in high school falls in love with you, when you happen to skateboard past his car wearing a dress, despite the fact that he later finds out you've broken into his house to steal ... his boxer shorts. Another example? The random guy that you've agreed to hook up with just happens to be your teacher. And he doesn't realise. Wouldn't any person
be able to recognise a 14-year old student from a swimsuit model? Immediately ??
Verdict? This movie is filled with cringe-worthy, cheesy scenes that literally had me shrinking into my seat in embarrassment for the actors. Like most PG movies, the adults just end up making complete arses of themselves; an ageing mother going clubbing with her friends, a 'cop' that tries too hard to be funny but fails miserably, and the college brother, who's just plain annoying. Having said that, the girls were pretty decent - including Julie (Alexa Vega, Spy Kids) and Hannah (Mika
Boorem from Blue Crush). Probably not a monumental part on their CVs but definitely ones to watch for in the future.
So, obviously, this movie isn't going to get an Oscar. It's not intended to be intellectual, but light-hearted family stuff. Perhaps I was a little harsh - this movie's cute with a predictable ending -one guess as to who gets the guy and who wins the scavenger hunt. It's alright if you're in need to entertain a group of pre-adolescent 10 year olds. Which is when?
***
FILM SOCIETY EVENTS	The LSE fllm society win be showing Stanley Kubrick (A Production Designer Sir Ken Adam.
Clockwork Orange)'s classic Dr Strangelove in the New FREE for members
Theatre (E171) on Friday 19th November at 7pm. There	£1 for non-members will also be a special guest speaker; Oscar Winning £2 annuill membership
^Anyone interested In writing for beaverfllm? Contact us on thebeaver.art@lse.ac.uk
The Beaver
16 November 2004
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Beyond The Sea
morwennabennett; Part One
Director: Kevin Spacey Starring: Kevin Spacey, Kate Boswortli, Joiin Goodman Running Time: 121 min Release Date: 26tii November
In the late 1950s there was one man lighting up the nightclub stages of Las Vegas and the Copacabana. Sinatra, I hear you cry but no - it was Bobby Darin. Beyond the Sea is a musical biopic directed, co-produced, co-written by and staring Kevin Spacey. He even wears a prosthetic nose.
The story charts the life of Darin as told by himself in one last performance. Suffering from rheumatic fever as a child, he was never meant to reach his fifteenth birthday. Yet after his mother introduces him to the power of music, Bobby aspires to become bigger than The Rat Pack. With the support of his family, friends and Hollywood wife Sandra Dee (Bosworth) that he meets along the way, Bobby becomes a star renowned for hit records such as 'IVIaci< the Knife'. Yet the rigours of fame begin to take their toll, and in his later life he must struggle to overcome self doubt and deteriorating health.
Spacey has had this movie on the cards for years and his performance is nothing short of a labour of love. He flawlessly sings all the Darin tracks himself and it begs the question of whether there is anything he cannot do (bar direct a hit stage play). His only failing, other than a yellow
suit he wears, is that he's too old to play Darin as a young man against the beauty of Kate Bosworth. But you can forgive him. As much as I wanted to hate Bosworth (largely for dating Orlando Bloom), she sparkles as the screen idol Sandra Dee, developing from teen innocent into drunken wife seamlessly. Goodman and Bob Hoskins play Darin's dutiful manager and best friend, throwing their considerable weights around in the name of their client.
The film is incredibly polished and stylised. With the cast spontaneously bursting into dance routines to the crooning songs of Darin, it has an air of Gene Kelly musicals you see on TV at Christmas. This is balanced against the drama sequences of his real life, marred by marital problems and self consuming ambition. Spacey's aim for Beyond the Sea was to make people leave the cinema knowing something about Darin's life and work, maybe even buying an album. I don't deny that this will be the effect but only if such a subject matter can draw crowds to see the movie in the first place.
Beyond the Sea is a film about the power of dreams and self belief. If you fancy being swept away for two hours into a heart warming world of easy listening classics, this may just be for you.
***
morwennabennett: Part Two
interviev*/ with the Vampire Slayer
As Sarah Michelle Cellar walked into a suite at the Knightsbridge Mandarin i-iotel I couldn't believe how small she was. Almost everyone else in the room was a middle aged male Journalist and they clearly couldn't believe how fit she was. I've never seen so many pervy smiles in all my life. As questions about her new film 'The Grudge' began, she managed to pour sparkling water all over herself. It was a surreal half hour.
How difficult was it for you working in Japan, with a Japanese director whose English was not fantastic - and we're told most of the vocabulary at his disposal were learnt from watching Star Wars?
Actually what was worse were the words we taught him, they'd probably get him arrested in America. It was one of those things that at first I was really excited about and then when I got there 1 panicked and thought there's no way this could possibly work.. .but it was Just this major education for me in communication. And what I learned is that you really don't need language.
Japanese films are a culture and a genre in themselves. Did you accordingly make any changes when preparing yourself for the role?
Oh, it was really important to all of us. The reason I made this film was because it was Japanese, because it was being done in my opinion in the right way This is the first time that a Japanese film has ever been remade for an English speaking audience, with the original Japanese ¦ director. And it's what I love about them, I think it's one of the reasons the genre
works so well in Japan because it comes from, such an emotional place, it comes form the very serious belief they have on existentialism and you know just life. And it was very important to us that we didn't Americanise it...I loved the non linear aspect, you know American horror films, and American films in general, we have a beginning a middle and an end. And this does not work within that um that realm. And I love the ambiguity of it, 1 love that it wasn't spelt out...It's not gory, it's not bloody, it's not about that.
The little boy who's starred In at least three version of this film, what's he like? Has he been scarred by the experience?
Well...he's an interesting boy You know what, um, he doesn't care; literally, the only thing is he hates cats. Every time you have to do a scene with a cat he like freaks out and gets really bratty. He's definitely: I'm trying to say this politely, an odd child. There were questions I wanted to ask him that you didn't want to ask with the translator or his mum around, like 'what do the kids at school say to you'. Stuff like that I never actually got to ask him. I think the only person the film was actually difficult on was him.
Given the success of Buffy, have you actively looked for roles which play to the strengths of that character yet are very different to that role?
No one's going to out Buffy Buffy because it was so wonderful, I wouldn't try to replicate that. So I was just looking for something that challenged me...I don't have a set plan like I have to do a comedy or I have to do this. The only thing for me is I actively seek out strong female charac-


ters or female driven pieces. And it's difficult to find in films. Television is driven by females but films still aren't so this is a lucky find for me.
(One journalist leaves the room. SMG says 7 guess I offended him huh.' Host: "It's this strange and wonderful power, you engender excitement among these young men. His legs will be broken later." SMG thanks him, laughing.)
You've done a lot of roles involving the supernatural. How do you feel about the supernatural yourself? And did you turn down any roles to take this one?
In terms of the supernatural and stuff I, there's two answers to this question. One of them has to do with female roles, and this is a genre where women really do get to take the forefront. You look at a couple of Oscar winners, Halle Berry did Gothika, Julianne Moore's biggest solo hit now is The Forgotten, or Naomi WattsVin The Ring, Nicole Kidman in The Others. It's one of these genres where women really get these great roles. So part of my
attraction to it is that. But what 1 loved about this was just the lore that it was based on, and the idea that great emotion can carry through life and death.
Where do you think you'll find yourself in ten years time? You're such an outgoing lady; do you have the ambition to get behind the camera?
1 have no desire to direct right now, that might change but not right now. I'd love to write but 1 don't think I'm talented enough to write, I'm not that good. But then again there are a lot of writers out there who also aren't that good so it's possible I could still be successful. I do have a desire to produce though. I think that being able to find something in its infancy stages, to see it develop and really create it would be a really amazing experience. As for ten years from now, I have trouble looking ten days from now, but I would like to still be doing work that challenges me and hopefully still loving what I do the way I do now.
A A	^	The Bea*0r
^2	16 November 2004
music	edited by Matt Boys and Ben Ho worth
Scissor Sisters
Joncollins gets in touch with his camp side
A
It's been a big year for Scissor Sisters. A platinum selling debut album which has been on the charts for 39 weeks, a triumphant festival season and a sold out tour across the UK which came to an end in London with the last of four shows at Brixton Academy.
Originally from New York, Scissor Sisters have arrived in style.
Their set opened with the band silhouetted behind a giant curtain and the stage shrouded In dry ice. It was a dramatic start and as the band launched straight into Laura, possibly their best known song, excitement in the crowd rocketed. The rest of the set was punctuated with
their famous singles. The cover of Comfortably Numb has been decried by Pink Floyd fans as sacrilege. Live, it sounded great. Mary was also fantastic, with Jake Shears' vocals better here than anywhere else in the show.
The album tracks were every bit as good. Each song was greeted with a huge cheer by the crowd, most of whom sung along enthusiastically and danced unreservedly to the high octane disco tracks. Tits on the Radio was passionate and angry, while Filthy/Gorgeous is a high class slice of 70's disco. A raucous version of Take Your Mama was the night's highlight, performed with an energy and abandon beyond most bands.
In between songs the two singers chatted with the crowd, repeatedly apologising for the result of the US election and whipping up anti-Bush fever at every opportunity. Frontwoman Ana Matronic strutted, swore and even kneeled to lick the stage. She had a magnetic stage presence with singing talent to match.
Shears was more restrained, if anybody dressed from head to foot in a sparkling lycra bodysuit and a feather boa can ever be described as restrained, but his dancing was both unbelievably camp and unstintingly energetic. Bounding from one side of the stage to the other, he was charismatic and engaging, a superstar in waiting.
Scissor Sisters are a hard band to define. An antidote to the legions of wannabe-Radioheads that fill the charts, they are fun, exciting and glamorously camp. They achieve what many well established bands can't - or won't - even attempt: a genuine connection with the audience, turning the crowd from passive observers into active participants.
Most importantly, they also write pop songs that are captivating, clever and stick in your head. Earlier this year Bono reportedly described Scissor Sisters as the best pop band in the world. On this evidence, he might just be right.
Live Music Society: Open Mic Night
timpower checks out what all the noise is about
On every third Tuesday of term, the lights go down and the amps go up in the Underground bar. Open IVlic night has long been a place of refuge for the talented and not so talented musicians of the LSE. Somewhere you could go and have a few beers, cigarettes and a good chat, all to the sound of some competent but relatively unchallenging musicianship.
In the interests of objective music journalism (attn: Rolling Stone) I must point out that Tuesday 26th's Open Mic event wasn't incredible, it wasn't really special either. But like a girl that you could fall in love with, if only she didn't want your best
friend, you know that there is a sparkling chemistry waiting to be unveiled by the Live Music Society.
But I digress; two American boys took the stage, and they had a banjo. And they were good. Very, very good. Like if the Gypsy Kings had been raised by Blind Lemon Jefferson in a place where George W. Bush likely won a heavy majority on Nov 2nd.
Hemant's group took on two very challenging songs; Curbside Prophet by Mr. Jason Mraz, and Gin & Juice by Snoop Dogg. While the first fell short in many places
but had enough Zen to come through when it counted, Gin & Juice reconfirmed its place as a favourite of the Live Mic crowd.
Leila, who followed, is a phenomenal talent. Her music is intensely personal, an introspective, esoteric tapestry that seems impossible to fully understand; which of course makes it even more beautiful. With a voice that could bring you to tears, it is easy to be completely absorbed for the 15 minutes she is on stage. In a word, brilliant.
i
If you have not seen the man they call
Fynn play one of his live sets at LSE yet, its about bloody time you did. Pushing Leila and the Banjoed Americans off their pedestal was always going to be tough, but this one-man show stopping Ragga northerner did just that. The man can play, the man can sing but most of all, the man can PERFORM; which puts him in a class of his own at Open Mic.
So listen up all you soulless automatons, don't give your (parents') hard earned money to charity. Grab some good friends, get the alcohol into your bloodstream and kick back at Open Mic, its an oasis of cool in a desert of the same old same old LSE.

aver
16 November 2004
^:art
'sa
Albums
Singles
Island Sampler
Island records claim to be experiencing tiielr most successful year ever, commercially If not critically. The last promo CD I reviewed from the label ended up on the radio all summer, and most of it was irritating mental chewing gum which stuck in my brain and made me curse Finland for producing The Rasmus. In contrast this Autumn promo CD begins with an absolute gem from the back catalogue: River Man by Nick Drake. Island have an impressive range of bands, groups and singers on their 30-strong roster, but are perhaps less impressive on the consistency of quality across these. So many of Island bands seem to have been signed by a suit with one eye on the look and the other on the sales figures, leaving little room for aural input. Not that I want to slag off the Sugababes for being popular; there's just more to being a record label than having the most top 10 singles in a year since its foundation in 1959. At the least, they shouldn't be claiming to be 'Britain's most consistently trend-setting label' with Keane on their books. Of course, for every U2 they've signed there's a wilfully difficult or different band to match, like Le Tigre.
Stand out tracks for me are 'TKO' by Le Tigre, 'London Bridge' by Dogs, and 'Viva la difference' by Portabella. Le Tigre sound more sophisticated than the usual 'feminist punk electronic music' as they call It, and have included more of the personal than political in their latest lyrics. Dogs are new and quite exciting: a confident, catchy indieboy guitar band, and we can never have too many of those. Portabella, by comparison, seem to have been painted by numbers to appeal to Goldfrapp fans. They were, it says here, inspired by trips to Nag Nag Nag, which doesn't surprise me. It is, however, a cracking tune.
As for the rest of the mixed bag. Sia's easy listening 'Numb' is harmless pap, Tyler James' 'Why do I do?' didn't appeal but should do well, and the less said about 'Room on the 3rd floor' by McFly, the better. The moral of the story is. Island, though a very healthy and generally decent label, would do better to take more risks in their signings.
(sarahtaylor)
Steriogram: Schmack


4. Jr-" -fc—»¦
at 'At
Steriogram are the next big thing when it comes down to catchy melodic punk rap.
As soon as I put the album on 1 was struck by just how good the production sounds. Every song benefits from a twin guitar assault and some of the catchiest harmonised choruses since the Beach Boys released Pet Sounds (nicely done). Musically, these boys are no Van Halen, but they can knock out a wicked tune.
The whole album is very listenable and as you progress through the tracks they get slightly less clean cut and start to bare their teeth, by losing more of the pop and bringing out their rock roots. Although I wouldn't say this is for the die hard rock fans, it will appeal to people that enjoy the Beastie boys and Sum 41
and their cheeky, happy-go-lucky music. It's something fun and not to be taken too seriously with.
Songs to listen out for are 'White Trash' and 'On and on', and although the already renowned Walkie Talkie Man isn't the best song on this album its worth a mention (currently featured on the iPod adverts). One of the most fun and enjoyable to listen to albums out this year definitely worth a look.
(yanmao)
Modest Mouse: Ocean Breathes Sally
Bizarrely ethereal material from angular Americans. MM are at their utmost when they demonstrate more pace and sharpness than are evident here. Unfortunately, this single is left floating off into mediocrity somewhere near the background. Producing a second hit may a bit of a problem for them.
(laurencekavan*^)
Racoriight: Rip It up
In a standout track from their debut album Up All Night, Johnny Borrell and the boys do their bit for indie discos everywhere. Get on the dance floor, that's what it's there for, he tells us. He may be a bit of an arrogant twat, but we can forgive him for producing this wee gem.
(sarahtayior)
White Stripes: Jolene
With this cover of the Dolly Parton classic, Jack & Meg join the likes of Jimi Hendrix in covering a song and changing it completely: making it their own. (The Hendrix song in question is of course Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower".) This version is ace: the tackiness of the original is replaced with heartfelt sentiment; Jack playing the part of the desperate lover to a tee. I would note, though, that although this version beats the studio version they put on the original "Hello Operator" 7", it doesn't quite match the version they recorded for John Peel. Purists should seek that one out.
(mattboys)
Hiding Place: Cruel kindness
A fuzz rush surge of song, which is really fairly decent. It does sound a bit like Muse (the guitar riff) and the Lost Prophets (the vocals). The lyrics are all a bit 'depressed teenager' and obvious. This is a tad unfortunate. As all in all this is an enjoyable, if slightly generic listen. The B-sides are not anything to write home about, so I won't. Sadly they've decided to support the Rasmus on their UK tour so a large chunk of people who hear this are (or should be) deaf.
(paulmatthews)
Moog Original Soundtrack
Electronic music is said to be due to Bob Moog. The man who pretty much created synthesisers as far as most people are concerned. This is a documentary sound track which wants to show case the achievements of the guy. Now I'm all a bit stretched. What is meant by producing music? Any sound perceived by our ears is simply the result of variations in the pressure of the air on the eardrum. Yep GCSE science. So what differentiates noise and sound from music? Er... not a
lot. Beauty is after all in the eye of the beholder. Sadly, and I hate myself for saying this, but I don't know if a lot of this is music or just a lot of sounds. The bands featured have all in their turn well and truly played heavily with a Moog style instrument but does that make them better bands? I'm not sure if I understand. But anyhow the Stereolab song featured 'Variation one' is a fucking brilliant jumping joy wonder.
(paulmatthews)
Anastacia: Welcome to my truth
The words: mashed up beats, wonderfully off-kilter lyrics, impassioned pleas, interesting, good, and original, all have no place in this review. Its actually another turd from 'I used to have cancer but now I don't' Anastacia. Surely she could have got some inspiration from that...
(benhowarth)
24
B:art
The Beaver
16 November 2004
theatre
edited by Saalim Chowdhury
LuwieS; wherefore art thou?
saalimchowdhury rants about LSE theatre and speaks to oilie knox who is doing something about it.
Thespians. Clearly we are all gay, were former members of Take That, aspire to live like Dale Winton, have the dress sense of Lauren Llewellyn Bowen or Dame Edna Everage, think we are French, kiss each other every time we meet, are complete love-rats, and about as bright as a Strand Poly / Thames Valley student.
Obviously, that explains why here at the LSE unlike most of the other institutions that surround us in the worldwide top 20 rankings (even though the main reason we are there is our international student numbers/ appeal - sigh), student theatre has the same profile and level of involvement here as tidily-winks does at Cambridge. Even the geek house of horrors that is MIT has a thriving student theatre scene! Here we pride ourselves as being devoid of culture, have the amorous tendencies of an Amoeba, are soulless corporate whores, driven only by one thing, and one thing alone - The love of Excel and SPSS. (Except the Chavs who love having a 'free trash', causing £1500 of damage to Bankside).
When I heard about 'Republic', a piece of new writing being put on here next term by OIlie Knox, a 2nd yr Philosophy &
Economics undergraduate, I was indeed intrigued. Did we have a non-believer in the cult of bankers? Someone rising against the establishment? I spoke to him about this rebellious mutiny that he is embarking on.
SC: It seems unusual that you are puttin-gon a new piece of theatre here at the LSE, what made you get up and decide to do this?
OK: It's a few things really. I was involved in 12 Angry Men last year, and apart from having great fun, I met some really talented people. It made me wonder why there wasn't more drama going on here. I paid a visit to UCL, saw what they were doing. They had 4 shows for the first years alone. If they can do this we aught to be doing more.
SC: Fair enough. Tell me about your play? What is it about?
OK: It explores two key themes. Whilst not presenting a political agenda, it explores the mechanics of politics and harsh reality of the backroom deals that frame the climate within which it exists today. At the same time, and perhaps
more importantly, it looks at the underpinnings of the lives of most politicians- their families. The play looks at aspects of their relationships, some common, others a little more unusual. What we do for those we care or are forced to care about.
SC: Sounds like an unusual script. Tell me what inspired your storyline?
OK: It's a reflection of my personal interests and things that have effected me. Like most people here at the LSE I'm interested in drama. Some frame it in the real world nature of Politics, but drama occurs everywhere, most notably at home. The only difference with these real world versions is that they directly affect people. Republic explores on these relationships.
SC: How do you think the students here will take to it?
OK:,It's certainly different, but it does relate to the interests of most people here. So far I've had a positive response to the script, but the real test will be the show. 'Republic' is still casting.
Auditions!
this week
Persona by Ingmar Bergman Directed by Ion Martea (Ashes to Ashes, E'burgh Fringe *04) 16-18th Oct, 5-9pm book time slot by e-mail i.martea@lse.ac.uk
Beauty and the Bush LSE Pantomime 1 major, some minor parts to be filled Weds & Thurs 12-1 Law Common Room,
(3rd PI., Old Building)
Just turn up or e-mail l.higgins@lse.ac.uk
'Republic'
New writing by Ollie Knox -Arrange time by e-mail to o.a.knox@lse.ac.uk
How auditions generally work: Enthusasm usually more important than experience, you'll be asked to read over a piece, then act it out (with the script in hand). It really is that simple.
Dead Hands
rehanahmed on macabre experimental theatre, sex and accounting.
Director: 'The Wrestling Group' Venue: Riverside Studios, Hammersmith Ticket Prices: £9-14
This play is the perfect antidote to the three hour long accounting lecture I had to attend prior to it. Part macabre sexual comedy, part expose on fragmented filial relationships, part commentary on the sexual availability of a bodacious lady, it is terribly difficult to pigeonhole. Well, whatever, just as long as it isn't double entry bookkeeping.
The Wrestling Group is unique in that they focus solely upon the works of a single playwright and thankfully they do not waste their valiant efforts under the direction and work of Howard Barker. The play revolves about two brothers and their stepmother mourning the passing of the patriarch. However, true to the 'extreme moral speculation' advertised, the play turns into a contest to win the hand (and mentioned not infrequently) the private parts of the not so grieving lady.
This is hardly a plot driven play though, and the production is far more cognisant of the emotional intensity involved in such an impasse. This is further enhanced by the set design (a most dazzling hall of mirrors and suspension of the father's dead body) and attention to costume (Biddy Wells' evening wear is chicer than chic can be). That this was achieved at Riverside bodes well for the future of experimental theatre.	4
I do detest cliches immensely, but not much else comes to mind after an entire day of corporal punishment, I mean Corporate Finance...the performances were quite simply, masterful. The lack of coherent narrative for much of the play (excuse the pun) sets the stage for thes-pian masturbation. Justin Avoth plays the elder son, a public school type, and shows some riveting displays during his monologues addressed to his late father. Chris Moran plays his antithesis, a scruffy bohemian type (is there another?) and bears an uncanny resemblance to that fellow from Some Mothers do 'ave 'em (I'd probably know his name were I not Canadian).
1 reserve the highest level of praise for Biddy Wells, who is both literally and figuratively a knockout. Enough said. If I were to give one word of advice, walk in late. The opening sequence, come operatic style overture, is overly drawn out and has the capable actors looking immensely bored. I could swear the dead father's dummy seemed to cringe somewhere in the midst of the act. However, this was a terrifyingly intelligent play and I shan't be surprised if there was after all more to it than boring the living daylights out of the audience. Or perhaps he accounting class clouded my thought process for the first few minutes.
«*AX
The Beaver
16 November 2004
B:art
K
25
literature
edited by Ion Martea
New Discoveries
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
by Gil Courtemanche
andrewgoldfinch discovers the tragedy beyond numbers





A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is more than a standard fictional work: it is also a "chronicle and eyewitness report" on real life characters and events that led to the infannous Rwanda genocide in 1994.
Bernard Valcourt is, like the author, an ageing journalist from Quebec who has been sent to Rwanda to report on AIDS. At
the Mille-Collines Hotel in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, there is a pool where, every Sunday, foreign diplomats, journalists, prostitutes, and wealthy Rwandans drink and exchange rumour and hearsay. Outside AIDS is rampant. Inside the hotel the prostitutes also host the disease. This is a country where sex and death are intimately connected. But the deceiving paradise of the hotel is also where Valcourt meets Gentille, an unblemished, beautiful waitress, a little ray of light in a land about to descend into Hades. Gentille is a Hutu, but she looks Tutsi. And this appearance will eventually prove fatal.
Gentille, of course, symbolises Rwanda (the novel is liberally sprinkled with such symbolism). But she also represents the archetypal female redeemer, resurrecting new life and meaning into Valcourt's life. Valcourt develops feelings for Gentille and, as their love begins to develop, Rwanda slides into a bloody orgy of rape and violence.
The novel does not hold back from describing in detail such rapes and massacres. One will, for example, read of a dying woman being rapped near a pile of corpses. In Rwanda massacres became erotic, an object of sexual fetish. This is not light material.
Publisher: Canongate Books Release Date: 28 June 2004 List Price: £7.99 Paperback 258 pages
One can tell a journalist wrote this by the style of the writing. Journalists who turn their attention to writing novels must make more effort to transform their writing style.
Some have compared this work to those of Albert Camus. This is not Camus. The quality of the story probably has more to do with Courtemanche's own experience in Rwanda rather than his imagination.
Thankfully Courtemanche resisted the temptation to turn the novel into a moralising sermon, something that is not only unnecessary but would have ruined the book.
Stalin said that the death of one person was tr-agedy, the death of a million a mere statistic. We, in the West, are mostly sheltered from such bloody experiences, and a statistic of 800,000 deaths no longer affects us. If anything, such statistics desensitise us. But a decent novel that captures in blots of ink the shedding of blood will always have meaning. This book is a good example of what novels can do when statistics no longer convey meaning. Those who were raped and massacred in Rwanda were not just statistics. We must always remember that. And with the help of novels like this one we will.
Lyriccil Effigies
Rake's Progress 2004 by Ros Sweetman
"So how d'you do it?
How d'you stay so thin?"
"'S easy - like a game.
Three steps,
over and over again."
1.	A glass or two of bolly.
2.	Sex.
3.	Nibbles, just a few, to keep the blood sugar jolly.
The steps may seem the same,
but the moods, they swing about, according to love's flame,
that's what it's all about.
Bolly.
A swig,
to calm the nerves.
Four eyes lock on.
We have
all-systems-go arousal state.
and lift off!
Bodies intertwine with carnal verve,
while calories burn,
at an astonishing rate.
Post-coital trance,
'twixt fecund forays,
spending minutes apart, or maybe days,
connected by emails, texts,
technology's ways.
To eat?
Low fat snack?
No time.
Just diary manoeuvrings, and psion ponderings,
to find shared-bed windows, through which to climb.
And then,
the spell breaks.
"The vodaphone you're ringing may be switched off.
Please try later."
How much rejection can you take before you too cut off?
Bereft,
the angst cuts in.
Skin screams its need for touch.
Still stripped bare,
surrounded by air,
now zilch.
You risk so much for quickening touch.
Who wants bolly now?
What is there to celebrate?
"Never again,"
you briefly vow,
standing there,
naked,
thin as a rake.
New Releases
Gllgamesh translated by Stephen IVIitcheil
(Profile Books)
The first work of literature in the history of the world, the Mesopotamian story of Gilgamesh still has a remarkable power in the contemporary writing. Poetry and emotions float tragically beyond the canvas that is being drawn in this epic poem of mythical proportions (intended pun!). A quintessential read.
Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction by David Wties
(Cambridge University Press)
Ever wondered what Greek Theatre is all about? Even if you were never a Classical Studies student, David Wiles ensures that you will still enjoy reading about the technique of those passionate productions, full of verve and grandiosity. A beautiful tribute to the art that produced such masterpieces as Medea or Electra.
ALICE
tlu'	-
Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart by Aiice Walker
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The latest novel from the author of The Color Purple boasts with the same lyrical prose as the Pultizer winner. It is a tale on the rediscovery of love in the late summer of our age; a rediscovery of identity of a passionate writer and her lover through Indian mysticism and Hawaiian shores.
Way to Paradise by Mario Vai^as Liosa
(Faber and Faber)
A story of poverty, undying passion for art, a story on humanity and all its talents and deficiencies. Mario Vargas Llosa's prose is beautifully crafted deep into the emotions of ordinary individuals, who learn to find beauty even in the darkest hour.
Ilie thou^	
-" The on e wh o kno ws 11r	at route p rot ects h is fr iend
	(Gilgamesh)
26
B:art
The Beaver
16 November 2004
about
edited by Joanne Lancaster
Shop til You Drop
about does reatil therapy in the capital

I

Shopping and eating at Covent Garden
It's coming up to that time of year again, Christmas shopping! Luckily for us, London is probably the best place in the world to go shopping. The world and his wife is on Oxford Street at this (and any other) time of the year, but there are plenty of places around which are perhaps less well known where you can get unusual presents- or treat yourself!
Covent Garden Piazza (Covent Garden tube) is a five minute walk from Houghton Street, and one of the nicest shopping areas in London. The streets around Covent Garden have many of the chains you would expect at any other shopping centre: Accessorize, the Gadget Shop (perfect for Dad or brother's presents-10% discount for NUS), the Gap and the Disney Store. The Piazza itself is a little more specialised. Interesting shops include Pollock's Toy Shop, famous for its display of toy theatres and selling some lovely toys for a variety of prices. England Rocks is dedicated to memorabilia for British musicians like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Queen and David Bowie. Prices range from £1 for a badge to hundreds of pounds for autographed gold discs. Lush, a shop selling handmade cosmetics, may not be unique to Covent Garden but it is worth a visit.
The Apple Market inside the piazza is the perfect place to buy presents for those really tricky people- for a price. Hand painted ties cost around £15 to £20, sterling silver jewellery is about £12 to £15, and prints of London or various natural beauties cost about £15.1 particularly liked the decorated handmade paper lamps and lampshades for £10-£15.
But Covent Garden offers much more than just shopping, there are a number of interesting restaurants, bars and pubs inside and outside the piazza as well as the famous street !ntertainment ^ranging from I pe rat i c ^singers to V c 1 o w n s and living statues.
'It per-'haps isn't 'surprising 'that Baker has a
number of shops dedicated to Sherlock Homes, but It is also home to the Beatles Store (Baker Street tube). Fans will love this shop which sells

everything from coasters, mugs and t-shirts to original 1960s memorabilia. These include original promotional material for various releases priced around £15. Next door is Elvlsly Yours, a pun so bad I don't even get it, not quite so well visited for some reason!
Few exclusive shops have a truly pleasant and welcoming atmosphere. Liberty's (Regent Street- Oxford Circus tube) is an exception to this rule. Yes, it is very expensive. But you don't feel despised for browsing. In fact the building itself makes a visit wothwhile, very pretty from outside it's even nicer inside- light and airy (mock) Tudor. The Christmas department is worth seeing too, with the handmade crackers (£75 a box) a must! But in fact there are some reasonably priced items, at £6.50 soap guaranteed to wash away the Seven Deadly Sins has got to be a bargain surely?
One of the most famous shops in the world, Mr Al-Fayed's little greengrocery Harrods (Knightsbrldge tube), is known for exclusivity- and expense. However, it should also be known for the world's best doughnuts available in the food hall. Krispy Kreme doughnuts cost about £1 each. They are also very keen on giving them away to the queue, which can't be a bad thing!
Unsurprisingly, most of the things on sale at Harrods are beyond a student budget. However for people interested in buying something with the logo on it- novelty golf tees anyone?- the Arcade has fairly reasonable prices. Lets face it: everyone knows at least one person who would appreciate a mug that says Harrods on it!
Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street (Bond Street tube) specialises in travel books, and is perfect if you are interested in a specific country as it groups travel books, history and related novels geographically. It is also a very welcoming shop with tables and chairs for trying before you buy! A few doors down is the best second hand bookshop I have ever found, an Oxfam specialising in books and music. Books aren't dirt cheap- on average £2-£4- but in almost perfect condition, and the shop has a range which compares favourably to many book chains.
Opening Times: East Cemetery 10am weekdays (11am weekends)- 3.30pm last admissions
West Cemetery hourly guided tours (11-3) at weekends, book on 02083401834
Photo opportunities, people watching and fun for free in London's most famous square.
_
London Landmarks #2
Trafalgar Square
Cost of Entry: FREE
Location: Nearest station is Charring Cross
Why Visit: Trafalgar Square is perhaps the epitonne of London, and Nelson's colunnn is the iconic image. If you haven't already you have to go to have your picture taken with the fountains, the lions around the statue and maybe the pigeons that remain. There are regular special events, protests and demos but also entertainments and exhibitions. See the website for more details.
On the Downside: What downside? It's free!
iVIore information/ Bool<ing:
www.london.gov.uk/mayor/trafagar_s quare
Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square
Interested in writing for about?
Email ideas and reviews to thebeaver.art@lse.ac.uk
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Listings
27
Your Guide to What's On This Week
email: su.societies@lse.ac.uk
LSE SU Swiss Society:
We cordially invite you to our « Welcome Gathering » which will be held this Tbesdav . November Ifi 2004. from 6pm to 7pm.
Meeting point : Clement Building (Building D on Aldwych) on the 7th floor next to the elevator.
LSESU KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS SOCIETY PRESENTS-
SELF-ESTEEM
2nd part following the Leadership Course as 1 part of the Spirituality and Success series I Tue 16th Nov. 6pm In Room H206, Connaught House, LSE Free entry. Seminar, delicious food, drinks and dessert.
Free Entry. With free meal and refreshments...don't miss out!
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND ISLAMIC SOCIETIES joint event
"Rights, Duties and Justice; Can Human Rights law and Islamic law be reconceiled"
Dr.Delacoura from the IR and Centre for Human Rights will be speaking, along with Prof. Mashood Baderin from the University of the West of England. Dr Martha Mundy from the LSE Anthropology department will be chairing.
The event will be at 7pm.1\iesdav 16th Nov in D6O2:
LSESU LABOUR CLUB AND SOCIALIST SOCIETY PRESENTS:
TONY BENN SPEAKER EVENT:
We are please to annoimce that next TXiesday we

'Respect not Racism' is an initiative begun by the Greater London Assembly in celebrating the multi-culturalism of London and reinforcing the message that racism will not be tolerated. This initiative has now been taken up by Student Unions' across London, many of whom are putting on a programme of events on their campus' in the week beginning Monday 15th November. LSESU is proud to take part and the programme of events taking place on our campus is:
Wednesday - LSESU Student Assembly Against Racism shows 'The Secret Policeman documentary' Room Dill. 1pm
'The Secret Policeman' was broadcast on the BBC earlier this year. The documentary follows a reporter undercover in the police force who filmed the institutional racism that he witnessed.
Australian and New Zealand Society and the
Grimshaw International Relations Club invite you to:
Dialogue with HE Michael L'Estrange, High Commissioner of Australia to the UK Chair: Dr Gerry Simpson Date and time: 17th November, 4:30 pm Venue: D502 (Clement House)
Entry on first come first served basis. For more information please visit www.lse students.ac.uk/grimshaw
Maths & Stats Society
Homework helping session 17-11-2004 Wednesday 13:00-15:00 G210 This event is on every Wed, l-3pm. We provide help to both 1st and 2nd year student who are doing maths, stats, and accounting and finance modules. Free for all members, non-members can sign up by the door----joining fee £2.00.
will be hosting Tony Benn at 5-30pm.
The room is to be confirmed so look out for
POSTERS today!
Careers in the Media.
Simon Israel - political correspondent.
Political correspondent with Channel 4 of 20 years experience reporting from some of the most politically charged areas of the world. He will talk on his personal career and experience of working in the media, and answer audience questions.
Date: Tuesday November 16 Venue: D202 (Clement House)
Talk starts: 19.45 Refreshments provided
This is a members only event. Non-members can attend but need to join the society first by submitting their name + LSE e-mail address + £1 to the Society pigeon hole at the LSESU reception (ground floor, East Building). Alternatively, oh the evening there will be a stall by the door for joining at the event.
Open Mic
Tuesday 16th November The Underground Bar 7 pm onwards....
Members Free (with membership card) Non Members 1 quid
Alternative Entertainments Society
Are you an entertainer or just up for lots of fxm? Then you should definitely come to our practises dovra in the Old Gym on TViesdays 2-3pm and Thursdays l-2pm. We do juggling, balloon modelling, diabolo, poi, yo-yo, devil sticks, and manipulations with fire props. Also, new for this year: aerials and face painting. We are also open for suggestions, if there is any activity you would
like to do. If you have any questions please contact society president (Jana) at i.zolotarevska-ia@lse.ac.uk or society secretary (Yasha) at su.soc.altents@lse.ac.uk
SALSA SOCIETY
Everyone is truly welcomed to join the Salsa Society. We have classes weekly ranging from beginners, improvers, intermediate to advance! These stages are conducted every week throughout the year even during the holidays. The classes are as follows:
Hiesday : SOUND, Leicester Sq 7.30-9.30pm
Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP to Speak to the Business Society
Date: Tuesday 16th November, 2004
Time: 5-6 pm
Venue: E171 (New Theatre)
Actuarial Society - Institute of Actuary Presentation
"Actuarial Work- What's it all about?"
Date: 16 November, 2004 (TViesday)
Time: 7.15pm Venue: G108 Speakers:
Mohammad Khan, LSE Representative from the Institute of Actuary also a Principal Consultant at PWC-AIMS and Morgan Lau, Associate Consultant PWC-AIMS
Current and potential Entertainments Society
Attention:
Alternative
Members!
This Thursday we're going to do a little performance with Juggling, Poi and other amusement and there will be an opportunity to try the different props! We would like as many as possible to come along, and don't worry if you are not a member, this will be a great occasion to sign up or just try how much fun it is.
We are meeting outside Old Building at I 9.45 pm
(for other info please contact me at su.soc.altents@lse.ac.uk)
LSESU AND STUDENT ASSEMBLY AGAINST RACISM
Thursday 18th November - Fighting Racism today, Priorities for Equality Panel discussion with speakers including Harry Cohen MP, Pav Akhtar (NUS Black Students Officer), and representatives from the National Assembly Against Racism and the Muslim Council of Britain.
Room S78, 4pm
LSESU Turkish Society
The Turkish Economy Minister will be coming to give a talk on the latest issues regarding the Hirkey and European Union relations.
Colombian Society - LSESU
"Parranda Latina" party THE BEST LATIN PARTY OF LONDON'S UNIVERSITIES Date: Thursday 18th November Time: 9 PM. - 3 A.M.
Venue; El Barco Latino (next to The Yacht Club) Tickets: £ 5 (members: £4)
Ticket sale on Houghton Street from 16 -18 November ONLY
LSE European Institue and TUGIAD (Young Businessman Association of Turkey) presents:
Title: Opportunities beyond the Bosphorus: Turkey and the European Union
LSE SU Film Society presents:
Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove followed by Q&A with The Real 'Q' Oscar Winning Production Designer Sir Ken Adam
Friday, November 19th at 19:00 E171 (New Theatre)
Entry:Free for Film Society Members £1 for Non-Members £2 Annual Membership Fee for LSE Students
I AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
I Weekly Letter writing 12-1, Friday, s421!!! fun for all.
SALSA SOCIETY
Everyone is truly welcomed to join the Salsa Society. We have classes weekly ranging from beginners, improvers, intermediate to advance! These stages are conducted every week throughout the year even during the holidays. The classes are as follows:
Friday : MINISTRY OF SALSA, Elephant and Castle 8.00-10.00pm
Speaker: Mr. Ali BABACAN, Turkish Economy Minister Date: 18 November 2004, Thursday ¦nme: 16.00 - 17.30 Venue: Shaw Library This event is free and open to aU with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first serve basis. For security reasons, aU guests are kindly asked to arrive 15 minutes prior to the event.
LSESU KRISHNA CONSCIOUSNESS SOCIETY PRESENTS... VEGETARIANISM
The most viable economic solution for the future?
Thurs 18th Nov, 6pm
Room D209, Clement House, LSE Free entry. Seminar, delicious food, drinks and dessert.
With free meal and refreshments...don't miss out!
Christian Union
Weekly Main Meeting Every Thursday at 7pm in Gl, unless otherwise advertised.
Prayer Meeting
Every Thursday 5.30pm to 6.30pm in the chaplaincy, room G9.
To be on mailing list, email su.soc.christian-uniQn@lse.ac.uk
Vietnam Society proudly presents Rendezvous 2004 - A uniquely tremendous Music festival on 20th November 2004 @ The Old Theater Refreshment: 16.30 - 19.00 The Show: 19.30 - 21.30 Disco:	22.00 - til late
Tickets are now available for sales: non-members £6 members £5
Please contact Ms. Tra Nguyen at t.t.nguvenl@lse.ac.uk for tickets.
These tickets are going like hot cakes so please arrange your booking as soon as possible to avoid disappointment:-)
The Scandinavian Society is proud to present the first event hosted by our new sponsor StoraEnso Open Evening 22nd November Time; 1800
9 South Street, Mayfair, WIK 2XA StoraEnso Financial Services will be hosting an open evening exclusively for the LSE Scandinavian Society members to learn about the opportunities within their Financial Services division and to meet with the employees and senior management!
Places to this event are strictly limited to the first 20 responses, and are allocated on a first come first serve basis. Please write to Su.Soc.Scandinavian@LSE.AC.UK with name, course and year of study to
reserve a place for this event SALSA SOCIETY
Everyone is truly welcomed to join the Salsa Society. We have classes weekly ranging from beginners, improvers, intermediate to advance! These stages are conducted every week throughout the year even during the holidays. The classes are as follows;
Monday; SOUND, Leicester Sq 7.30-9.30pm
28
Sports
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Where is the LSE in the league tables?
Here are a selection ofBUSA and ULU League tables proving the prowess of many LSE Teams. More league tables will be featured in future issues
LSE Netball Firsts								
	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
1 Guvs. Kinas & St Thomas' 1 st	3	3	0	0	140	61	79	9
2 London School of Economics 1 st	2	2	0	0	86	11	75	6
3 Imoerial Colleae. London 1st	3	2	0	1	95	100	-5	6
4 Kino's Colleae. London 1st	3	2	0	1	112	118	-6	6
5 Liniversitv of Westminster 1 st	2	0	0	2	72	80	-8	0
6 Roval Hollowav. Liniversitv of London 1st	1	0	0	1	19	28	-9	0
7 London South Bank Liniversitv 1 st	2	0	0	2	15	67	-52	0
8 Goldsmiths Colleae 1 st	2	0	0	2	30	104	-74	0
LSE Men's Rugby Seconds								
	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
St Marv's University Colleae Men's 3rcl	4	3	0	1	125	31	94	9
University of Readina Men's 2nd	3	2	0	1	36	56	-20	6
London School of Economics Men's 2nd	2	1	0	1	22	38	-16	3
Kino's Colleae, London Men's 2nd	4	1	0	3	60	80	-20	3
University of Portsmouth Men's 2nd	3	1	0	2	39	77	-38	3
LSE Men's Football Ists and 2nds						
	PWD L F			A	Diff	Pts
1 Queen Marv. Liniversitv of London Men's 1 s ULU	3	3	0 0 21	5	16	9
2 University Colleae London Men's 1 s ULU	3	3	0 0 12	4	8	9
3 London School of Economics Men's 1 s ULU	3	3	0 0 10	3	7	9
4 ImiDeriai Colleae. London ti/len's 1 s ULU	3	2	0 1 5	2	3	6
5 RovalHollowav. University of London Men's Is ULU	1	1	0 0 2	1	1	3
6 Kina's Colleae. London Men's 1s ULU	1	1	0 0 1	0	1	3
7 School of Oriental & African Studies Men's 1 s ULU	3	1	0 2 4	17	-13	3
8 Imoeriai Medicals Men's 1 s ULU	1	0	0 1 3	5	-2	0
9 London School of Economics Men's 2s ULU	2	0	0 2 2	5	-3	0
10 Imoerial Colleae. London Men's 2s ULU	3	0	0 3 4	8	-4	0
11 Roval Free & University Colleae Medical School Men's 1s ULU	2	0	0 2 0	6	-6	0
12 St Bartholemews & Roval London Men's 1 ULU	3	0	0 3 2	10	-8	0
LSE Women's Badminton								
	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
London School of Economics Women's 1st	4	3	1	0	22	11	11	10
University of Readina Women's 1st	5	1	4	0	22	18	4	7
University of Surrey Women's 1st	5	2	0	3	17	24	-7	6
Imoerial Colleae, London Women's 1st	4	1	1	2	18	16	2	4
Guvs. Kinas & St Thomas' Women's 1st	4	1	1	2	14	18	-4	4
University of Sussex Women's 1st	4	1	1	2	13	19	-6	4














Once upon a time, in the Land of Mordor...
A disappointing trek out to Heathrow for Men's Rugby Thirds to take on Gimperial, with a Pikey referee.
Robith Donellan
Rugby 3rd Fellowship.....O Gimperial Ores..........More
Shire Airport, Hobbitland
So after a stirring performance against RUMs 2s where cheating allowed medics to get the best of us, the greatest 3rd team ever assembled for what appeared to be a very winnable affair. Insider leaks suggested that they were not the team they once were, and I for one knew that their latest round of Warhammer had been left unfinished.
After a seemingly unending trip on the banter Tube, including a meeting with Ashley's nearly 16 year-old sister, whom Zac now has in his sights, we arrived on the back end of Heathrow airport, ready to mock the habitual goons of Imperial.
The mood in the dressing room was tense, it was going to be another great day for LSE RFC. Heads on we strode onto the pitch like the collosuses we are. It was here we met our first problem.
"Alright Wob, ma name's Dave and I'm gonna be like reffing today." Great, a mock-ney wearing a Wales shirt. Next he'd be telling me he was "Millwall crew" and that I was a geezer. So for the next 80 minutes he proceeded to give us a course in how not to referee a game of rugby.
"Like, I don't know much about the front row, so can you
guys like sort ya selves out"
"Yeah, in spite, of being grossly overweight I used to play scrum half so I know all the tricks in the ruck and we penalise you for it, but not my boys".
"Sorry lads, that was offside, I forgot to blow my whistle."
We have never been a team to sit back and blame the referee. So we simply manned up and gave it back as good as they could get. One break through that seemed to have conceded a try was failed but the dogged determination of Terrence at full back with an awesome wrap up tackle on a man literally 5 times the size of him. Ashley took out the idea of Zac violating his sister on their backs with huge thumping hits. Christian sliced through their lines like Tristram gets through gins and Ftaser despite being a midget
terrorised them with his chips over the top. It was only his decision to try and sidestep the ball out of our try line which left us 5-0 down at half time, however he oh so nearly made up for it with some great link up play with Terrence.
The second half saw the departure of our own Danny Grewcock Phil through injury (caused by angry Walkabout bouncers) and saw Colin enter the fray, still wondering why windows on coaches don't open. In spite of our pack,, including the rampaging Chris and the ever threatening flanker pairing of Jimmi and Kevin simply overawing theirs, including Chris making their prop cry, they had used their +10 strength armour and laid their magical "referee" card, a favourite of cheating gimps the world	over.
Unable to withstand the onslaught of cheating I decided
to knee their captain in the face in an act of good sportsmanship, that resulted in them decided to attempt to turn me into a human stud cushion.
In spite of brave efforts from all, especially Fraser, Terrence and Chris who had lead by example all day, we simply could not overturn the sheer momentum of filth they mounted against us.
The final whistle blew and we felt no shame at having lost, merely pride in the fact that we're not so fat that we can't remember what our cocks look like. Then after the indinity of having one of the richest universities in the country informing us that they couldn't afford to give us food, we trekked back to Golgotha, and for a certain fresher who had an altercation with a bottle of Gin, it would end with a peddlo trip back to Roseberry.
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Sports
29
First win still evades Women's Hockey
Meenal's players put up a valiant fight against London Met before being disappointedly crushed
Claudia Whitcomb
LSE Hockey Babes. Minging London Met.
Battersea Park, Definitely not the Dog's Home
With a hugely improved squad this year, I have to admit we're starting to wonder why our season has gotten off to a really shit start! It seems we're not the only ones who have recruited some great freshers but every other team in the league has recruited coaches and international players as well. So when London Met strolled up to Battersea Park on Wednesday with three internationals and 6 hockey scholarships, there wasn't really much point in us getting on the
pitch.
The game got off to a dire beginning, as the defenders were constantly pushed by some very skilful hockey. London Met did manage to put four past us in the first half, but as Ju observed we really weren't playing that badly, the score was totally unjustified. We came to the conclusion that they were simply a far stronger team but gritted our teeth in
determination and carried on, stopping everything that was thrown at us, or mainly at pooor Amanda.
At half time Meenal did her best to rally the troops, and the team talk obviously had some kind of impact as the second half was a little less fierce. Andrea proved her dedication to the team when she insisted on carrying on with bloody socks, and a bandana tied
around her knee as a makeshift bandage. Louise, Sarah and Mel put in good performances in midfield, however our at^ckers couldn't quite get it past the smaller than average keeper.
It wasn't over there though, after a great performance from Jane in goal, they managed to pip one final goal, making the final score 5-0. We're a little deflated at the moment, and are hoping for a big win soon to boost some confidence but with a game against Middlesex next week I am a little dubious about whether I will be reporting on a win, it may have to wait till the week after with our away fixture at Luton air-
port.
Wednesday night once again proved disappointing from a turn out point of view, however we did manage to drag back some old girls to help us in a rendition of 'Hit Me Baby One More Time', and the boys were there to reach those high notes for us. Walkabout was fairly un-eventful for us as far as I'm concerned, although Amanda was the one vanishing this week along with a very drunk Jade and honorary hockey girl Tommi. With the barrel around the corner we're going to have to improve these alcohol tolerances and just to remind the girls, we haven't decided on fines just yet, so no one's safe.
Race for the Golden Boot
The top scorers in the LSEFC so far this season.
Althoiagh it's stiU early in the season, here at BeaverSports we thought we'd take a look at the current standings, lb be fair; the Firsts and Seconds have only played a couple of games, and Ikbs has asked us to emphasize that the Thirds "Haven't had a game for ages". The current leader of the pack is Ross Lucas of the Sevenths, who has alreacfy scored more in seven games this season than he did in the whole of
last season. But he's got some tough competition. Adam Stocker, wearing the stolen gold boots he bought from a dodgu geezer in Barking market, sits on nine goals. Fkbs, having played less games has scored six and Jimmy Little of the Ists has had an impressive goalscoring start to the season.
Note that in the interests of fairness (and cos the list would have been too fucking lon^, we've included no more than two playere from each team.
1st	Ross Lucas	(7 th Team)	10 goals
2nd	Adam Stocker	(5th Team)	9 goals
3rd	Fabs Joseph	(3rd Team)	6 goals
Joint 4th	Rich NichoUs	(2nd Team)	5 goals
Joint 4th	Freddie Slat	(2nd Team)	5 goals
Joint 6th	Rav Buvendra	(4th Team)	4 goals
Joint 6th	James Little	(1st Team)	4 goals
Joint 6th	Andy Scott	(1st Team)	4 goals
9th	Alex Petrov	(6th Team)	3 goals
Are Fabs' team mates berating him for another missed chance?
Can Freddy, James or Adam prevent a 7th team player from showing up their supposedly superior striking power?
The AU President Reflects...
Pete discusses Badminton, BUSA and The Barrel in his letter to AU members
Well folks, its been a pretty hectic start to the year on all fronts. The successes of the first main AU event of the year, the Welcome Party, have provided the basis for some fantastic results across the board thus far. Let us hope this continues for the foreseeable future to elevate this Institution of Academic Prowess into a centre of sporting excellence to let our domination sweep the spectrum.
A special congratulations must go to our Women's Badminton Team, as yet unbeaten in the top division of their BUSA division, a fantastic achievement. In addition, there has been some praiseworthy internal LSE competition most notably in football. Success does not only apply to openly competitive teams, newer sports such as Capoeira and Latin American dancesport have established themselves as reputable sportspersons with equally devoted attendees.
It is this sort of achievement and above all commitment on the part of the Athletics Union
and the Exec, that has led to the British University Sport's Association (BUSA) describing us as one of the most rapidly improving Sporting Universities in the country.
To sustain this level of recognised improvement the Exec are pursuing multiple projects that will benefit the sporting potential of LSE students. Traditionally the AU have always made their voices heard at the weekly Student Union General Meeting (UGM), held in the Old Theatre at 1pm every Thursday. Issues discussed affect us all - including keeping Wednesday afternoons free for sport. All too often the AU members, who traditionally congregate on the upper tier, are the sole voice of reason in the UGM, and I'd encourage you all to come along. Recent weeks have seen a pretty poor AU turn out on balcony, and we want to see more of you there!
Perhaps the most anticipated event of the AU (if not the SU) calendar approaches rapidly with the Barrel arriving on Friday of week 9, with yours truly holding a special surprise for one lucky little fresher! The Barrel is a legendary event, even if most people don't really remember what happened but one thing is certain, it not to be missed.
Until then let the good times roll, don't be rubbish and do what you fucking want!
See you at the Barrel.
i
Shetters
El Presidente
The AU Exec:
P.W.Davies@lse.ac.uk - President
J.J.Sanders@lse.ac.uk - Treasurer
D.C.Rustam@lse.ac.uk -Communications Officer
C.R.Whitcomb@lse.ac.uk - Social Secretary
A.E.Mahony@lse.ac.uk - Club Liaison Officer
H.R.Barsham@lse.ac.uk -Secretary
Important
MISSING PERSON ALERT
Have you seen this man?
Answering to the name of 'Jarlath O'Hara'. Believed to be employed as the LSESU Sports Officer. Last seen two weeks ago. Concerned AU members have noted that it is so unlike him to be away at such a crucial mid-season time .
Reward not offered at time of going to press.
30
Sports
The Beaver
16 November 2004
Champagne Sevenths go for the 1930s look
Its side partings all round as the Sevenths reveal their new 'Hitler lookalike' left-back Todd Buchanan!
Nathan 'Hucknair Dobson
Champagne 7*^^^............5
Strand Poly .............1
Fortress Berrylands, Surrey Gimperiai 6*'^^................0
Champagne 7*^^^............2
Runway 1, Heathrow
There was a time when the Champagne Sevenths looked forward to this season with trepidation. We'd schooled everyone in the lowly depths of ULU Divsion 4, scoring more goals than anyone else in ULU. But along with the sweetness of winning the league, we were catapulted into the new ULU Division 3. We looked forward to the new season about as much as Anne Widdecombe's gynaecologist looks forward to his next appointment with the MP. Surely our libertarian devotion to Champagne football would be thrown to the collective wolves of ULU Division 3? For
goodness sake, we would be a Sevenths team taking on Seconds and Thirds teams - albeit from Polytechnics like GKT and Queen Mary's. However, two minutes into our tough opening fixture against UCL back in October, we had an epiphany. Ross Lucas knocked the baU past the UCL keeper, and the ball was set roUing for what could be the most spectacular season since Tottenham decided to play with five men up front and Stuart Nethercott in defence.
The season so far has seen us get a vital away win against UCL, who wiU be our main challengers for the title, then rack up scores of 9-0, 8-0
and 5-0 against King's, Imperial Medics and St Bart's respectively. We even managed to fit in a 5-1 schooling of King's Fifth team at the Fortress. Whilst achieving these wins we've racked up 36 goals, and con-ceeded only 4.
The 5-1 win against King's involved the best half of football I have witnessed at the LSE. In the first 25 minutes in which we scored aU five goals we played some excellent attacking football and our passing was superb. Everyone looked confident and able on the ball as we threaded it majestically around the park. The best goal of the game came from an excellent 50 yard cross-field
pass from Ed K-Lo, which was slotted away by one of the aU time greats of LSEFC, Garret Martin. Gairet also headed home a comer to make it roughly 80 goals in total for the FC. Other goals came from Ross, K-Lo, and surprisingly me from, of aU things, a header. After missing the start of the season through injury, Chris Walsh resumed his 'beautiful relationship' at central defence with Paul McAleavey. Riends say they are blissfully happy.
Although the first half veiy much resembled the skill and panache of York City as they beat Man Utd in the FA cup of a few years back, the second half much resembled York as
they are now, slow, fat, and shit.
The Champagne Sevenths have the second best goal difference out of aU of the ULU divisions. In the coming weeks the Sevenths face a couple of tough games in which our resolve needs to stand firm if we are to make it two promotions in a row. Which we wiU, of course.
On Wednesday the Champagne bandwagon roUed out to Heathrow to take on Gimperiai. However the Sevenths new left back Todd Buchanan (on the left of the front row in the photo accompanying this report), turned up to the match with a hairstyle clearly inspired by Adolf Hitler. You wouldn't see this on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy". (Please note: Todd wants to point out he is NOT queer).
However, his biylcreamed side parting really evokes the Wermacht 1939 era, and gives Todd that quintessential Aryan 'vibe'. The game, which finished in a 2-0 win for us was our first real test since the start of the season, yet I thought we did very well to keep it 0-0 in the first half against a very strong wind. Our defence of Paul McAleavey, Chris Walsh, Todd Buchanan and Mike Hales deserve special mention. Another Ross Lucas goal and an Ed K-Lo strike gave us a hard fought three points.
In tribute to Adolf Buchanan, the rest of the team dormed side partings for the post match team photo, which you can see on the left. Arbeit Mach Frei!
Delectable Women's Rugby take on male wrestlers
Gender Benders of Chichester too full of testosterone for the LSE Women's Rugby Team
Jen 'got a lovely Brazilian'
Bush
LSE Glamour
Pusses.......Not Very Many
Chichester Alley-
cats............................More
Chichester, Milesaway.
As we snaked our way through the country lanes past Ye Olde Tea Shoppes we were ill expecting what we would find in the creepy town of Chichester. We had inadvertantly uncovered the secret world of WWF munchkin training.
As the two teams approached the pitches there was actually theme-style music played over the loud speakers, with munchkin Hulk team followed by their trusty entourage of a million corner men. The team was slightly depleted by LSE not recognisng the importance of our dominance and making people attend classes but the mighty LSE beauties remained unfazed.
As the game started our lovely

lasses with the style and grace we command began to battle with the stocky, short-haired, gender confused beasts that comprised their team.
It was a tough time, with the divine Ellie being dump tackled from a great height, only for them to be penalised for offside. The line out looked brutal although it amused that all their calls involved the word 'rat', but with Loves competing in the air with Hannimal and Sandy looking as though they could throw her clear over the other line, the opposition
again." Cream the b * * * *!" was the rallying ciy.
The skill of the back line was executed with no fuss. Chichester had two physios on hand who spent more time on the pitch than most of their players - we thought that boys didn't cry?! We however had two secret weapons: Fern and Yvette replaced Amanda and Laura who had had an immensely awesome first half. Vince .the bus driver started to get mean and tried to start a fight with their coach, but settled for stealing their equiptment instead.
The game was both long and tough but the defending of 'too lovely for words but still a domi-natrix' Kay, 'I may look sweet but I'll kick your ass' Sharon and Welsh winger wonger Indeg kept
their scoring down and kept their physio busy.
The aftermath provided enlightermient to Katy's breeding and made Hannah tackle her phobia of communal showers, with the mantra face forward with a sneaky peek left and right.
There was also the satisfaction of one of their players not attending the bar as she had an essay to write and "just can't really get the hang of sentences". In the day and age of lesser academic institutions, we have to be glad they could return to the comedy playacting exposed during the game.
Wednesday night once again saw us crooning up on stage to the evident delight of all AU folk before proceeding to Walkabout for a few misdemeanours.
were getting frustrated and started to get rather too violent for comfort.
It was also a show of defiance that when faced with The Rock's ugly sister eight times over our scrum not only held its own but also won against the head, a tribute to Hester, Ruth, Anna and Tastie. The demon Katy was also flying off to take out their number nine, yes she was an England player but it didn't stop her crying for her mama. Not a flicker of guilt crossed our minds; rather we smiled and hoped for it to happen


The Beaver
16 November 2004
Sports
Fishlock loses LSE goal virginity!
The Mighty Mighty First Team show Charlie Robinson some true LSE K-Waiity
Gaz' The Pirate'Carter
LSE Footy 1 sts..................3
Pikey Holloway................1
Fortress Berrylands, Surrey
Life wasn't easy for Charlie Robinson. His upbringing had been tough, even before his father left them to pursue his desire to live as a she-male on the beaches of Brazil. From the age of four his mother would beat him everyday with whatever came to hand, a wooden spoon, a rake, a cricket bat. Meals were infrequent and almost inevitable frugal. A diet of Cheetos and Social Security milk left him bow-legged and squat. When Charlie was finally freed from this enduring hell by the timely entrance of the RSPCC, he was enrolled at the local young offenders institute, the state taking no chances with a boy whose IQ had been tested at a measly 24, and spelled his name with a '6'. In his three years at a Borstal institute, Charlie's anus took one hell of a pounding. He was eventually released with a GNVQ in speaking and a gold star for being successfully toilet-trained. Left to roam the wild streets of London, Charlie's miserable existence worsened, when he was forced to work as a toilet attendant in Cheapskates, receiving never-
Sara Wleyand Ami Parisa
Netball Sexy Sixes.........10
Rejected GKT 4ths.........24
The Land of the Beautiful
The fabulous new addition to toe NetbaU Club, the brand new 6th team had their debut match against the rejects of the GKT NetbaU Club, armed with their coaches, 3rd team players and slightly suspicious butch "women" they obviously knew that it would be no walkover StUl finding our feet, our random choice of positions meant that they had a head start. Any shooting attempts made (despite not having a proper shooter) were blocked by their 8-foot giantess of a goalkeeper
The first two quarters saw them storm ahead in the lead with their two midget goal-shooting machines. They'd obviously spent more time in

t*
fA.
ending torrents of abuse from drunken UCL students, whilst perfimiing their filthy hands and handing out Chupa-Chups. Destitute and alone, Charlie found solace in calling the numbers of transsexual sex-lines and hanging up before they answered. He ate cardboard, and drank the water that collected in puddled heaps throughout the Central London area. Too maladjusted to show his face in daylight, he became a creature of the night, and sank into such despair that his feral howls of anguish could be heard as far away as Beckton. Wishing that he had never survived the abortion, Charlie felt his existence to be a stain on the cosmic balance. The Lord's grand plan had somehow contrived to create such a downtrodden, wretched delinquent.
At the end of all reason, and having begun to drink the residue left in urinals by the blue freshener bars, Charlie realised he had
Netball boot camp instead of concentrating on a proper degree. Their sly pushing and shoving to tiy and deter us from getting the ball appeared to be having an effect. Gradually we started to push things forward and fulfil our potential as the new star players of the Netball club, but our flowing passes weren't rewarded with goals
By the third quarter it was 21-3, but we still had time. Our tactical position swapping with the two Stephs and Georgie on the attacking side and Ami in the centre meant that we had finally found a winning formula. The midgets attempts to shoot were foiled by Captain Sara's strategic blocking and general intimidation. Arti's artful dodging and intercepting meant that the midgets were left standing midgetly on their ovra. Lucinda charged around and stuck with her shooter and made a number of good blocks. We entered the fourth quarter with the sexy Holbom girls leading the attack.
With their earlier dirty tactics stUl fresh in our minds, we powered our way through winning every centre pass and scared the shit out of them. George and Ami bounced aroimd the court and managed to
only one more rung to sink to. Royal Holloway accepted his application with glee, and immediately began to show off their smartest and most able student. He wowed the Holloway academics with his ability to write his own name, and count up to ten, and he so impressed the Holloway football coach with his skill in standing upright that he was instantly made First Team captain. Imagining his life couldn't possibly get any worse than this, his dismay at seeing the ULU fixture list left him slack-jawed and cross-eyed. Holloway had been drawn against the Mighty Mighty LSEFC First Team. Dxiring his days as a part-time vagrant, Charlie had often seen the fine specimens of men that were the First Team, fall out of Walkabout on Shaftsbury Avenue and lop the short distance to Crispy Duck before racially abusing the waiters. He had pictures of them in his hovel, and he stared at them each
penetrate their defence. Their extra weight meant that they couldn't keep up with our girls' speed on the court. The two Stephs were lying in wait and each low pass allowed them to get the ball by the goal. The giants were helpless, however they did attempt imlawful kicking at our players. It was then up to the two Stephs to score. Confidence was a little low where shooting was concerned due to earlier slip-ups, but this did not deter them and went on to shoot 7 goals consecutively, not conceding any. The score was 21-10 with 6 minutes to go and a comeback win was potentially within our grasp.
The rejects sensed this and were getting frustrated because we would all play and look fabulous at the same time. The full force of their reject-bitchiness was imleashed and it was apparent they were calculating a plot to foU us.
Steph (WA) was poised on the Une ready to pass to Steph (GS) who was waiting to score our 11th goal (and on our way to victory) when suddenly the bint that was marking Steph managed to foul herself by slipping on her own sweat. Subbing on both their coaches and rearranging positions (which by the way,
day, in the vain hope that he may someday grace the same pitch as them. There was the one they called 'Airtight' (Charlie assumed it was because he did not leak any air at all, by means of some sort of large plug arrangement but he wasn't sure), the one they called Fishy Fishlock (Charlie had heard he could be found in Beckton, but months of trawling around the God-forsaken hell-hole yielded only a strange 28-year old who insisted Charlie sleep in his bed) and a rotten specimen known as the BFG.
Gathering his band of intellectually inferior slop-badgers at the Berrylands pitches thirty minutes late, Charlie's attempted team-talk back down when he realised that most of his players couldn't read, write or understand simple English. With Charlie's urinal-soaked, beating-frequent, cardboard-eating upbringing making him the highest caste member present in the Holloway team, he set about attempting to lead by example.
In an uneven contest, Holloway were schooled three goals to one. Charlie's hero, Fishy Fish Fishlock, bagged a brace (although, Charlie ruminated unhappily, it could have been -should have been - about six) and Big John had smashed in a close-range header from a sweetly-delivered corner from The Littlest Paolo. The Airtight one had been strangely deflated, but Charlie still would.
The Mighty Mighty First Team role on, and Charlie can be found in all good public toilets. And some bad ones.
even we know is illegal half-way though a quarter) disrupted our winning flow.
We were disorientated, tired and in desperate need of alcohol. With aU their butch muscle back in defence and their fresh centre they managed to get the ball to their littie midgets, who scored 3 more goals, taking us to the final score.
We played fabulously for our first match and despite losing we still remain the ehte 6th teaim. In our post-match talk we concluded that we are definitely too good for the league and instead our efforts are better concentrated on playing in theAU.
_^
Sports In
I	•	^
brief
Men's Bugby defeat
An away game to Surrey University saw LSE Men's 1st team Rugby lose by the tightest of margins, 3-0. Club Captain Mat Browne said that the circumstances surrounding the game were a large part to do with the loss: lack of game experience in recent weeks for fear of LSE steroidal front row, injuiyto LSE backs, and as always the 'tosser' ref. He also cited newcomerRyan Doyle as a worthy replacement for Pete, Tupac and Clem and someone to watch in the future.
Football round-up
It was a mixed bag of rraults for
this w^k. Captain Drew ccmM only be content-
a 3-3 draw against Strang
Meanwhile the bad lucK which plagues the 4th team continued with a 7-0 defeat by GiCT. the 2nds and 3rds didn't piay but congratulations must go to the 6th team. They annihOated Imperial Medics 5-1, and finally put a smile on Captain Matt Bawden's face which has been miserable of late. For details of the Ists and Champagnes, see full-length articles.
Netliall Besults
The first team encountered their toughest challenge yet against Imperial Medics but came off supreme with a 32-28 scoreline.; Praise was given to both Captain Jade and new centre Fiona. The 3rd team didn't fare quite so well losing to RVC. However credit is still deserved as they played fantastically against a team with international players. The 4ths also lost, but Captain Eras Rixon noted "we wern't completely raped, we showed potential for future games, we just need to be more aggressive". The 5ths prevented a mediocre day for LSE Netball by beating Imperial Srds in a tightly contested game. Praise was awarded to the efforts of Libby,Tamsin and Clare,
Men's Hockey stalemate
The first team could only come away with a draw against thj Koyai Vets and a goaless one a that. It should in. the wonis of ^ rather depressed goalie have be^ 10-0 to but there were many aiissed opportumties which thd team failed to capitalise on. James Potter was awarded man of the match for his continued effo^. Hopefully hockey fortunes will also change shortly for the 2nds who weren't beaten but who can't seem to get a game. .	;
The Barrel ~
Yes its that time again and top of many team discussions are ideas for Barrel outfits. How controversial, how sexy and how many mixed grills? Just remember, BeaverSports would like to compile a full gallerj' of photos so make sure your outfit is camera friendly i.e. it won't get drenched in Stella and vomit.
Netball Sixth team too good for the League
orts
Howard knows the importance of league tables. Do j-ou? See page 28.
Issue 608
16 November 2004
LSE Football beauties defeat Queen Mary's uglles
Women's Football stick five goals past Queen Mary's. And they only had eight players!
Antonia 'Henrik Larsson' Strom
Women's Football
•••••••••••«
Queen Mary's..................3
Fortress Berrylands, Surrey
Sunday was to start like any other typical day for a Women's Fbotball team player..waking up with a drool covered pillow, head heavy from the night before and only a slight clue from the muddy shoes on the floor where the heck the bruise on your knee came from.
But, unbeknownst to those planning to throw some clothes on their nudity and running off to meet the rest of the team at Waterloo, they would have to play a 3-2-2 against the manly Queen Mary, (probably not a first in football history, given
Liechtenstein has a national team).
The match was to go from start to finish with eight seriously hard-core LSE footballers versus eleven of coach Short Shorts (imdeniably the answer to the question chanted by the Kkes of Homer and Ibm Cruise) infantry. Not for a second did the team behave like an understaffed bar
full of newly retired AA members, with marathon trained midfielder, Jeannie Addison, scoring the first goal setting the pace after only minutes into the first half.
Seconds later the (^een Mary troops managed to deliver an equaliser while the virgin goalie Nasreen Hussain was wiping off
some of the blood from her bruised eye-brow, ruiming to the game fresh from a boxing match earlier that morning.
Who said girls can't fi^t? I'd like to see Rocky in the ring with Ren, wouldn't be surprised if he came out with two black eyes and blood squirting 'KUl BiU Style' from his nose.
Short Shorts couldn't hang onto his draw for long, not with the likes of Michelle and Laura up front pestering the 'man' (it seriously must have been, although I must admit I never checked) screaming 'AWAY' whenever the ball came even remotely close to the penalty box, as if that wasn't the obvious thing to do. The funny thing was, it wasn't like they were a bad team, it's just they were lacking something...I'd like to say it was balls but they seemed to have more than we did! (Let the record show that LSE did NOT have more than one ball on the pitch, that being the match ball.)
By the time the half-time whistle was upon us, we were up 3-1, with pretty much everyone getting a
chance at a goal. Annie Slemrod's unconquerable sldll started the second half with another goal. With Laura, Michelle, Annie and Jeannie all one goal each, the race was on to see who would get the next one (at this point we had long forgotten that we were actually playing against another team).
With RJ £ind Jade keeping our half so quiet their sweeper was prompted to say what any smart person would say at that point; "We can't score when the ball is in OUR half!" Next thing you know Jade is pulling a Roberto Carlos run up the pitch sending in a Beckham-style cross to Michelle who power shoots it into the back of the net for a fifth goal for the team with three men down.
1\vo more acts of desjjeration from the Queens before the game finishes 5-3. Not for a second did I feel like we were playing with eight instead of eleven, we dominated with the calm and collected control and elegance, envied and feared by aU in the ULU Women's Premiership League, lb the rest of the season, aU I have to say is..JBRING IT ON!
Ultimate Disc get whipped
Do you like playing with your disc?
Ultimate Disc...........A few
Assorted Polys.........More
Clapham Common
Wfe all arrived (well most of us) at Clapham Common at the ridiculous time of 8:30am last Saturday to play in LSE's second ever Ultimate tournament. Annqyingly our opening game against Surrey was then postponed an hour, giving us all the chance to complain about the extra hour we could have had in bed - but also meaning we had half a chance to wake up.
It seems we aU actually needed longer than that hour, as we had a rubbish start and were 8-2 down by half time. In the second half we came right back into it as Surrey got tired.
We still lost though, final score 11-6.
Next match was against Imperial and they were, um.. .better than us. Basically we got hammered, ^^^thin about a minute we were playing to get 'just one score' to save face and we so nearly did. Final score was Imperial 12 (or maybe more), LSE nU.
No problem, fifth place was stiU up for grabs and next were Brunei. You may remember a fortnight ago Brunei beat us 10-1 and then went on to win the tournament. However, they were looking a bit rubbish this time and had just been hammered ty Surrey, who weren't that good, so we were qviietiy confident.
We were stacked in this game. The scores were fairly even for a while, but then we switched to a zone defence and destroyed them.
We had great movement and flow with the Disc, and popped it into the end zone each time with pre-
cision. Padget Fulcher was our premier goal hanger this time - 3 or 4 in this game alone. Final score was LSE 9, Brunei 3.
The last game was to decide between 5th and 6th place and was against King's. It was a tough fought match and was dose all the way through. Our defence was great as usual but on the offence we were making a lot of unforced errors. Lots of poor passes and dropped catches meant we did not really ever get flowing. It was stiU competitive even with our mistakes and the final score was Kings 8, LSE 6. Well beat them next time.
It was another enjoyable tournament even though we finished three losses to one win. Next tournament includes non-uni teams, so well see how we do. Everybocfy is still welcome to join us - come along to Lincoln's Inn on a Wednesday afternoon.
The Ultimate Look-a-IIke!
After the runaway success of last week's space fiUer "AU Lookalikes", we were snowed under with people suggesting their friends and enemies for this revered column. However one contribution stood head and shoulders above aU others - and it was suggested by none other than serial wrongdoer Fkbian Joseph. We think youH agree, it's an uncanny likeness....
Craig Harris, Football Club Captain
A pikey Gollum from Lord of the Rings
Team of the Week
Dom Rustam selects the best players (and ^ himself} from this week's games.
Key:
^I^FIrst Team Player Second Team Playef
^Bh^Thrd Team Player ^^Fourth Team Player ^1^ Fifth Team Player Sbdh Team Player Seventh Team Player
¦-M
Ifeam of the wedc
The Fifth teem- picture this; you are 3-0 down against King's, there are 20 minutes to go,. But sometimes, just sometimes, something special happens. Filter Adam Stocka; whose quickfire hat-trick ensured that the fifth team would be able to show their faces in the Hins that night Great stuff gitys!
Star of the wedc
Adam Stacker - It was going to be (some might say 'should have been') me because I scored two goals against the Second team. But apparently that would be far too contn3versiaI..ba^tards! So a
really really big and 'genuine' congratulations to Adam 'Filth' Stocker - for some amazing hat-trick he scored against King's.
Sdhoolbpy of the weds:
Gareth 'Lets pretend to be pirates' Carter - Fbr savagely abusing the late, great JiU Dando with a hideous joke in his back page article last week. Indeed, it is at bleak times like this when we ask ourselves where is the love? PS -Yasser Arafat, on his deathbed, said he wanted to be buried in a Newcastle shirt. Spurs shorts and Rangers socks. He said he wanted to be buried in the Gazza Strip!
Send youi' articles, photos and lool<alikes suggestions to - thebeaver.sp0rts(g)lse.ac.uk - Email us before 2pm on Friday to guarantee entry in the next week's issue!