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1 October 2006 Issue 648 The newspaper of the LSESU
Climate change
a special analysis
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|| Cocaine Issue
NEWS4
High Holborn Bar still not open_:
Paranormal activity at LSE
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PartB 4-5
How the hockey
team won
Cocaine: time for legalisation?
Human rights protesters storm South African Minister's talk
Ali Moussavi
Senior Reporter
Angry protestors repeatedly disrupted a public lecture featuring South African Foreign Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, at the Old Theatre last Wednesday.
The talk entitled, 'The United Nations in the 21®^ century - a perspective from a developing country' was interrupted by protestors from the Free-Zim Youth movement, a growing group of pro-democracy activists. The protestors demanded that South Africa play a more active role in forcing reform in Zimbabwe.
They were accompanied by British gay rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, who has campaigned frequently on the issue of human rights in Zimbabwe.
A statement released by the London School of Economics (LSE) said, "[The School] became aware of press reports indicating that some people from Rree-Zim Youth UK had planned to protest at a public lecture by Dr Zuma."
The police were informed in accordance with standard practice when high-level dignitaries speak at the School. Security was also higher than usual with bag checks in place.
Despite the increased security presence, a protestor managed to conceal a folded paper banner which he presented to the audience upon interrupting Dr Zuma within the first few minutes of her speech. The protestor demanded that South Africa "stop protecting Mugabe."
Chair of the meeting, LSE Director Howard Davies, made several attempts to ask the protestor to reserve Editorial Comment: Page 6

Dodgy Dossier' threatens to damn Dynamiq
Sidhanth Kamath
Executive Editor
Information released by the London School of Economics (LSE) Living Wage Campaign exclusively to The Beaver alleges gross managerial negligence and statutory infringements within the LSE's cleaning operations, slamming
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the LSE and its current cleaning contractors.
The so-called 'Dodgy Dossier' contains detailed descriptions of the problems currently plaguing the School's cleaning structure, and alleges that Dynamiq Cleaning, one of the contractors the LSE outsources cleaning operations to, has been guilty of gross exploitation of its cleaning
staff.
While Dynamiq have denied all the allegations leveled at them, the Campaign is determined to convince the School of its accusations and to rethink the current contracts.
The Beaver has previously reported that workers are paid at hourly rates that do not match up to the Greater London Authority (GLA)'s rec-
ommended 'Living Wage' pay structure that ensures that Londoners' wages reflect the significantly higher costs of living in the capital, and are exposed to payment irregularities and questionable working practices.
It has also been implied that there could have been contraventions of Transfer of
Features; Middle East Oil
C&A: Marching for the right cause? PartB: Drug movies
Cash cows we aren t

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02 IBeaverlsi October 2006
NEWS
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c&s
NO-CONFIDENCED
UGM temporarily suspended
GALLOWAY SPEAKS
MP addresses audience at LSE amidst Labour Society protests
LIVING WAGE
Campaign releases dossier of evidence
Blair School project denied by LSE;
Kigli H.ofborii Bai'	i-^osed;
New Confiicius Institute at School;
Michaelmas elections end; results unveiled
Significantly lower voter turnout at this year's elections compared with previous years By-election for third position on ULU Council; nominations to be re-opened
Rajan Patel Senior Reporter
The results of all the elections contested in the LSE Students' Union (SU) Michaelmas elections have now been confirmed.
Richard Rickards - the former cleaner - was elected as SU Honorary President, defeating Jed Bartlett - the fictional president on the TV show 'The West Wing' - by 563 votes to 311.
Rickards' proposer, Sam Causton, said that his election victory "shows that students know an injustice when they see one" and demonstrates support for "one of the most dedicated members of the LSE community."
Huda Ghalia was confirmed as Honorary Vice-President. Ziyaad Lunat, Chair of the LSE's Palestine Society, claimed that the SU Executive now had a duty to "unreservedly support the Palestinian plight and the student campaign at the LSE," and hoped that this year's Raising and Giving (RAG) week would include the endorsement of a Palestinian charity.
Alex Finnegan and James Caspell were comfortably elected as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Officer and Postgraduate Officer respectively.
Finnegan thanked his campaign team and said: "Come Monday morning, my first priority is LGBT Awareness Week in week eight to make sure we
have a whole series of events	need for an immediate "post-
planned."	grad forum" and greater dia-
Caspell said that he hoped	logue with PhD course reps. He
to "continue the fight for envi-	added: "They've got a lot of
Michaehiias Election Results
Charles "Richard" Rickarcls	363
Jed Bartlet	311
Hilda Ghalia	615
Aiuishka Slienoy	21
Sean Closs	14
Elected
Elected
..........
Elected
	^ *	
Alex Finnegau	444	Elected
Yusuf Osmaa		
		'JM ^ ^ a
James "JJ" Caspell	520	Elected
Dm tri Miti'ol;i!io'/		
Elle Dodd	309	Elected
Sacba Robehmed	2S3.83	Elected
Hudda Kliaireh		
Fadliil Bakeer-Marker	253	Elected
Eddy Fonyodi	I&1.2S	Elected
Aithiir Kiebbers	168.34	Elected
Louise Robinson	1-3.56	Elected
Zoe SiillivaiJ	144.6	Elected
Fadliil Bakeer-Markav	300	Elected
Aled Fisher	233.13	Elected
Doug Oliver	251.98	Elected
.1.1 ^ ^		
Xada Mansy	406	Elected
Ai'thur Ki-ebbers	400	Elected
Graphic: Mohammed Nurul Azam
Graphic: Mohammed Nurul Azam
ronmental and social justice" in grievances regarding supervi-his new role, and identified the sion in particular which
haven't been dealt with."
WU Barber, SU Returning Officer, pointed out the low voting turnout in the General Course election, with imder ten percent of General Course students voting. Anushka Shenoy emerged victorious in this race with 21 votes. Shenoy thanked the Green Party for "encouraging me to run in the first place" and focused on the need for General Course students to integrate into the School community.
The contest for positions on the School's Academic Board proved to be the most closely fought of the night. Eleanor Dodd was the clear winner with 309 votes, but only three-fifths of a vote separated the second and third-placed candidates, Sacha Robehmed and Hudda Khaireh respectively. Speaking afterwards, Khaireh expressed her disappointment but said: "It's just the way it is, that's student politics."
Both Dodd, who is keen to achieve "better academic equity and a more active academic board," and Robehmed declared themselves "surprised" and "overjoyed" with the result. Robehmed said, "Elle and I can and will be a very effective team. We work together in People and Planet...and have similar viewpoints on academic issues."
Fadhil Bakeer-Markar, Doug Oliver and Aled Fisher were selected as National Union of Students (NUS) Council Delegates, polling 309, 252 and 235 votes respectively. Oliver said that he hoped to make the NUS "a more liberal
and democratic organisation."
Bakeer-Markar also won a seat on the Court of Governors and will sit alongside the four other newly-elected members Eddy Fonyodi, Arthur Krebbers, Louise Robinson and Zoe S^livan.
Bakeer-Markar was keen to thank all his supporters and went on to say: "I feel that I enierged as the winner in both because races because of the trust placed on me by the majority of students. They voted for policy, a person with action who actually gets things done."
Nada Mansy and Arthur Krebbers were elected as University of London Union (ULU) Council Delegates, with a by-election to take place for the third position in the near future. Mansy was delighted by
the result and said that she was glad to "have Arthur on board...to show me the ropes."
Krebbers highlighted the "democratic mandate" he felt he had now been given by his election to both the Court of Governors and ULU Council, and said that he hoped to champion "the relevance of ULU" to LSE students.
After the elections, Wil Barber told The Beaver: "Although the number of candidates and turnout dropped, the number of votes per candidate, in what is usually a popularity contest, increased. I'm extremely happy with the number of first years and new faces - especially compared with this time last year when all the 'careerists' managed to prevent any freshers from getting elected."
Photograph: Ali Moussavi
Votes being counted post election

Protestors interrupt Zuma talk
Continued from front page
questions and comments until the end of the speech. However, LSE security were required to enter the gallery and escort the protestor out of the Old Theatre.
Tatchell then approached the stage with a poster reading 'ANC betrays black Zimbabwe'. He was restrained by security officials as he approached the stage but was still able to make his protest vocally, addressing the Minister.
"Mugabe is murdering thousands of people...and your government, who I supported, I gave my life for 25 years to support the ANC, and now you do nothing," he said.
He was greeted with loud applause and cheers from the audience and was followed by another protestor from the gallery, who began challenging Dr Zuma. By this point, the Minister had left the podium and taken a seat as the disorder continued.
Tatchell was removed from the lecture by police officers and LSE security. As he was being ejected, he told The Beaver: "It's quite disgraceful that Dr Zuma will not respond to legitimate concerns about
the massacre of black Africans in Zimbabwe by the Mugabe regime."
ICnown for his controversial 'outings' of homosexuals and political photo-stunt protests, Tatchell attempted a citizen's arrest of Robert Mugabe when the Zimbabwean leader was staying in a Brussels hotel in March 2001.
Once an ardent supporter of the Zimbabwe African National Union in the 1970s, Tatchell reflected: "During the apartheid era, the ANC appealed for international solidarity to overthrow the apartheid regime. Millions of people and governments around the world supported the freedom struggle."
"Now, when Zimbabwe is suffering under a great tyranny and black Zimbabweans call [on] South Africa to help them, the ANC government looks the other way and does nothing. It's a complete betrayal."
Zuma faced broad opposition from the audience, even after many of the protestors left the Old Theatre. A question posed by an exiled Zimbabwean human rights lawyer provoked jeers from the audience for Zuma's suggestion that very little could be done by him to change the situation in Zimbabwe from exile.
Zuma herself went into exile from South Africa in 1976 as a member of the then banned African National Congress (ANC).
The involvement of police and security in removing the protestors from the premises prompted the LSE to issue the following statement, "Audience members have an opportunity to ask questions and challenge speakers in the spirit of academic debate and mutual respect. When these rights are not respected, and the chair deems it necessary to take action, we are obliged to act and uphold free speech procedures."
Zuma speaking (top); protestors outside the Old Theatre (above)
Zuma speaks on 21st centuiy UN
Jun Yung
South African Foreign Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma addressed the Old Theatre last Wednesday in a talk entitled, 'The United Nations in the 21®^ Century: a perspective from a developing country'.
The talk was part of the lecture series, 'The United Nations at 60 - relic or relevant'.
In her speech, Zuma said that the UN needed to "deal with certain issues urgently" if it wished to remain relevant. However, she also noted that the history of South Africa demonstrated the organisation's potential, highlighting the UN's role in helping to end colonialism and apartheid in the country.
Zuma claimed that the UN required structural reform to address "the asymmetrical balance of power" between the Security Council and the General Assembly, especially the veto granted to the Security Council's permanent members.
Commenting on South Africa's new role as a member
of the Security Council, she reflected on the "global responsibility" the seat brought, adding that South Africa was "convinced multilateralism remains the only hope against the challenges facing humanity today."
In the question-and-answer session, Zuma commented on many issues including. HIV/AIDS, the arms trade and the new UN Secretary-General elect.
Defending South Africa's arms sales record, Zuma said, "We do not sell arms where they may be used in a conflict area." This was met with widespread laughter from the audience.
Zuma also responded to the protests during her speech, saying that, if invited, she would be "quite willing to give a public lecture on diplomacy in Zimbabwe", but added that she would not turn the event "into a Zimbabwe lecture."
As exchanges became more heated towards the end of the session, the event Chair, LSE Director Howard Davies, quipped that the night had "reached the point of diminishing returns" and concluded the event.
NEWS
leaver I 31 October 2006
Deja vu: C&S noconfidenced
Patrick Cullen Senior Reporter
Last week's Union General Meeting (UGM) came to a sudden end after the Constitution and Steering Committee (C&S) suffered another vote of no-confidence.
This is the second time that such a motion has been passed against C&S in the last two academic terms.
The motion was proposed by Alex Teytelboym and seconded by Alex Baker in response to a decision made at an emergency meeting of C&S on 25 October.
The Committee advised PuLSE radio - through the Students' Union (SU) Returning Officer Wil Barber -to broadcast the election manifestos of Louise Robinson and James Caspell every hour from nine am, as well as after the news broadcast.
This decision was made following official complaints from Robinson and Caspell with regards to the content of last week's 'Hacktavist' and 'Union Jack' columns in The Beaver. Both alleged that the columns contained statements which were biased against them and would thus potentially hurt their chances of election at the recently held Michaelmas elections.
However, Baker claimed that the decision was in breach of "the Office of Communications (OfCOM) rules, PuLSE regulations regarding elections and contrary to industry 'best practice.'"
He went on to say: "At the end of the day, it's a legal mat-ten OfCOM specifically forbids us to broadcast some of the manifestos. If we broadcast one, [we should] broadcast them all."
Teytelboym told The Beaver that he didn't expect the motion to pass easily, but believed that the UGM "clearly shared our indignation."
Kayt Berry, PuLSE Station Manager, also criticised the decision. She said: "I understand the decision was very rushed but they could have asked us just to make an apology on behalf of the media group and, for example, take the other campaigners off the street for an hour or two rather than asking us to play the two candidates'manifestos into the polling booth."
Berry went on to outline why she supported the motion of no confidence: "I understand [C&S] needed to make a quick decision, but on many levels I personally believe they went about it in the wrong manner. For example, I would have appreciated something in writing explaining why they could overrule PuLSEfm, so I had something to show my production group, how they came to this decision, and exactly what they wanted me to say on air."
Baker and Berry also told The Beaver that they were unhappy at being unable to contact C&S before the vote of no-confidence as. the media group were not represented at the Committee's emergency meeting.
Berry said: "I was invited to the C&S meeting but I told
Photograph: John I'hilpott
Caspell (left centre) in discussion with Teytelboym (right), while Tam and Robinson look on
them I could not attend and would be happy to meet first thing in the morning."
C&S member James Kanabar told The Beaver that the suggestion to place a recorded message on PuLSE was "suggested and champi-oned"by Ali Dewji. He went on to say: "Such was the vehemence of his support for this that I made the assumption he ' had cleared it with the Station Manager. I don't blame Ali for this because we all decided at the time that his suggestion was the best course of action."
Other members of C&S felt that the vote of no-confidence was unfair. James Ketteringham, C&S Secretary, told The Beaver that he was
aware of the validity of some people's concerns, but believed the motion of no-confidence was "excessive."
He went on to say: "C&S worked hard to resolve what I believe to be a genuinely unfair situation. I still believe C&S recommendations were appropriate and that we were correct."
Carys Morgan, C&S Vice-Chair, told The Beaver: "The vote of no-confidence arose from the feeling felt by many, often including myself, that there are one or two individuals who are setting the agenda for the SU, against the wishes of students, particularly when it comes to paper throwing."
Morgan also stated that she
believed that Barber was to blame for "not thoroughly vetting The Beaver" as it was his responsibility to restore "parity in the elections."
Many of those removed from their positions on C&S intend to stand for re-election.
However, Ranil Jayawardena told The Beaver, "C&S is a dull, lifeless committee most of the year; it is only at elections that we are asked to do anything interesting. Union politics is largely irrelevant to most students, as can be seen by the usually dire turnout at UGMs. I would like to make a real difference to students in a role that would be able to yield real results."
Editorial Comment: Page 6
I'm not a Cash CoW: students march against top-up fees
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Students participate in the national demonstration against top-up fees
Louise Robinson
Students from all over the country marched on Trafalgar Square last Sunday afternoon in a rally against university top-up fees.
The event, organised by the National Union of Students (NUS), aimed to put pressure on the government to consider reviewing its higher education policy with five-figure debts now a reality for almost all students upon graduation.
LSE Students Union (SU)
Treasurer, Joel Kenrick, said: "Access to university should be based on grades, not bank balance, and that's why students rallied together to campaign on this issue."
The march began at the University of London Union (ULU) at Malet Street, before passing the LSE and continuing down the Thames, past Westminster before ending at Trafalgar Square.
NUS President Gemma Tumelty and former Labour MP Tony Benn addressed the audience. UNISON, the UK's largest trade union, also erect-
ed television screens. The event's organisers released 3,000 balloons which were used to symbolise the maximise top-up fee British universities can charge students.
Neeraj Patel, a first-year undergraduate at the LSE, said; "This was my first march as a student, and the atmosphere of unity was really fantastic. The turnout from the LSE was promising considering the high volume of international and postgraduate students who study here, but student diversity certainly emerged on the march."^ ^ ,
Alcohol banned from Food Fair
Patrick Grainann News Editor
It has been announced that alcohol will not be sold during next Monday's International Food Fair in the Quad. The bar in the Quad will also remain closed throughout the event.
The Food Fair is an annual event that takes place as part of the LSE Students' Union (SU)'s RISE week, which aims to celebrate London's cultural diversity and oppose racism.
In a statement to The Beaver, SU Anti-Racism Officer Shanela Haque, head of the food fair organising team, explained why the decision had been taken: "The aim of RISE Week is to promote tolerance and acceptance of different ethnic and religious minorities. As alcohol is disliked in many faiths, the decision was taken in order to accommodate this so that more people feel more comfortable about attending the fair."
However, Arthur Krebbers, SU Societies Officer, pointed out the importance of alcoholic drinks to some national cultures. He said: "Whilst I respect the SU's decision, I personally f?el.tolerance runs both ways.
A wide variety of national-cultural societies consider certain alcoholic beverages as a noteworthy part of their culture, and in the end people have the right to decide what they would like to consume. Having said.that, I have received no complaints from societies on this matter and the Union bars will remain open."
President of the LSE SU's Lager and Real Ale Society (LARA), Wil Barber, told The Beaver that he hoped the decision would lead to an improvement of the standard of food served at this year's event.
He said: "The banning of alcohol is a shame but hopefully it will mean that societies will concentrate more on the food this year - which going by some societies efforts last year vrill definitely be a good thing. It's a food fair not a drinks festival after all."
Haque went on to point out that she had also yet to receive any complaints from any national or cultural societies regarding the ban.
She said: "Promisingly, they seem to be willing to accommodate this new rule in the spirit of RISE and in the cause of tolerance."
Political parties are also forbidden from having stalls at the event.
Union Jack
Has the UGM permanently descended into a farce? Everyone was saying it had - even the Sabbs.
It's not normal to have a UGM in election week, but thanks to Bozo, the clown of a Returning Officer, there were so few candidates and so few people voting that the Old Theatre was pretty packed with people looking for another laugh at the SU.
The paper-throwing ban got off to a strong start - virtually all the AU had brought extra phone books, and Tammy's very limp attempt stop 'Gay' meaning 'rubbish' fell as flat as Clem's attempt to relaunch his political career.
Jack particularly enjoyed the fuss he created last week by branding J Cesspit 'unelec-table'.
Apparently, despite recently losing an election by a margin of 350 votes to a candidate who didn't campaign, James Caspell is defintitely NOT completely unelectable.
Congratulations J-man. Your antics keep us in beer and biscuits. Stand again.
PuLSE made sterling efforts, broadcasting his election rants hourly, at C&S's insistence.
They paid the price. They were the Lee Harvey Oswald to the AU's Jack Ruby. The unconstitutional constitutional amendment was not really a grand idea. C&S were promptly no-confidenced. It's Groundhog Day again.
There's been a lot of recycling going on with C&S members lately (this being the third time we've changed them in less than 6 months, and we were on holiday for 3 months), but Jack predicts this to be the death of several C&S hacks -flaky Douglas Simons, Courtney Jefferson, James Kandahar (who boasts about having C&S on his CV - imagine what a CV that must be!) and most definitely James 'William Hague' Ketteringham after his little temper-tantrum and storming out.
Quick to replace them are likely to be hordes of AU-types eager to consign to history their useless judgements and Caspell-sympathies.
And with no C&S, there was no more UGM - closed 25 minutes early. What can we conclude from this week?
Well, perhaps Bozo Barber will make his best decision as Returning Officer and resign -now he's halved the number of candidates, watched the turnout plummet and got C&S fired by not reading through the The Beaver properly.
Perhaps American Idiot will finally realise that unlike at his mass-debates, people at the UGM are not convinced by anything he says.
Perhaps tlie other Sabbs will stop him getting up and trying to steal the show every week.
Perhaps Jimmy Tammy wiU start showing the leadership he's supposed to and perhaps now the UGM will stop being such a freak show - but with Caspell on the Exec, Jack doesn't think so. At least now we can no-confidence him...
The Beaver would like to apologise for the comments made in this column last week
041 leaver 131 October 2006
NEWS

Bar at High Holbom remains closed
Timothy Root
News Editor
The bar at the London School of Economics' (LSE) High Holborn residence remains closed, five weeks after students moved in.
While it has been open on a few occasions, particularly during Freshers' Week, it has not been fully functioning at any point throughout the term. The Beaver has learnt that since the full-time bar manager left his position. Hall management have been reassessing the bar's merits.
Dr Tim Forsyth, High Holborn Warden, told The Beaver ¦ of his concerns: "Residence bars tend to be used by a lot of people on only a few occasions a year, such as at the beginning of the year, and then are used by only a small proportion of people after this time."
He added: "There are some students who never go into a bar because they simply do not want to be in an atmosphere where alcohol is served."
Financial concerns have

Photograph: Cartwngh't
also been noted. Forsyth went on to say that on average, the bar at High Holborn was not making a profit.
However, Victoria Uriarte, Front of House Manager at High Holborn, assured The Beaver that Hall management was currently looking for a new manager so that the bar could re-open properly.
She said: "When the previous bar manager resigned there was talk of closing the bar down. It has not been greatly used in recent years.
However, we have come to the decision that the service it offers the students is more important than the profits."
It remains unclear in precisely what form the bar will re-open in the future.
Forsyth noted, "We want to make the bar more than just a place where some people go and drink alcohol in the evening. For example, it could serve coffee, have newspapers etc."
Additionally, Uriarte noted that the bar may only open for shorter periods of time than in previous years.
"It's not that bad because we don't really know what we're missing," Philip Ruhland, a first-year High Holborn resident told The Beaver.
"Having said that, we elected a student committee to take care of these sorts of things and I'd like to know what exactly they're doing about it, because undoubtedly having the bar open will improve the hall atmosphere," he continued.
The High Holborn Student Committee was unavailable for comment.
LSE Labour Society lacks RESPECT for Galloway
Photograph: Liam Chambers
Galloway gets animated during his speech
Patricl< Cullen Senior Reporter
George	Galloway,
Minister of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green and Bow, spoke at the London School of Economics last IXiesday, during which members of the LSE Students' Union (SU) Labour Society made a brief protest.
The talk, entitled 'Britain after Blair', was organised by the SU RESPECT Coalition Society and also featured Dilwara Begum, a RESPECT Councillor in Tower Hamlets.
The protest by the'Labour Society was held at the start of the event and saw leaflets enti-
tled 'Some Facts About George Galloway' being distributed. The leaflets contained past quotes from Galloway as well as a photograph of him dressed as a cat, from his appearance on the Big Brother television show.
During his speech. Galloway gestured to the Labour Society members in the front row and accused them of being "the people who brought you Iraq."
Chair of the Labour Society, Amy Williams, accused some RESPECT Society members of attempting to forcibly remove the protestors.
She told The Beaver, "We decided to organise against Galloway, and hold a small stunt. Someone from
RESPECT came over and manhandled me, snatching away my leaflets and being very aggressive in my face. I got the leaflets back after a few minutes. At the end the guy, I don't know who he was, gave me a note of apology."
"When Galloway came in [we] stood up with large posters with facts and quotes about him. He kept referring to us during the speech. It was a legitimate and peaceful protest, the only time it wasn't was when the RESPECT guy had a go at me," she said.
She continued, saying that, "RESPECT claim to want free speech but became very defensive when we held a small scale protest in our own union building. We had as much right to be there, and listened respectfully, no pun intended, throughout his speech."
A member of the audience, Andy Hallett, told The Beaver, "Galloway was as always a superb speaker although I disagree with nearly everything he said...it was funny how he destroyed Labour Society's pathetic attempts to smear him [rather] than discussing policy."
The LSE RESPECT Society declined to talk to The Beaver about the event or the accusations regarding the attempted removal of both the leaflets and the protestors. The society did, however, send an e-mail to its members in which they declared that "the meeting drew 160 people and was very positive to our politics."
Galloway later apologised for comments he made during the talk when he compared the 'special relationship' between Britain and America with that of the relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
i

Confucius Institute at the LSE
Zhu Song
A Confucius Institute for Business, London, was launched at the LSE on Wednesday.
Chairman Jia, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and Chairman of the 10^^ National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, officially opened the Institute when he unveiled a plaque and presented a statue of Confucius to the School.
He remarked that the launch was a milestone in pro-
viding business, language and cultural opportunities for those developing Chinese and UK hnks.
Based at the . LSE Language Centre, the Institute aims to promote Chinese for business and to foster greater understanding of business culture in China. The difference, as Nick Byrne, Director of the Language Centre, explained, is that the LSE Confucius Institute now "has an explicit business focus.
He went onto say, "in the first instance the focus will be on Chinese language for business purposes. The longer term will include promoting educational co-operation between China and the UK."
Following the opening of Confucius Institutes at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Manchester in early 2006, this is the sixth Confucius Institute to be established in the UK but the first of its kind.
The first was opened in Seoul, South Korea in late 2004, and since then many more have been launched in countries such as the US, Sweden and Germany.
There are now 80 Confucius Institutes globally in 36 countries, and the plan is to open 1000 by 2020 to match the explosion in demand for Chinese language teaching.
Moor
Chairman Jia unveils the statue of Confucius
NEWS

Living Wage dossier alleges catalogue of abuses
Continued from
front page
Undertakings Protection of Employment	(TUPE)
Regulations, which are highlighted by accusations of workers' holidays not being transferred over correctly by Cromwell when taking over the contract from the previous contractor. Cleaners' annual holidays dropped from 28 (20+8 bank holidays) to 20 days per annum (12+8 bank holidays) without any proper consultation or prior notice. Many cleaners claimed to have not been paid on bank holidays in 2005 and 2006, such as Christmas and Boxing Days, New Year's Day and 1 May.
Pay-slips included in the documents allegedly display unexplained salary adjustments. Timesheets arid other documentation are also included, providing evidence of possible breaches of statutory law on the part of the contractors.
The dossier also highlighted other questionable practices, including the forcible speeding-up of work by managers and harassment and bullying of cleaners, many of whom do not speak much English. There are also claims made of cleaners being forced to clean without proper equipment and with inadequate cleaning materials resulting in the imhygienic cleaning of toilets and health hazards for the workers in question.
Accusations of violating contractual obligations to the School are also targeted at
Dynamiq, with the company having billed the School for cleaning empty buildings on multiple occasions. Former LSE Environmental Officer Ian Manning is quoted as saying the contractor billed for the cleaning of floors in both Tower 2 and the 9 Kingsway building while the floors in question were undergoing major renovations and therefore not being cleaned.
The dossier would also appear to imply that services were also billed at higher rates than they were paid out at. Hourly wages paid out to Site Managers stood at £9.94/hour, £2.54 less than the contractually agreed £12.50/hour. The contractors also charged the LSE £17.20/hour for the Site Manager's services during the same period.
However, in a statement released to The Beaver, David Furlong the Managing Director of Dynamiq Cleaning claimed that it "pays the applicable market wage rate for cleaners on all its contracts, including those who work at the London School of Economics."
He continued: "We do pay our employees for all the hours they work, as well as statutory sick pay and holiday pay in accordance with the Working Time Directive. We treat our employees with dignity and respect and in accordance vrith all legal requirements."
In the past there have been allegations that a former cleaning consultant at the School, Richard Rickards had lost his job due to his protests for cleaners' rights.



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Students support the Living Wage Campaign on a march last year
m contrast. Furlong claims that Rickards dismissal was unrelated to his vociferous protests for cleaners' rights and that "he was afforded every opportunity to present his case through the relevant company grievance procedures and his case is sub judice.
The dossier will be
released to the School's senior administration including Director Howard Davies today, the first step in an initiative that the Campaign hopes will build a strong case for the School's Academic Planning and Resources Committee (APRC) to approve the provision of a 'living wage' at its
next meeting on 14 November.
With the LSE Students' Union (SU) having recently fallen in line with the 'Living Wage' guidelines, many prominent staff and students believe it is now time for the School to follow suit. LSE SU Treasurer Joel Kenrick commented: "The LSE Students' Union has
voted twice to back the Living Wage Campaign and we vrill do all we can to force the School to address the current situation, which undermines everything that the LSE has historically stood for."
Executive Director of the Bank of England lectures LSE on policy
Serena Tang
A public lecture entitled 'Globalisation and Inflation' by Professor Charles Bean, the Executive Director and Chief Economist of the Bank of England, was held at the Hong Kong Theatre last Tuesday.
The lecture, held in conjunction with the LSE Students' Union (SU) Economics Society and chaired by Professor Christopher Pissarides, focused on the impact of globalisation - particularly the integration of China, India and the emerging economies of Eastern Europe into the world economy. He also spoke of the inflation process in industrialised countries and its implications on the conduct of monetary policy.
Bean, a former lecturer at the LSE, spoke of three ways in which globalisation has contributed to keeping domestic inflation stable.
First, increased international trade and specialisation has made inflation more sensitive to changes in world supply and demand rather than the domestic output gap. Second, intensified international competition means firms are less likely to raise prices. Third, increased migration and international labour mobility
implies businesses can more easily hire abroad rather than bid up domestic wages.
He also highlighted an inverse relationship between domestic non-energy inflation and energy and import inflation, suggesting that the recent falling oil prices might not necessarily translate into any decrease in inflation, as businesses might see an opportunity to raise their profit margins.
Concluding the lecture. Bean warned that due to globalisation, raising interest rates for its effect on domestic aggregate demand has become a "less effective" way of controlling inflation, such that if inflation is above the Government's target rate of two percent, "a deeper or more prolonged slowdown is potentially required to bring it down."
He further suggested that "it is better to err on the side of caution by preventing any sustained pick-up (or decline) in inflation in the first place."
On answering questions from the floor, which ranged from the effect of globalisation on the non-accelerating rate of unemployment (NAIRU) to the role of exchange rates. Bean added that because of globalisation, the indicators central banks have used to diagnose inflation in the past have become "less reliable". He said that their task of controlling inflation has consequently become "more difficult".
Photograph; Alex Teytelboym
barles Bean discusses contemporary monetary policy
This echoed the central argument of his lecture that, although globalisation provides benefits for industrialised economies, such as the "favourable 'tailwind'" of
improved terms of trade, it also presents a new challenge to central banks.
No 'Blair School of Government' says the LSE
Patrick Cullen
LSE Director, Howard Davies, has officially ruled out the possibility of a 'Blair School of Government' at the School.
He made the announcement at a School Council meeting in response to widespread speculation that included an article in The Guardian newspaper this September
An e-mail sent to The Beaver and the London Student stated that "Howard Davies ruled out at an LSE Council meeting that a Tony Blair School of Government would be created after high profile members of the Social Policy department had mooted the idea."
"Davies said that no plans had crossed his desk but also categorically ruled out the creation of a Blair School of Government at the LSE acknowledging how unpopular it would be, though a 'Public Policy School' may be set up that is nothing to do with Blair."
James Caspell, one of the Student Governors of the School, told The Beaver that "It was extremely important that students made clear to the School that we would not accept the creation of a Blair
School of Government whilst the proposal was in its ephemeral stage. I have no doubt that the vocal protest of a number of student representatives played a crucial role in the School's administration ruling out the plan in response."
A spokesperson for the School denied that the LSE had ever been open to the idea of a Blair School, stating that "There are still no plans to establish a 'Blair School of Government'. The quote from Howard Davies that you used on page two of The Beaver on 26 September this year still stands. That is the official position on the matter...We are always interested in support for research and teaching in public policy but, beyond that, no notion of a Blair School."
Amy Williams, Chair of the LSE Students' Union (SU) Labour Society, told The Beaver that "My reaction, as Chair, is that it seems to have been the reasonable choice, as it was clear from when the idea was floated publicly, both students and staff at the LSE felt it was the wrong time to introduce such a development and were clearly unhappy with the proposals."
She went on to say that her personal opinion is that the LSE "shouldn't be used as part of Blair's quest to secure some sort of lasting legacy to his reign."
06|lBeaver| 31 October 2006
COMMENT&ANALYSIS
COMMENT
&
ANALYSIS
IBeaver
Established 1949 - Issue 648
Protestors draw attention to plight of Mugabe's people
The protests witnessed at Dr. Zuma's visit to the School once again highlight the unfolding crisis in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. In a country where, on average, women can expect to live until 34 and men until 37, the world continues to sit back and watch on as Mugabe pillages what is the "breadbasket" of south-em Africa.
In turn, nobody has been criticised more than South Africa for repeatedly turning a blind eye to the humanitarian crisis that grows each day inside Zimbabwe.
The combination of Mugabe's infamous bungled land reforms, his recent crackdown on the country's urban slums in response to growing discontent with his 'government' in towns and cities and the devastating effects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping across all sections of Zimbabwean society surely begs the question: why hasn't Zimbabwe's most influential neighbour spoke out against this brutal, failing regime?
A number of answers are offered in response. One is that South Africa and Zimbabwe share a common bond, one formed during the struggle for independence from post-colonial rule in the last century. Therefore, for South Africa to speak out against its neighbour would be tantamount to betrayal.
Another is that South Africa simply could not accommodate the massive influx of refugees that would cross its border from Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the collapse of Mugabe's rule, a parallel drawn when we think of China's inaction towards North Korea.
However, these are no more than paltry, second-rate excuses. And to focus on South Africa is of course short-sighted. Not only does the African continent stay silent, but western powers do more than pay lip service to democratic, humanitarian ideals they claim to share when it comes to Zimbabwe.
Britain has an important duty to once and for all face up to the responsibilities that have emerged since the collapse of its Empire. One must be to ensure that democracy triumphs over dictatorship in the vacuum that follows any collapse of power.
It is time that South Africa, Britain and all the world's democratic rulers who claim to abhor Mugabe's frequent abuses of power and human rights finally step up to the mark and make it known that enough is enough. Mugabe's time is up and it's about time the world make this clear.
C&S dismissal will go unnoticed by most
but the SU should plan for making elections fullproof
This week's events at the UGM were undoubtedly farcical. It was regrettable that C&S were no-confidenced and it would be reasonable to say that a better way of resolving the issue may have been possible.
However in attempting to understand what happened we must also analyse the causal factors. Without doubt, one of them was the initial decision by C&S to mandate Pulsefm to broadcast manifestos directly into the Quad, an unconstitutional action.
If an election has been made unconstitutional, then a re-election must be called. As the programme controller of Pulsefm,. Alex Baker says, if an election is unfair, how can you make it 'more fair'.
Yet, it is a farce that will go mostly unnoticed by the several thousand LSE students who never voted in these elections. It is weeks like this that underline the need to focus on getting every student involved if only so that the majority may be able make-up for the incompetence of the few at the UGM.
^Agologi
ies & Clarifications
The Beaver would like to unconditionally apologise for comments made in ths'Union Jack' and 'Hacktivisf regarding candidates' electibility and competency.
The columns in question did not seek to affect the elections in any way, and any inadvertent effect they may have had is deeply regretted.
Letters to
the Editor
The Beaver 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. All letters must be received by 3pm on the Sunday prior to publication. The Beaver reserves the right to edit letters prior to publication.
Factual errors
Dear Sir,
Zhanna Makash has accused me of making several factual errors in my article about St Petersburg. This is not the case. I did indeed misspell Mariinsky and Turgenev although these are not factual errors, simply regrettable spelling mistakes. She says she has never encountered either prostitutes or street children and therefore doubts the credibility of my statement. While it is understandable prostitutes may not approach her in the way they do me let me reassure her that they can be easily found on many of the city's streets as that is where they find their clients. The same can be said of street children who roam like packs through the city, although I never claimed they were homeless, simply that they spent most of their time roaming the streets, hence 'street' and 'children'. Few visitors to St Petersburg can be completely oblivious to its underside as represented by the two groups I picked out. Only rich tourists who stick to the main streets and those deluded residents for whom Daddy's wealth and influence can protect them from it. I wonder which of these categories Ms Makash fits into?
I must, however, - admit to confusion over the name change of the once Mariinsky, then Kirov and now Mariinsky theatre and I apologise for it.
Will Joce
Leave my kids!
Dear Sir,
Congratulations on this week's "Eyes to the Left" article. I was aU fired up to write an angiy rebuttal, when I realised (after my second re-read, no less!) that the article was, in fact, too totalitarian, self-contradictory and downright stupid to be a genuine statement of anyone's beliefs, and must therefore have been intended as an inflammatory. piece. Kudos! I'm not supposed to let anything get past me, especially not gems like the following:
"Children should be sent to the local school. No exceptions." Certainly not for the London School of Economics, right? I'm sure 68% of our fellow students will be glad to hear that.
"The current premise of our education system is that you need to know how to play the system." Right, by moving into the catchment. area for a good local school, for example...
"It's an illusion that choice exists for all, it only exists for the middle classes."Yes, because free state schools forced private schools for the less well oft out of business. In 1861 (nine years before state schools were even considered) between 95% and 99% of children were in full-
time education, with 99% of school leavers fully literate. Now, since the vast growth of the state education sector, fimctional illiteracy has ballooned to 20% of adults, according to the government's own Department of Education and Skills. Yes, I really believed that you thought the best solution to the problem of good and bad schools was to close all the good schools!
"In 1997, the government abolished the assisted places scheme... but much more needs to be done." This was the first thing that tipped me off, as this is equivalent to stating that the government should not help children get an education, and also that students should pay the full cost of their university education. Something which I really can't see you going along with.
"Until the government gets rid of state funded grammar schools, which cream off the brightest children..." Yes, and they also give these children a sporting chance to succeed, something which must be stopped at all costs...
"...and starts to dismantle the private system..." this has been in motion for well over a century: as I stated above, 99% of children were in private education in 1861, as opposed to about 7% now.
"We have got to stop the use of education as a political tool... the state option must be the only option." So if politicians are given total control over education, the use of education for political ends will stop. Makes sense to me!
But the one thing that engendered my final realisation that the whole article was a joke was the sentence: "Why give people the option to choose over such a vitally important issue as education, on which the future of the nation depends?" I can think of something else on which the future of the nation depends, and you'd be called a fascist if you even suggested government abrogation of "choice" in that sphere (and with good reason). I'll leave you to work out exactly what I mean, with one clue: "eugenics".
So, I admit defeat. By the way, if you really do believe all that, no matter If you are interested in hearing the other side of this argument (ha-ha), pick up "The Welfare State We're In" by James Bartholomew.
Yours,
Richard Allan,
1st Year BSc Economics
No to occupation
Dear Sir,
We woiild like to congratulate LSE students for the election of Huda Ghalia as their Honorary Vice-President. She had an open and straight forward campaign. Her manifesto and slogan was undoubtedly
Intellectualism
HOUfrHTo^
anTK* THOWHt
clear - 'End Israeli Occupation, Stop Killing Palestinians' -There was no getting wrong in there... Students nevertheless voted for her in great numbers, voicing their strong opinions against the atrocities Israel is committing in Palestine and its Apartheid policies for ethnic cleansing of the native population. We should remind ourselves that Ghalia's election was only the start of what it should become a greater student movement. The SU should uphold student's democratic choice and become more proactive in supporting the cause. Amongst other things, we would like to see a Palestinian charity doing work in Gaza endorsed during RAG week, support for the 'Stop Arming Israel Campaign' - related with the ethical investment motion passed recently - and academic/commercial divestment from entities funding Israel and its illegal occupation.
With Regards,
Palestine Society Committee
Don't thank me
Dear Sir,
I'm often told that being the Returning Officer is a thankless task but this isn't true. In fact, I don't believe that I should even recieve thanks. The real people who need to be thanked are the deputy returning officiers and other volunteers who sacrificed huge amounts of their spare time to help ensure the elections nm smoothly. In particiHar I would like to thank the following: Simon Douglas, James Ketteringham, Jeff Courtney, Katherine Taylor, Megan Gaventa, Kat Short, Tom Chitseko, John Bruce, Joel Kennrick and aU the other members of the Executive who lent a helping hand during this extremely busy period. Without any of these people the elections couldn't have taken place. Thanks guys.
Regards,
Wil Barber,
SU Returning Officer
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COMMENT&ANALYSIS
IBeaver 131 October 2006107
COMMEN

ANALYSIS
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Sldhanth Kamath
MANAGING EDITOR Chris Lam
SECRETARY Lucie Goulet
BUSINESS MANAGER Ismat Abldi
NEWS EDITORS Patrick Graham; Tanya Rajapaitse; Tim Root
FEATURES EDITORS Ben Biggs;
Fatima Manji
PART B EDITORS
Kevin Perry;
Daniei B. Yates
SPORTS EDITORS Sancha Bainton; Laura Parfitt
GRAPHICS SUB-EDITOR Aditi Nangia
PHOTOGRAPHY SUB-EDITOR Liam Chambers
THE COLLECTIVE:
Chairperson: Stephen Gummer
Ralhan Aifaridhi; Ross Allan; Andhallb Karim; Sam Ashton; Wil Barber; Alex Barros-Curtis; Fadhi Bakeer-Markar; Rothna Begum; Ruby Bhavra; Neshy Boukharl; Clem Broumiey-Young; Sam Burke; Andy Burton; Sumit Buttoo; Ed Calow; James Caspell; Claire Cheriyan; Simon Chignell; Dave Cole; Chris Colvin; Laura Coombe; Richard Coopey; Owen Coughlan; Peter Currie; Patrick Cullen; James Davies; Laura Deck; Ali Dewji; Kanan Dhru; Jan Daniel Dormann; Matt Dougherty; Simon Douglas; Sian Errington; Michael Fauconnier-Bank; Aled Dilwyn Fisher; Alex George; Rupert Guest; Steve Gummer; Andrew Hallett; Charlie Hallion; Chris Heathcote; Phil Hutchinson; Stacy-Marie Ishmael; William Joce; Laleh Kazemi-Veisari; Joel Kenrick; James Ketteringham; Arthur Krebbers; Sanjivi Krishnan; Ben Lamy; Charles Laurence; Roger Lewis; Shu Hao Don Lim; Elaine Londesborough; Ziyaad Lunat; Clare Mackie; Rishi Madlani; Jami Makan; Joey Mellows; Ju McVeigh; Ali Moussavi; Chris Naylor; Doug Oliver; Rob Parker; Rajan Patel; Keith Postler; Mark Power; John Philpott; Joe Quaye; Prashant Rao; Gareth Rees; Louise Robinson; Timothy Root; Olivia Russo; Jimmy Tam; Alex Teytelboym; Vladimir Unkovski-Korica; Louise Venables; Alexandra Vincenti; Claudia Whitcomb; Greg White; Christine Whyte; Amy Williams; Yee To Wong; Matther Partridge
PRINTED BY THE NORTHCLIFFE PRESS Kyou have written three or more arti-de for The Beaver and your name does not appear in the Collective, pleaseemail: .
thebeaverj)dHor&lseM.uk and you w9l be added to the list in next week's paper.
TAe Seaveris available in alternative formats.
The views and opinions expressed in the Beaver are those of the contriiHi-tors and not necessarily those of the editors or the tSE Students'Union
Marching for the wrong students
Giles Wilkes
At the end of this month thousands of students will be marching in London to protest against higher student fees. Within the LSE, it has appeared almost axiomatic that this march is in an excellent cause, and something to be proud of. After all, student fees are a tax on students... we are students... it leaves students in debt... debt is a terrible thing... the whole structure puts off working class students in particular, exacerbating inequality, and so on.
All the above seems extremely obvious. However, a closer look at the wider issues suggests to me that the successful conclusion of this march is almost bound to worsen inequality in the UK. Moreover, it will leave a deteriorating university system, with persistent crises of funding, through a period w^here government finances are likely to become increasingly strained.
Education is absolutely critical to the inequality pervasive to this country. But the overwhelming cause lies much earlier in the process, in a poorly funded school system. Poor children who fail university entrance have mostly failed at 6, not 16 - the archetypal working class A-level
student put off by the prospect of graduating with debt is, alas, the lucky one. The reported seven million adults in the UK who are functionally illiterate did not get that way through lack of access to higher education, but failures during their earliest years.
Anyone who has helped bring up children must know that getting them the right help early in their lives is
2r^"to^^ toeir	*
development - ^
in crude terms,
a kid that has "gone wrong by the time he or she is a teenager is effectively lost to further education. The difference that extra attention at a young age can make - an extra helper in a classroom,
another year being looked after by a parent before being stuffed into a crowded nursery - is enormous. Children who are denied this are never lucky enough to reach the point where they make their difficult decision about university.
The university system needs more money, and needs to be set on a path where its financing does not perpetually rest on a Cabinet political
power struggle. You only need to Google "world's best universities" to see what a shamefully low number are found in the advanced countries of the EU. Catching up with America in the knowledge economy will not be achieved by putting more pressure on the budgets of already-harassed central governments. Campaigning for'free'education sounds very fine, but it is not free - it costs
It would be lovely to think that merely by expressing enough moral outrage the country's education budget could effortlessly expand to cover all objectives.
No doubt there are people reading who think that a mere effort of political will could wrest huge sums from, say. City bonuses or the defence budget, and bring Utopia here today. But the truth is that

the rest of society to pay for it, a society that will have a great many other calls upon its budget. Having the most direct beneficiary of the education pay towards it is the fairest system there can be, no matter how hard it seems at the time.
this is a zero sum game, and one in which the likes of Jimmy and Gemma Tumelty, with their well-run and -publicized campaign, will sadly play a significant role. Students are voters, and compared to the small, and temporary position they hold in soci-
ety (no-one is a student forever), have an extraordinarily strong voice, one that will scare the existing powers. A voice far stronger than the silent losers from this campaign - the struggling working class parents whose school budgets will be cut^ the kids condemned to more mediocre primary education. Those are the people who need someone marching for them, but they are ill organized, dispersed, and mostly silent. Choiceless and voiceless, they will find themselves paying for the indulgence of a generation of students, without even knowing they are doing it.
No-one denies that a student life can be hard. But it also has extraordinary rewards - a time of huge development, opportunity, choice, and - for the vast majority - resulting in a graduate life that is richer in all ways. During the hard times, a student is already subsidized like no other class. If you think this is hard, try bringing up a few children alone on a sink estate, and then you may understand where inequality really comes from. Let no-one kid themselves - this is a march to indirectly take money away from the poorest in society, and give the bulk of it to some of the most privileged. Let's think like future legislators, not one-sided lobbyists, and vote for uncapped fees, support for the poorer students, and keep the extra money for primary education instead.
Banning paper throwing is beneficial
Lizzie Fison
Those who know me well know I'm certainly not part of the politically correct brigade and am firmly against unnecessary red tape. So, why am I against paper-throwing at UGMs? Let me get this straight, because amongst the many arguments thrown about, like a heavy paper blitz, there is one completely justifiable reason why there should be a ban. Paper-throwing makes it both impossible and unreasonably difficult for some disabled students to use the UGM. This is not only morally wrong and against the SU constitution, but illegal under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. It's a shame that we have to look to the law to justify ending discrimination, but so be it.
As trustees of the SU, the executive members are responsible for ensuring the SU acts lawfully and are liable
the balcony boys might put two and two together and reahse... they have only brought the ban on themselves
if someone takes legal action against the SU. Those present at the executive meeting where the members voted for a provisional ban while seeking external legal advice would realise it was a difficult decision for the members who
made it to ensure that the SU is acting lawfully, not for some attempt to exercise power -how foolish would it be to try that with something so unpopular? There are two key provisions in the DDA relating to paper-throwing, which I shall explain further in this article. (For this article, I shall paraphrase parts of the DDA, but you can read it from www.drc-gb.org in the section on 'The Law'.)
Firstly, if it is impossible or unreasonably difficult for a disabled person to use a service, then service providers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to remove this barrier or, if not possible, provide an alternative to accessing this service. Failure to do this counts as discrimination. May I remind you that the UGM is supposed to be a democratic meeting for all students. It's an important place where disabled students can get their voice heard and campaign against the various problems they encounter around criminated against if the exec allow paper-throwing to continue. I'm not talking of feeling uncomfortable or feeling intimidated by paper-
throwing - the same could be said of heckling, but this affects all students.
It is without doubt a reasonable adjustment to ban paper-throwing. It costs nothing, it doesn't endanger people's health and safety (rather the opposite in fact) and it does not prevent a greater number of people from being able to access the UGM. If you decide not to access the UGM because you dislike the ban, this is down to your personal, taste rather than being unable to join in.
Secondly, service providers should comply with the DDA, pre-empting a disabled person's need to access that service. Two students with disabilities have already complained about paper-throwing, so the least we can do is act on these complaints. It is wrong to assume what is alright for people, as we really do not know without direct experience of that particular disability, so we must rely on comments of those affected and professional advice. We may not be able to tell the difference a ban has, because most disabilities affected are hidden. The idea that speakers should announce
a disability so paper-throwing is halted is not an appropriate alternative to a ban, considering past warnings not to throw paper have often been ignored. Perhaps the "balcony boys" might put two and two together and realise with this outrageous behaviour they have only brought the ban on themselves. Furthermore, people may wish, and have the right, to keep a disability confidential to avoid stigma attached to that disability that vsrrongly still exists in society. Also, paper-throwing affects members of the audience as not all paper reaches the stage.
Yes, I believe that paper-throwing	discriminates
against some students with disabilities. Yes, I believe that allowing it to continue would mean the SU were violating the law. And yes, I believe that there should be a permanent ban of paper throwing at UGMs. So, according to Van Livanis this makes me a 'dick... trying to ruin things for the majority' - well, at least I have the balls to stand up for people other than myself!
COMMENT^
COMMENT&ANALYSIS


Orders by C&S did not make elections 'feir'

Aiax Baker
Following my support for the dismissal of the Constitution	and
Steering Committee (C&S) of the LSESU at the Union General Meeting (UGM) last week I received reactions ranging from outright abuse to emphatic congratulation. It was clearly an emotive decision, and because of the limits placed on speeches at the UGM, I feel my reasoning perhaps needs clarification.
For those who missed the UGM, I seconded Alex Teytelboym's attempt move to no-confidence C&S following their advice to the LSESU Returning Officer on the best means of dealing with a complaint made by two election candidates. On a personal level, I found their decision to be deeply unfair and unprecedented. Moreover, as a committee member of PuLSE radio, it put me and other members of the station in a compromising position.
Essentially, as Programme
Controller PuLSE, I am responsible for how, where when and why content is aired. I am accountable to the production group and the remainder of the PuLSE committee and the SU for the unilateral decisions I make.
At roughly midday on Thursday 19th I was told by Kayt Berry that we had been mandated by C&S to broadcast hourly election manifestos for two candidates. This was the first problem. PuLSE deliberately steers clear of any electoral coverage (other than to encourage people to vote) to ensure we aren't in breach of our own or the SU constitution. This immediately puts me in a very difficult position personally. If I had re-arranged the schedule for an election broadcast, that unilateral decision would immediately open me to a vote of no-confidence for breaching PuLSE's own constitution. This stands regardless of the constitutionality of the C&S decision.
When I asked Kayt for the reasoning behind this, I was told by her that because The Beaver had inferred that two candidates were not suitable for election, C&S had deemed that broadcasting of their manifestos was suitable
redress. I instinctively disagreed with this and suggested that we spoke to C&S immediately (who Kayt had been trying to contact all morning). This proved to be nearly impossible, none of the SU
In my personal opinion, an election is either fair or unfair
executive we could speak to had contacts for the C&S chair, and eventually after some considerable time searching and ringing around, we found one C&S member
who was campaigning on Houghton St.
He informally explained to me the details behind the decision which I will now repeat:
Two candidates had made a formal complaint regrarding The Beaver.
C&S felt it was inappropriate for The Beaver to respond with any form of apology as this would only draw further attention to the comments.
C&S felt that PuLSE lis-tenership and The Beaver readership were largely similar.
James Caspell had agreed that the proposed course of action was suitable redress.
Following this, I consulted the constitution of the LSESU, the Codes of Practice and the Media Group Protocol as well as taking into accoimt my own personal beliefs and have since re-read the standard codes of practice in the media industry as set down by OfCom. I came to the following conclusions based on the information to hand
C&S had advised the returning officer to read the candidate manifestos on air and mention their names. The candidates in question were not mentioned explicitly in
The Beaver.
C&S had decided that the Beaver could not apologise for the remarks through a press release or poster drop as this would further draw attention to the original remarks. This seemed to be entirely absurd and doesn't follow conventional practice in the media industry. Under normal circumstances, the rule-breaking entity is fined and mandated to apologise by the relevant authority.
C&S had made their decision without referral to OfCom regulations. As a radio station, PuLSE must remain within OfCom guidelines at all times. The relevant documentation clearly states that equal on-air time must be given to all candidates in elections in all cases, regardless of the audience or election size.
C&S seemed to have advised the returning officer that this course of action would make the elections 'more fair'. In my personal opinion, an election is either fair or unfair. C&S should either have called for a re-elec-tion of the positions in question or followed the conventional practice of disallowing the other candidates to campaign on Houghton St for one
hour.
Even if the above are invalid, the total confusion and lack of communication that resulted from the implementation of the decision seemed to suggest that C&S were failing to function on a basic level.
Finally and most importantly, 'The Quad' is effectively the polling booth in SU elections. It seems entirely absurd that certain electoral manifestos should be broadcast hourly from loud-speakers in this situation. Even if only on a subliminal level, this is bound to affect the way that people vote to a far greater , extent to the original comments in question.
I realise that Teytelboym raised other issues at the UGM regarding The Beaver's right to satirise election candidates. I have no comment to make on his points and am concentrating entirely on the problems that I faced on the day.
Thankfully, the incident had opened a dialogue between the SU and the media-group so as to prevent this situation from arising again and, along with everyone involved, I hope that we're able to move on without further discord.
Lammys preoccupation with Islam

'U	i.


"o I don't ask women who come to my surgery to take off... well... anything they're wearing!" With this tongue-in-cheek remark at the POLIS 'Diversity in the Media' lecture last week, Culture Minister David Lammy MP responded to Jack Straw's notorious comments which recently revived the debate on Islam in Britain.
Refreshingly, however, Islam was not the focus of Lammy's lecture. Rather, he set to lay out the 'twin challenge' facing the digitalised and increasingly democratised multicultural media in modern British society. The 'twin challenge' is as such: first, how do we incorporate the potential for new (minority ethnic) voices to be heard in such a way that it doesn't encourage fragmentation of society? And second, how do we ensure that these voices not only have the opportunity to be heard, but are heard?
Lammy proposed a three-dimensional strategy. First, we need plurality of discussion: new media outlets should be encouraged so long as they 'join the national conversation'. Extremist opinions are entitled to a platform, as the media must first and foremost open up discussion; air views and not stifle them. But this comes with a caveat: free speech carries responsibilities, and 'having the right to be offensive does not mean that it is right to be offensive'.
Lammy praised The Voice newspaper for making itself heard and - despite its clear cultural and racial agenda -successfully contributing to, rather than fracturing, the multicultural 'national narrative'.
Second, there must be an initiative to empower the individual through increasing media literacy. And third, we must ensure equality of oppor-
healthy it can only ever be a means of which action is the end.
It was a wide-ranging and thoughtful lecture, leaving great potential for further questioning on Lammy's characterisation of both multicul-turalism and the media. Is there really a direct correlation between the shape of the media and the shape of society? Does the UK media gen-
hotograph: Charlie Chin
tunity for those of all ethnic backgrounds seeking to work in the media. 'There is no female Muslim Member of-Parliament... there a few, close to zero, female journalists in many of our news organisations.' His pragmatic suggestions for encouraging employment of minority ethnic groups were encouraging; for while debate and discussion is
uinely have the power to bind the 'parallel communities' on the streets of Britain? Or does the initiative have to come from elsewhere? Is this really just a UK issue? The internet -where the UK media is increasingly situated - surely transcends geographical boundaries and becomes a space for recognising and exploring the multiple
transnational identities which feed in to the UK's ethnic diversity. How can the media successfully balance local, national and transnational narratives of disparate and overlapping global communities?
Multiculturalism, says Lammy, 'cannot be just about saris, steel drums and samosas': it is about what we share as well as what is exotic and different; it is about how and where distinct cultures encounter each other. But is this characterisation of multiple cultures legitimate? Or are we in fact what Paul Gilroy has termed a 'multiculture' - a web of , different values and experiences bound together in a single cultural entity? Does Lammy's model, despite his protestations to the contrary, presuppose difference and thus reinforce it? The way we characterise our society impacts on the form and content of the media as much as vice versa.
In a room full of journalists and students of journalism, however, not one question in response to Lammy's speech related directly to the relationship between ethnic diversity and the media. 'The Muslim community occupy 3% of the population but at the moment are occupying 90% of the news', Lammy stated. And 90% of the audience's minds, it seemed. Questions reverted to whether Imperial College should determine whether its students can wear veils and
whether Lammy in his constituency surgery thinks women should keep on .their clothes.
As digitalisation democratises the media, we all have the opportunity to be'citizen journalists'. Lammy was clear on this: 'today people no longer just watch the news, they record it and they write about it themselves'. And thus we all have the duty to apply our minds to how our opinions, publicly expressed, relate to
those who listen to them. It was concerning how few audience members were willing to critically examine this, letting the pervasive concern with Islam predominate. This is a critical issue of course, but one that Is undoubtedly intertwined with wider historical, theoretical and practical concerns about multiculturalism and the media. And one that must not be denied this context - which Lammy, so refreshingly, offered it.
IkicKiivisn
(^{heKCord,on^QrandvajL.hushhek
As the elections reached their climax last week the feud between Wil Barbie and Deliver continued to fester. After their cat fight at the UGM the week before last, the row over who is the better returning officer looks set to escalate. Expect handbags at dawn and eyes being scratched out.
Doliver was aided in his battle against Barbie after the farcical scenes witnessed by spies of Hacktivist at the election count last week. Woefully out of his depth he could really have done with C&S clowns by his side. Meanwhile Louise Sobinson, stopped crying over last week's events for long enough to be proclaimed victorious in her efforts to add another job to her collection. Korporate Krebbers wasn't so lucky when he narrowly beat RON
to finish last in his attempt to control the University of London. Just as well really, imagine FinSocGat€ in every London Uni. Caspell-clone Aled, who is possibly the most naive person in the union, benefited from the extra exposure in Hacktivist last week to squeak in as a delegate to NUS.
Hacktivist has been handed a com plaint about Ali can't Dewji-it Turns out he was too hungovei after the excitement of Thursday tc attend his day job on Friday Hacktivist is disappointed with the Nike reject.
Want to be a Hacktivist Eye? Email your gossip tc hacktivist@tellusthegossip.com. All stories will be verified. The Beaver wishes to apologisi for the comments made in thii column last week.
FEATURES:POLITICS
IBeaver j 31 October 2006 109
FEATURES
In this section: Politics/ Investigation / Business/Society
thebeaver.features @lse. ac.uk
Eyes to the left
Climate change week special
Madonna's
controversial
adoption
Halloween investigation
Wmiarns
George Galloway came and left the LSE last Tuesday, having spoken to a capacity New Theatre audience. Galloway was once- it seems so long ago, a member of the Labour Party. But as the Left have a habit of doing, he split off (or rather was expelled) and has subsequently reserved more venom for Labour than he has for the Right. From this he created RESPECT which is, he claimed, a coalition that left their differences at the door to focus around one or two issues- Iraq and privatisation. It was strange to hear this was the case, and quite unbelievable. The left never leave their differences at the door to fight around the common values that we share; equality, freedom, dignity, but instead splinter off into groups that spend most of their time fighting each other, rather than working towards what we all want to see. The Right always seem to unite and win, whereas the left lose sight of the prize but never forget personal arguments. Look at Scottish Socialist, Tommy Sheridan. It was only until recently that the Right has been threatened by the electoral success of groups such as UKIP and the BNP, mainly down to the useless state of the Tories who had for years sheltered many of their voters.
Galloway's "championing" of the Muslim working class vote in Bethnal Green and Bow, exploited people's fears and amounted to a scare campaign, which kicked out an excellent MP, Oona King. This is not long-term politics, but short-term celebrity based around Galloway as a charismatic figurehead. Always a dangerous solution to a party's problems (Cameron anyone?).
Galloway isn't always wrong in my book. Sometimes he gets it right. Not when he is dressed in a leotard doing impersonations of cats only to then request to be treated as a serious figure. But he does have it right when he talks about the worrying privatisation developing in our public services, an Old Labour issue if ever there was one. In parliament just this week, the party that claims to care most deeply about the NHS (that's the Conservatives now, keep up) forced the government to reveal figures that their PFI schemes would cost the NHS £53 billion pounds for hospitals worth only £8 billion. Each month, when my bank account is emptied so I can pay the rent, I never escape the feeling that renting is mug's game. Contributing money over the odds to the cost, of a house that you wiU never own seems not unlike the situation the government has got themselves in at the moment. Private companies can collect 'rent' money from the government for 30 years- and still own the building at the end of that contract.
These schemes tie in future governments into a financial scam. No wonder the public no longer trusts Labour the most over the NHS, with the Tories somehow overtaking a government that has invested vast amounts of money into. But the public, and the staff, see through the sheer numbers of the investment. It doesn't matter how much public and private money is pumped into the system, if it is wasted on PFI schemes then Labour will loose further credibility with the electorate. Of course, I don't for one second believe that the Tories would change anything about this and the very idea of them claiming to know what's best for the NHS is laughable. It's true to say PFIs wouldn't exist after ten years of a Tory government: the NHS wouldn't exist after ten years of a Tory government, replaced by a private insurance scheme which their policy wonks have floated several times and would create a vastly unequal system.
Disappointment comes from vvhere we now find ourselves on a number of these issues. Galloway isn't saying anything that many ordinary Labour members wouldn't. It doesn't necessarily equate that to support these points you have to be supportive of Galloway, or of his foreign policy views. These are themes that will be campaigned on by the Left for a long time, well after RESPECT and Galloway have quite rightly faded into the distance. ¦
Gift-wrapped kitty-kats
A few years ago Dr Ray Blanchard, a researcher at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, was reviewing some data when he noticed something odd: that gay men seemed to have more elder brothers than straight men do {The Economist, June 2006).
Intrigued, he decided to investigate. He interviewed 302 gay men and the 302 heterosexual men and got data about their families. How many siblings did they have, of what sex, and how had the births been spaced? How old had their parents been when they had had them? Dr Blanchard found that one detail predicted sexual orientation more than all of the others: the more elder brothers a man had, the more likely he was to be gay. Neither elder sisters nor younger siblings of either sex had any effect, but each additional elder brother increased his chance of being gay by about 33% I from the population average of one man in 50.
It implied either that being brought up with a lot of elder brothers affects a boy's sexual orientation, or that a mother's body somehow 'logs' how many sons she has conceived, and that this count affects the orientation of future children. The finding was replicated again and again, across different cultures, eras and even psychiatric groups.
Those who argued for a social explanation suggested that having lots of elder brothers makes a boy more likely to engage in same-sex play.
S. Marc Breedlove of Michigan State University said the finding "absolutely"
confirms a physical basis. He claimed that anybody's first guess would have been that the older brothers were having an effect socially, and that the data didn't support that. In another experiment, Anthony Bogaert of Brock University in St Catharines, Ontario, decided to examine the other hypothesis— that the phenomenon is caused by something that happens in the womb. He published his results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr Bogaert reasoned that if the effect were social, elder brothers would have the same effect even if they had not been born to the same mother. Lots of half- or step-siblings, or adopted brothers, for example, would also cause their younger brothers to be gay. On the other hand, if the effect were really due to birth order, biological brothers would make their younger brothers more likely to be gay even if they did not grow up together; indeed, even if the younger boy grew up without any older boys around at all.
Bogaert collected a new sample of several hundred men, this time specifically recruiting those who had grown up with "brothers" to whom they were not biologically related. He collected information on how long they had been reared with each sibling, as well as about biological siblings from whom they had been separated. He found that only the number of biological elder brothers had an impact on a later-born boy's sexual orientation; non-biological siblings had no effect. This was true even when a boy had grown up surrounded by an enormous gaggle of non-biological elder brothers. By contrast, elder brothers raised in a separate household "influenced" their younger brothers' sexual orientation in exactly the same way as they would have done had they been living with them.
Like many pieces of research, more questions were raised than answered. How does the mother's body keep count of how many sons she has conceived? How does that change the environment in the womb? How does that change affect sexual orientation? Is this an accidental effect, or has it evolved for some reason?
To these questions, Bogaert has no answers, though in some cases he has his suspicions. He speculates that, for reasons as yet unknown, a mother's immune system takes note of the number of male offspring and that each succeeding male foetus is subjected to increased levels of antibodies. These somehow affect its development. Clearly, something strange is going on, because things other than sexual orientation are also affected by birth order. Boys with elder brothers are also likely to have larger-than-normal placentas while in the womb. And despite that apparent nutritional advantage (for a larger placenta shoxild be able to draw more nutrients from the mother's bloodstream), they are also likely to have lower birth-weights than would otherwise be expected.
Blanchard, meanwhile, calculates that about one gay man in seven can chalk his orientation up to having elder brothers. But to the question of whether there is some evolutionary advantage for a mother who has many sons to include a gay one among them, neither he nor Bogaert has an answer. HI
The right ap
Uwrr'ot,
Droach
Sam Burke
,ur tax system is a mess. Every year, I income tax pockets the Government around £140bn of our money. The Commons Public Accounts Committee described it as a "nightmare" and they're not far wrong! So what's the answer? Whilst the Tories are currently getting a little caught up in an internal tax row, it might be worth looking again at flat tax.
The flat tax system means that everyone -except those taken out of tax by personal allowances - pays the same proportion of their income irrespective of how large or small that is. That compares with the current system where we pay on a scale depending on the size of our income. Under the current system we pay according to bands of income. We take off allowances, credits and make so many complicated calculations according to so many rules, which are constantly changing, that the rich actually employ people to minimise their tax bill. Some rich people pay more, but others pay to evade tax. Often our system redistributes more to the middle classes - for example in child benefit and free schools and health care - than it gives to the poor. Tax in the UK can be a burden on the poor and act as a disincentive to virtue. For those on low incoihes it can be cheaper to live as a couple then get married and all the evidence shows that children do better when they are brought up in wedlock. What about a flat tax? Let's imagine three people: a poor man who earns £10,000 a year, a middle class man .who earns £50,000 and a plutocrat who earns £100,000. Let's apply the rates suggested by the Institute for Economic Affairs for the UK. That's a flat rate of 22% plus a personal allowance of £12,000. On that basis the poor man pays nothing - he's taken out of taxation. The middle class man pays £8,360 (22% of £50,000 minus £12,000) while the plutocrat pays £22,000. This is certainly progressive - note that the plutocrat is actually paying a higher percentage of his income than middle class man. -Would a flat tax give to the poor? Under the lEA's calculations the poorest third of families' pay 9% of their income in tax, under the flat tax they'd pay nothing, in fact nearly 10,000,000 of poorest would be taken out of taxation. The flat tax wouldn't burden the poor and it \nfould cut away that forest of regulations that can be a disincentive to virtue. The government would still raise money for public needs. There would be a cut in tax revenue, though not as big as some fear, but Government wouldn't need to spend so much on implementing a complicated system - your annual tax return would shrink to the size of a postcard.
Eastern Europe has gone big on flat tax. In Romania it's 16%. In Russia it's 13%. Estonia is aiming for 20% and Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the Ukraine have all joined the club. The Netherlands, Spain and Italy have or are in the process	of	considering	it.
Even the left-leaning Joseph Rowntree Foundation wrrite, "Flat taxes have often been seen as a means of reducing the tax burden on people with higher incomes who pay top-rate tax. However, in Britain, the most severe losses to the taxman from additional earnings are encountered by families on lower incomes: these stand to gain the most from a flattening of income tax rates." ¦
I wanted to update readers on the Faith School issue which I explored here, in my last column. The Government have withdrawn their amendment to force quotas on schools and this is largely to a well-coordinated campaign of writing and speaking against those measures. Another victory for justice!
Next week:
Features will include Democrat and Republican columns as part of a special American mid-tenn edition
10 iBeaver 131 October 2006 /

Some say the world will ei
taciiai'l ()'!sOiirki- says climate change is more than just a storm in ateacup
MicJ'iael Deas says the disaster has already be^
Autumn in England and I know there's a good chance it will rain. British weather may not be lovely, but at least you know what to expect. Given a predictable water supply, people adapt easily to the environment and are able to do complex things like study sociology and go to Crush, confident that farmers, supermarkets and caterers have streamlined the production of their next meal. Many in the world's poorest countries do not have the advantage of such stability. In Ethiopia, the cost of climate variability is a third of the national income, as people are constantly forced to adapt to a vastly changeable environment. As the planet gets warmer, global weather will become increasingly erratic and our supply of water will become even less secure.
The extreme weather patterns already faced in different regions will be exacerbated: although the total amount of rainfall is expected to increase worldwide, this increase will be limited to areas already prone to flooding, such as south and south-east Asia in the summer and the highest northern hemisphere latitudes all year round. Unfortunately, even less rain will fall on those regions currently in desperate need of water: central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean and Middle East.
This will lead to more serious natural disasters. The
rbe Wc'i'kl
Orj^aniHatiru!, esliniaU-.s ilial pcijpk'-evei'y year In'Cansy of the	of
cUnsale changc
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that sea levels will rise by a metre during the 21®*- century. This may not sound significant, but will leave half of all people living in developing countries highly vulnerable to floods. After killing people, destroying crops and houses, flooding leaves large bodies of dirty water which become ideal breeding grounds for water-borne diseases such as cholera; a home for the vectors of malaria and dengue. Additionally, these rising sea levels do not just flood overland, but fill underground aquifei's with saline water, making it dangerous to drink and impossible to use for agriculture. Eight of the world's ten largest cities are by the sea; people will be forced to migrate, creating pressures on new areas.
The other major water problem is not of too much, but too little. The Stockholm Environment Institute has estimated that by only 2025, up to six billion people (the current world population) will live in
drought-affected countries. Now consider that agricultural irrigation accounts for 80% of world water use and it becomes clear that a lack of water will result in a lack of food. There • are already 800 million malnourished during this period of global food surplus; once we have a shortage, the suffering wiU be even more widespread.
In vulnerable areas, communities are developing small-scale methods of coping with the multiplying natural disasters. However, these local-level projects can only work if there is sufficient water to harvest or the floods are not too great. Water management needs to take place on international levels to negotiate shared water courses and have large, capacity and skilled management to cope with complex patterns of demands for water and variable supply.
Government policies need to be well-funded arid well-researched, as decisions made on water will have an impact many years into the future. Here in London, much of our water infrastructure is based on a system built over a century ago. When planning for the future, water managers need to know the effects of climate change on hydrology and adapt their
policies accordingly, mitigat ing	thi
expected problems Mitigation is a dirty word for many environmentalists, as focusing on policies to adapt to climate change implies a lack of responsibility taken to avert global warming. Unfortunately,
basic environmental damage has already been done. Climate change is not the distant worry our science teachers used to scare us with; it is a reality for people across the world. There has already been a global temperature increase of 0.6° Celsius and the World . Health Organisation estimates that 160,000 people die every year because of the effects of climate change. This will be magnified regardless of what we do now: past and current emissions mean that ah average temperature increase of 1-1.5° Celsius is inevitable.
Such doomsday thinking will only help to the extent of helping us to reduce the problems we have already caused. Beyond that point, this harsh realism is counterproductive. It allows those with a vested interest in maintaining fossil fuel use not to deny climate change but to claim that nothing can be done to stop it, leaving mitigation as an only hope. However, we are still in a position to affect the magnitude of
global warming. If we carry on increasing fossil fuels emissions, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue increasing and the temperature will rise further, causing environmental damage and human suffering on a level beyond the already inevitable.
People need water stability: it allows us to live a life free from the fear of lack of food to eat and clean water to drink. Free from the fear of life and livelihoods ^'ggtroyed by flash flooding. We nave a long way to go to guarantee that quality of life for everyone on this planet; we don't need to make the task harder through increased climate change. ¦
The poppies in my father's garden are about to flower, he tells me. "Great!" I exclaim, always trying to show enthusiasm. "No son, not great, they already flowered in spring." The unusually long winter and warm autumn in Derbyshire is to blame, he believes. It has confused some of his plants into believing that the end of October is the right time to flower. This is just one area where nature is' ahead of our scientists in showing the affects of climate change. He also blames climate change for the early arrival and reduction in numbers of our migratory birds. The House Martins didn't return this summer and the swifts and swallows arrived weeks earlier than they did just 10 years ago. A local expert pointed out a further bizarre change to me. The usually baron moorlands of the Peak District are playing host to silver birch saplings for the first time. Usually too cold to support anything but the famous purple heather, localised warming has allowed trees to naturally sprout and take hold. He expects the heather to eventually be driven out as a result.
Away from Europe's thriving holiday beaches, Rudolph and friends are among those already greatly threatened by climate change. Reindeer have evolved to kick off snow with their hooves to access the lichen and moss which they eat. However as water begins to fall as rain instead of snow, impenetrable ice freezes over their food supply. The native peoples who have come to depend on the reindeer can do little to protect their herds. But evidence of ecological change caused by global warming is sadly not limited	to
Derbyshire, as some European holiday makers might teU you. Rising sea temperatures are being blamed for this summer's 'plague of jellyfish' across Europe. Numbers of reported sightings and stings broke all records and holiday makers were forced out of the sea. Experts only expect numbers to rise, as jellyfish become more dominant bver their competitors.
sat will we eat as farriiers struggle to adapA to the chaayug cliiiiaie?
It's easy for us to forget as we take the plastic packaging off our bacon that we too are dependent on the well-being of ecosystems. What will happen to the Spanish hoteliers when all of the tourists are scared away? What will happen to the families of fishermen when stocks are depleted? Most importantly, what will we eat as farmers worldwide, struggle to adapt to changing climate? We are just as vulnerable to the





tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
fV
hterview

Polly Courtney reveals scandals of cocaine use, affairs and other morally ambiguous things in the world of investment banking.
Powe^-
Drugs on films. Films on drugs. Reviews on films. Reviews on drugs
If you want to find out more about Polly's thoughts on women in the industry, the best way to become a "banker wanker", exactly who it w;as that she worked for and her advice to LSE students, The Beaver is hosting a book signing in D402 on Thursday, 9th November at 12pm. Golden Handcuffs will be available from Clare Market Waterstones from 1st November.
Where: D202
Date: Thursday November 9th Price: Free
Emily Haines leads her merry band to Hammersmith to do some good music. Something of a Halloween spectacular is promised, with DJs into the wee small hours of the new November morning.
Singer/songwriter Chan Marshall plays her ethereal music in Camden Town. Famous for her minimalist sound and her innovative covers, if that isn't enough Karl Lagerfeld described her as the most glamourous smoker in the world.
Where: Roundhouse
Date: Wednesday November 1st
Price: £17.50
Geordie comedian brings his Fizzy Logic tour to London. Hilarious flights of fancy are practically guaranteed. But not actually guaranteed, so don't try and claim your money back if he isn't funny or anything.
Where: Hackney Empire Date: November 4th & 5th Price: £17.50 - £22.50
Ethical T-Shirts from the Yellow Bird Project.
^ Where: Hammersmith Palais Date: Tuesday October 31st Price: £12

Travel
I love to ride my bicycle. Sometimes I ride all the way to Bath.
Music & Comedy
The best that youtube has to offer the discerning music fan. And some funny.
Literature
Keep your eyes, off my prize. Bookers vs. Poetry.
Food and Drinking
Borough Market has
a birthday party. People dress up and bash staffs.
-c	5.
5!



In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power Then when you get the power, then you get the woman. Then when you get the woman you accidentally get a job on the Beaver. Then you don't see the woman because you're in the office until 5am every morning. Then the woman leaves you. This issue is all about the cocaine and more broadly about drugs. Both Daniel and Kevin quite like drugs. Kevin doesn't believe there is something called 'too much drugs'. Daniel is living proof that there is. Daniel believes in monkeys that can design computers.' Kevin's failed IT 0 Level is living proof that monkeys can never design com puters. We both act as living proofs for one another. This keeps us healthy.
Dees fuckin


m
4-
tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
?hree .||
white light.
white heat.
kevinpeny calls for cocaine ro be legalised, joshheller thinks he's on stupid pills
When David Cameron refused to deny his cocaine use, and similarly when George Bush's dab-blings with the devil's dandruff vvere exposed, perhaps the most interesting thing about the public reaction was the complete lack of surprise or concern. Indeed, in Cameron's case it led to blue-blooded Conservatives finding themselves arguing that it didn't matter whether or not he had taken the drug, as long as it wasn't going to affect the job he was doing, or rather the job that he is lusting after.
As an argument it was quite rational, quite logical and quite sickening for the tens of thousands of people currently incarcerated in Britain for doing exactly what Cameron refuses to deny he did. Furthermore, anyone who thinks that criminalising users solves anything is exercising spectacular naivety. There are currently 75,550 people (Home Office, 2005) in Britain's overstretched prison system. Of that number, 16% of the men, and a staggering 40% of the women were convicted for drug offences (Home Office Prison Population Findings). Remember possession of cocaine, a drug that society deems acceptable for politicians and celebrities, carries a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment, while for
unusual for people to feel like they've got the flu." Fuck me. If I'd known that five years ago I'd have streered well clear of nose candy and maybe I'd have my life back. It backs up this harrowing warning by telling us that "Some people act like they're the greatest... dancer., lover., comedian on the planet. Usually they're not." Only usually. That's a relief at least.
Frank also warns that cocaine is rarely pure. "It's not unusual to find the odd wrap padded out with a bit of sugar, starch or talcum powder. Truth is that some wraps of coke would do a good job of cleaning the bathroom." I thought this claim sounded dubious, so I put it to the test. I took the money I had budgeted to spend on Toilet Duck and Cillit Bang, and blew the lot on a Scarface-like mountain of Charlie. I'm pleased to say that on this count, Frank came through for me. Not only was I awake all night and fully motivated, but my taps have polished up a treat."
One thing that Frank does highlight is the arbitrary nature of prohibition laws. It rightly includes tobacco and alcohol as harmful drugs, while offering no explanatation why it's parent government has decided to allow the consumption of those drugs, and not others.
I

supply you can wave goodbye to your liberty for life. On the plus side, at least you still get to take drugs in prison, with 47,000 prisoners needing detox (The Observer) and many prisoners leaving prison with new addictions. If anything, prison pushes people onto harder drugs, with drugs such as heroin more difficult to trace in drug tests than either cannabis or cocaine. Prisons in Scotland recently introduced drug-taking kits, including needles, abandoning their attempts to prevent prisoners from taking drugs, and choosing health over sanctimony. Furthermore, possession of a criminal record makes it harder for people to return to conventional jobs, contributing to the fact that 38% of drug offence prisoners reconvict within two years.
Aside from the glare of the press, I decided to investigate. I wanted to find out more about Columbia's greatest export. However, after spending a number of hours delving into the life story of Tino Asprilla, including watching the entirety of that match in '97 when he massacred Barcelona, I witnessed a Maradona-esque piece of skill which reminded me that I had meant" to look up cocaine.
Where else to start my research than with 'Frank'? The government's antidrugs droid imparts all sorts of useless information designed to confuse young teenagers. For example, it warns that "After a big night on coke it's not
Indeed, many of the arguments put forward against cocaine use are more logically seen as arguments for legalisation. Arguing that the drug is often cut with harmful substances by irresponsible dealers is true, but surely making it legal would ensure that consumers knew exactly what they were taking. Furthermore, anti-drugs bodies often cite the fact that cocaine production funds unsavoury gang leaders and their terror campaigns all over the world. If the drug were legal, a key form of funding would be removed from these groups, and the money would become taxation to fund democratic leaders...and their terror campaigns. C'est la vie.
The fact that the government has ever legislated on the personal use of any substance is arguably beyond the mandate of a supposedly liberal legislature. John Stuart Mill, in his masterful On Liberty, argues that all individuals must have the freedom to do whatever they want with their own bodies. He defends what he calls the different "experiments of living" which individuals must be free to indulge, even if others may see it as harmful.
40 tonnes of cocaine were imported into Britain last year, the war on drugs is going as well as the war in Iraq. If the law is not going to be hopelessly mired ; in the past, we must accept the fact that i individuals can distinguish for them- ; selves between use and abuse.
Bush did it and Cameron won't deny it. Its use is now so acceptable that even white horses can't drag opinion polls down. It's not just the compassionate Conservatives that are at it though, cocaine use in the UK is rising and has been doing so for a number of years. Am I the only person who thinks that actually shoving a banknote, a banknote that has passed through the hands of countless dirty people who don't wash their hands ever, up my nose is horrible? Am I the only person who seems to think that whole powder all in your nose thing is just a bit minging? There are people who are addicted to cocaine, for them it is extremely hard to stop. There are those who are coerced into it by social pressure or see it as way to escape hellish lives. I would hate to demonise these people and it is hugely counter-productive to do so. My problem is that cocaine is not just seen as cool, it isn't seen as dangerous. Its use is becoming more widespread with young rich people who fail to see, or choose to ignore, the dangers that it poses.
Cocaine is more accepted than so many other,

Jiethk	i I vSfU
hn	thig coife ,
fcUe-Te	/ ju E SirtAoke
drugs and is so much more accepted than it used to	be.
People who've tried cocaine say they would never even consider heroin.
There are those who never do pills but will gladly snort a few lines every week or so.
It is the drug of choice for the rich and the young,
those who have more choice than anyone else in	the
world.
Cocaine; white powder for white people? This image of cocaine being for the young, rich, and beautiful was amplified to a massive degree by one Kate Moss. Cocaine is probably used by a huge number of people in the entertainment industry, but it is the plaudits she has received after doing so that are irresponsible. Kate Moss is earning more now than she was before the Daily Mirror published photos of her snorting up. Good on yer Kate! Right on sister! No. Shut up. So many sections of the media have praised her to the utmost for this, why is it not a cause for concern? Recovery is extremely important for addicts and hopefully they will become more successful in life after they stop using. The problem with Kate Moss is that she simply walked away from the allegations. Spell in rehab, dabble in Buddhism, think about Karma for a bit and you're done. What kind of a crappy image does that send to impressionable me? Step one take it, step two regret it and step three cash extremely large cheque (not those big silly ones but one with a large amount of money on it). Not good enough. She should be all over my television shouting at me about how bloody stupid she is. Fucking karma, if she believes in that then
she can do some genuine good in an advertising campaign about how terrifying developing a cocaine habit can be. How totally destructive i-t can be if you are addicted or if your friend or cousin is addicted. The idea of it being harmless fun is simply not true for so many cocaine users.
Cocaine isn't nice and lovely and sexy and pure. It is a devastating drug and anyone who thinks otherwise is either ignorant or has been taking stupid pills. The havoc that it wreaks on addict's social circles is thankfully only known to a few. But to the families and friends who know its effects, the often total breakdown of trust, there is nothing lovely about the drug. There are the massive and extremely well documented health risks. Chronic cocaine use destroys your body and it is highly addictive, anyone who says otherwise is selling it.
Quite apart from the health risks and the social breakdown of addiction, is the nonetheless important unethical purchasing issue. Buying cocaine gives money to some of the very worst people in the world. It would be nice to have some kind of Fairtrade cocaine, with a larger share of the profits going back to growers, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon. People will campaign against arms dealers, recoil in horror at Chiquita Bananas and then on their way home from the Coop happily spend £30 on cocaine.
There are definitely arguments for legalising the stuff, but it seems that legalising it sends a signal though, maybe .the government legalising it would make people think it is ok. Conversely, maybe it would lose its cool.
There should be a massive campaign to try and educate people about how bad cocaine can be for your health and how awful addiction can be. People probably wouldn't listen though and there'll be someone who'll say, "oh Nanny you're in such a State!"
There is a problem in focusing too much on cocaine though. Perhaps my real problem with cocaine is the very point that it is damaging to the rich white people. These people who are so much more important in society, a drug problem that affects them, well that's a real problem. Shouldn't we be far more concerned about the truly vulnerable people and their drugs of choice? Crack and heroin, these drugs affect desperate people who have nothing else, who can't afford a rehab clinic let alone new and clean needles. The socio-economic reasons for drug use are many and beyond the scope • of both my knowledge and this article. It infuriates me that an increasing number of people with so much choice in their lives see cocaine as both harmless and perfectly acceptable. It is neither. It is dangerous and dangerously addictive.



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B.
four
tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
unlockin golden
ismatabidi is shocked by polly Courtney's reveiations about cocaine use and sordid goings-on in the world of investment bankir


Back in 2001, Polly Courtney was about to embark on the final year of her Engineering degree at Cambridge. She had spent the summer interning at one of the major investment banks, so when they rang to offer her a high profile position on a full time basis she was understandably elated. She was living her dream. But now, just five years later, she is sat with me on a wet autumn morning, in a Camden cafe, casually revealing scandals of cocaine use, extramarital affairs and all the other dark, depraved secrets that the investment-banking world would rather keep hidden from prying eyes. Her dream had turned out to be nothing but a tawdry illusion, a hollow fuck-around.
When she was at university, Polly, along with a host of scrupulously hand-picked students, had been invited to lavish dinners and wine-tasting sessions, laid on by investment banks. "I got a little posh invitation in my pigeon hole and I was thinking, ooh how nice!" It goes without saying that Polly already had a stellar academic record, and recruiters headhunted her, along with a like-minded crowd that had all been sent invites. Speaking of this time, Polly says, "It was generally good fun, they starting talking about the fast moving element of the work which was very exciting because it was opposite in terms of the slow paced work of engineering that I was used to." The recruiters sold her and her feUow students on the image of rubbing shoulders with high flying CEO's and earning enough to live in Sloane Square by their second year. Who wouldn't want to apply? The thought of coming from a non-financial background briefly concerned Polly, but the investment bank dismissed her worries. One application and two interviews later, Ms Courtney was offered eight to ten weeks of training, spreadsheets, dinners and clubbing, not to mention £7000 in the bank. Let the games begin...
"A whole week of training and technical skills from Excel to PowerPoint was actually quite rigorous. The atmosphere was bizarre; suddenly I was in a world of high finance, wearing suits. The first week was quite tough," Although the internship intake was from quite a vride variety of educational - including the LSE - ethnic and class backgrounds, there was a noticeable divide between those who had studied finance and those who hadn't. Polly says that the average finance student took a laid back approach to training, "flicking around rubber bands...cocky rugby boys". Meanwhile Polly was trying her best to concentrate on getting her number-crunching up to scratch. The group were thrust into the department of corporate finance, notorious for its long hours, but the lavish perks remained. "They put us up in a hotel for a week while we found accommodation... to begin with I remember thinking, what a waste of space I was! I wasn't really earning my £200 a day." Why do they pay so well? Her answer is unequivocal, "To tempt you."
Polly soon felt the competitive edge of her fellow interns kicking in. Some would use their wit, others their contacts, whilst some relied on more base charms. "One girl was very clever, veiy sweet. In fact, she is still working there today. She didn't 'push herself on anyone per se, but she got away with leaving at seven and so on, just by using her cleavage. There was resentment from other boys, but mostly flirting."
It wasn't long before Polly realised that her personal life was being forcibly sacrificed. "With hindsight, I should have seen it coming. I would be miserable, but other people had it
worse than me. My boyfriend was doing the internship as well, and he was often there until three or four in the morning." Other colleagues had even less time for recuperation. "There were these guys who were pale faced and had red rings around their eyes, working three days non-stop...there is only so long you can sustain that lifestyle on natural ingredients." So it is here that the spectre of cocaine use began to enter the young bankers' worlds. The first time that Polly saw someone return from snorting cocaine should perhaps have set off warning sirens in her head - a glimpse into the chasm of hell that was waiting just around the corner. However, when the summer internship came to an end Polly was happy to receive, along with most of her fellow interns, a graduate job offer. "I thought, I'll do this for a few years, definitely!"
Thirty six of the three hundred odd fresh faces to the bank were being recruited for the London Branch. Before being whisked away first class to New York for a seven week training holiday, everyone was presented with a 'Golden Hello'. A 'Golden Hello' is a £7500 welcome bonus which hits your bank account as soon as you join. But there's a catch coming; "If you left within the first 6 months, you would have to pay it back. You pretty much have to stick it out through the year." Once the team had landed on American soil, they were well taken care of with a luxurious mini-apartment at a top hotel. "It was like being in halls of residence, but with loads of money...it was a bit like freshers' week! Once the training began, it was very hard work. We had to travel to Wall Street every morning and we would pick up a bagel on the way to work...very American. It was so intense, in a good and bad way. There was so much work during the days, but at night it was intense partying with hardly a night off. We would finish at eight and stay out until four in the morning; we tried every club in New York, it was such a funny world...a ridiculous lifestyle but hard work...it was hard on my liver and kidney tool"
Back in London the new recruits were "working on a mixture of things that felt at the same time worthwhile and absolutely futile." The first cracks started to appear during Polly's first term at the investment bank when she realised she was constantly letting her friends down. "I really resented that. I split up with my boyfriend within the first term and that was quite typical. Lots of people had relationships from uni and after the first year, pretty much all relationships ended. You're grouchy because you're so tired and you don't have an objective view on the world. I was becoming so unfit...I didn't even have time to go for a run." On the other hand, Polly says that "there was a real kind of bond in the year group. There was a free meal in if you stayed after half-seven so everyone would call each other and meet downstairs. Company emails could be monitored, but there was still a bit of emailing around the office" I ask if the partying was still going on? "Not so much, the chances of us all being free at the same time was just so minimal."
Cocaine was about to re-enter Polly's world. "A workmate of my boyfriend was about four years into it. He slipped out of the office and took something. I think he admitted it. He was a bit of player but didn't really get time to do much playing. He had given up his athletic passion and he just wanted to perform and needed something to keep him going." Though PoUy was shocked at the time, she says that in time it became part of the landscape. "You just had to accept it. It was a real performance cul-



but not the sort you get with imps
ture. It wasn't the junior people who tended to take it, they were on ProPlus, Neurofen and Red Bull." Drugs, she says, were a performance related abuse. It was far from recreational or glamorous, it was simply a symptom of the pressure.
Drug use was not the only scandal Polly encountered. "There were affairs too but not the sort you get with MPs. There were more emotional afEairs which are actually more damaging to marriages than sexual affairs. People spend so long in the office together and don't actually see their wives, or their husbands or their children at all. One particular man in the office who got along well with this woman, would often spend late nights over the board room table eating pizzas. People could see it wasn't an affair as such, but if I was his wife looking in, I'd be extremely hurt." But many emotional affairs progressed to a sexual stage, often with massive age disparities. Polly tells me about a "senior banker, he was a forty-two year old managing director sleeping with a second year analyst."
This vicious, back stabbing playground also had its fair share of bullying. "Everyone's intelligent" she says, "everything that's done is deeper than 'commenting on your tits'. There was a gradual undermining of capabilities. Your self esteem just fell and fell but from the outside it looked the opposite. In that environment, when you're in it, you think it's normal. My view of what was normal wasn't normal at all,,, especially if you go straight from uni... it's a little bubble." Polly had accepted that she would be seen and not heard. Years later, after leaving the investment bank, it shocked her when she was in a meeting and people would listen.
"During the period just before Christmas, I hadn't even been there for six months, everyone was pretty much getting tired of it. At Christmas, my friends back home in Sevenoaks saw that I wasn't really myself; my family knew that I wasn't myself." Polly decided that now wasn't the time to leave. The Golden Hello had become Golden Handcu&, as she couldn't afford to pay back the money she had been given. She had to stick it out until the end of the year, and she began counting dovra the days.
Her novel was born during late night taxi rides from, and to, the office. "Whenever things frustrated me, I wrote it down. Once I got a knock on my door really late. They had sent a cab to take me to the office in the middle of the night. Sometimes I would feel lonely. They didn't understand family, the atmosphere was so competitive...It was always at times like 2am in the morning, no one was really around to talk to so I poured out my frustrations as a load of bullet points," At the time, Polly didn't dream that anyone would reading these notes, let alone that she would one day publish a book based on her experiences. It was just a way of venting out her angry fumes until leaving day
Polly waited until immediately after her bonus day to leave. As soon as the money was in her bank account, she walked away and her senior colleagues closed the door behind her. She has not spoken to them since. Instead, she has used her experiences to inform her novel, Golden Handcuffs. She says that "it's something students and graduates can relate to because it starts from their university years". Her message about investment banks is not necessarily negative, but it certainly doesn't trumpet the virtues of the 'glamorous world of investment banking'. It is simply realistic.
tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six

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requiem for a dream (2000) human traffic (1999)
If this film could speak it would say: We are all addicted to something. Given that we all live these structured lives, isn't habit some kind of addiction? This elderly mother's addiction to prescribed diet pills is ultimately more	0
harmful than her offspring's addiction to hardcore horse-smack. Her addiction is sanctioned and fed by 'society', his is illegal. She becomes trapped in a terrifying invasive fantasy nightmare with quiz shows and a dog. He goes into a prison.
Unlike granny he can come out at some	point.
Although he loses an arm. There is Marlon Wayans,
one of the brothers behind Scary Movie, playing a gritty dirt-box. Directed by Aaron Aronofsky who directed awesome indie classic Pi, a terrifying web of mathematics and insanity. Here is some fast-cutting and a sweet shot of a dilating pupil.
FOR A
There was a campaign formed called Stop Human Traffic but that was about something different. It probably shouldn't have been. With all the youthful reality of a Hollyoaks drug special, HT paints a smug and
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Human Traffic'
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irritating picture of a bunch of unthinking twen-ty-somethings, on some godforsak-enly misidentified threshold-of-adulthood, living for and fetishing the weekend.
Existing on a diet of substances and woeful relationship cliches these idiots have aU the reflexive nouse of a kidney stone and anyone sensible should stop caring after a couple of seconds.
Insult-to-drugs Howard Marks appears to deliver some hopelessly naive commentary on 'spliff politics' and there is something about a bed in the sky being the mark of an alternative reality. Not exactly Aldous Huxley. Exactly rubbish.


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The rambling and insane David Cronei rambling and insane William Burroughs more, and be more insane than, William I achievement. The SfaS protaganist is «!!¦
played by a quietly demented Peter Weller. Alternating his highs between black centipede powder	and
Mugwump jism he stumbles around the fictious, colonial African town of Interzone with obscure but intense motives. He has a typewriter that turns into a beetle,
this is initially irritating for him,
however after realising he is actually working for the beetle, a fondness develops. This makes it all the more unf( of a window. Later he shoots his wife in other plot-element is too hard to explain
how much it made us want to tal<e drugs
liow much it made us fear for our brains
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how much it made us fear for our brains


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how much it made us fear for our brains
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gnarled drug-users with brains like walnuts alonsplode, donielyates and kevinperry pass curt comment on o random selection of classic films that deal in drugs.
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the doors (1991)
scarface (1983)
ne David Cronenburg film of the slightly-less illiam Burroughs book. To make a film ramble le than, William Burroughs's creation is quite an

all the more unfortunate when he throws it out hoots his wife in the head with a crossbow. Any 0 hard to explain.
"Drugs are a bet with your mind" said Jim Morrison. Jim Morrison bet with his mind, a lot in his 27 years, and Oliver Stone put it all into his ode to the man they called the Lizard King, or Mr Mojo Rising, or "that drunk guy". ValP^^
Kilmer's Jim takes 1 The Doors to the desert and gives them peyote. They eat it, they giggle,
there's an eclipse,
there's a man on a horse who looks a bit like Duncan Goodhew, finally Jim meets a Native American who shows him his past and his future. It's pretty much like I imagine taking psy-chedelics in a desert would be.
The closest I've come to doing that is taking shrooms in a bunker on a golf course in Newquay, and then I just ended up getting naked and trying to have sex with my friend Tara. Back in the film, Jim takes some more drugs, gets naked and tries to have sex with Nico. Pretty similar.
7
In American cities, Tony Montana is everjrwhere. From signed screen-shots to patented "my little friend" guns, memorabilia is abundant. Scarface is a hero to the generation that has made 50
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Cent a star,i becoming the ultimate aspira-tional figure. He got the money,
he got the power, and he got the women,
but	most
importantly he got one of the biggest fuck-off piles of cocaine ever seen by anyone outside of	Pablo
Escobar's Medellin. If anyone ever manages to afford enough coke to make even a small|
pile, it is an inevitable law that they will attempt to reproduce the scene where Scarface slumps dovm face first, snorts as hard as he can manage, and then comes up, face covered in white powder.
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eight
tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
alms for the sleeveless
abaosunsade tells us to quit being slaves and start being charity cases
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You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the link between music and fashion. Think simply of the mod versus punk style-battles of the '70s, where dapper Italian suits collided with leather jackets and ripped jeans, amidst a cacophony of The Jam and the Sex Pistols. The era was as much defined by the clothes people wore as by its soundtrack. This seemingly inseparable bond recurs throughout pop culture: picture the '80s. Without Lycra. Without Wiitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". It just wouldn't be the same, would it? And as you read this now, can you imagine a London devoid of indie music and its Converse clad followers? A London lacking in bashment/grime and the pimpin' caps that come with it?
There is, in this, a complex structure of emulation and belonging which ties together music and fashion and creates a cohesive identity from the two. That's not to say every Michael Jackson fan has undergone hours of plastic surgery to achieve the "middle aged white woman" look, but even my mother was inspired enough by the Thriller video to spend a week's wages on a shamefully shiny, red leather jacket. Of course, there are other ways in which we show our support for artists. To be specific, there is one particular fashion item that not only does its job to hide our naked bodies, but more importantly it serves as an instrument to broadcast the message or image we deem worthy: the t-shirt.
Born of modern requirements, handy for protecting the eyes of children from the sight of beer bellies bursting through
proper shirts too tight to be buttoned, the t-shirt is now a staple of anyone's wardrobe. For the music lover wishing to spread the joy, it has proven to be the perfect medium for promoting singers and bands whose music is too great to be kept a secret, musicians whose vibe is too inspiring to not	be
shared.
Whilst frequenting gigs during his third year at LSE a year ago, Casey "became more conscious of how music has the powerful ability to bring people together for a positive purpose". With that in mind, along with a desire to combine art, music and charity. Yellow Bird Project began. The idea behind the project is simple. Casey and co. choose an artist. The artist then \ . designs a t-shirt. :	The
Enabling the fan to promote the artist and their message,
t-shirts also give a bit back to the musician by generating revenue as part of the artist-related merchandise produced by record companies. How amazing would it be if the power of the t-shirt could be taken to the next level? From merely promoting the band to actually contributing to a greater cause that the band and its fans, believe in? Amazing indeed, as Casey Cohen, LSE alumni and the founder of Yellow Bird Project, found out.
artist also chooses a charity. Fans then p u r -chase the artists' t-shirts with all proceeds going to the chosen charity. Who said style was superficial?
"We try to approach the more humane poet-types, whose hearts are in the right place", says Casey of the musicians he has worked with, "...bands
that we personally admire, bands that we think will be interested in this project in the first place. Their choice of charity tends to be quite personal, so this project means as much to them as it does to us. And of course, 100% of the profits we make are distributed to the charities of the artist's choice. So, I think that we have done our best to make kindness easy for people, all they have to do is buy a t-shirt!"
I wonder though, if we can influence the world as much as music influences us, by simply splashing out on a new tee. Casey, however, defies all defeatists, "Our designs are printed on American Apparel t-shirts, which are made in a sweatshop free factory in LA, where workers on average get paid twice the amount of minimum wage. I think that's a terrific start." By this point in the interview I'm sold - I want every tee he has, and I want them now. But am I alone? Or are there other altruistic music fans out there, dedicated enough to support not only the musician's art, but also their charity? "So far so good." Casey responds, "People have responded quite well to the idea. We've been really satisfied with our t-shirt sales so far, and the public has been very encouraging."
You heard the man. Rise ye music loving fashion followers. Power to the t-shirt.
Designs by (clockwise from top (eft) King Creosote, Joseph Arthur, Devandra Banhorf, Hoyden, ?
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Located in thie heart of Theatreland^ only 5 minutes w^ik from the LSEj Sarastro is the most exciting and extravagant restaurant in the West End and a perfect place to spend time in before and after yotir show.
The restaurant is flamboyantly yet unpretentiously designed as a theatre with ten *opera boxes' based on different artistic traditions.
The menu offers a fantastic choice of delicious Mediterranean and Turkish food, fresh seafood^ exquisite wines and spirits.
Set menus start at £15 Massive discounts for LSE students only!
126 Drury Latie» TheatreLand, London, WG2B 5QG. B^servations: 02078360101
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tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
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A beautifully designed restaurant, only 7 minutes walk from the LSE, s is named after the character in Mozart's 'Magic Flute'.	as
Papageno's design reminds you of Alladin's cave and an old opera set, where artistic exuberance complements wonderful cuisine. The chef boasts a variety of Mediterrenean food, exceptional fish, and tempting starters, such as the cheese Borek.
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Spacious 700 seat Papageno welcomes student birthday parties, graduation celebrations and evening get-togethers.
Massive discounts for LSE students, every day and night! %
29-3i Wellington Stt Covent Garden^ WC2E 7DB» Reservations: 02078364444
CP
€#9
With Halloween on our doorstep and 4, or is it 5, weeks of college behind us, the perpetual hangover is becoming a bit tiresome. Suddenly the exact location of your liver is revealed to you through a combination of shooting pains of protest and its plain visibility from beneath your clothes. Your skin resembles a four season pizza as your diet relies solely on one food group-carbohydrates: What to do? What to do?
Eureka I've got it, what about that thing you learned as a child that you will never forget- ah yes cycling. If you don't own a bike, rent one,. Can't afford that? Consider theft, everybody's doing it. Now, I'm not talking about going for a nice (lethal) cycle around London, I'm talking a three day tour to Bath. It may sound epic and it is. Apart from the bike (an absolute must), all you need is a pair of padded shorts (think J Lo), gloves and the ability to run up a flight of stairs without experiencing heart palpitations.
Does that sound like something you would like to tiy? [Insert mandatory yes or affirmative nod here] OK, so on day one make your way to Blackfriars, central London, where the route 4 cycle path begins and continues all the way to Bath, from there I suggest making your way to Windsor which is a mere 30 miles away; no need to over face yourself on your first day.
Upon arrival, you may be suffering the effects of major dehydration; however the endorphins you will have clocked
up from all that exercise vnll mean that this will not resemble the dry mouthed, swollen eyed experience of hung-over dehydration. A good night's sleep will
ing there's little place called Bray with plenty of great restaurants to satisfy your desires.
Eventually you will find yourself in a
hold you in good stead for the 70 mile cycle the next day, but if you're looking for an extra challenge, or happen to be a little sadistic, why not hit the local bars?
The 70 mile cycle on day two may be the hardest sell of this article but there are plenty of perks, including cycling past the poshest of all private schools, Eton, you may even get the chance to witness the good old chaps doing a spot . of rowing. If public school boys don't float your boat or you're just plain starv-
place called Pewsey; terrible name, but lots to do (that is if you can still walk). From hot air ballooning to visiting crop circles, this town caters for a whole range of random attractions. All things considered though, a bed is probably the only attraction you will be interested in.
Day three, with only 30 miles to go till you get to Bath, this leg of the journey is a doddle, you will be cycling through the southern tip of the Cotswolds an area with a genuine old-
school English feel to it, if you ever felt an inkling towards afternoon tea; look no further. Take note; rushing through this beautiful area is frowned upon, not least by me, take your time, imwind and de-stress.
Your moment of reckoning will soon be upon you as you arrive into the city of Bath and a sense of glorious achievement to rival any good score on a Saturday night will overcome you. Though your backside and legs will hate you, you'll be walking on air and will have earned yourself at least one (hundred) celebratory drink(s). Jump on a train the following day and you wiU be back to crazy London in just two hours with just the memoiy of tea and crumpets and the aches and pains to remind you what you have just done.
Highlights: the route is free, bike rental is about £30 for three days-take your pick of accommodation from 5 star to B&Bs- the key is to check it on the internet, you may be surprised with the last minute deals top hotels offer. Do not delay, rope in a couple of good friends and make a team-building weekend of it; remember what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
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tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six

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insomnia fuelled late night, after exhausting - all the other entertainment (pom) capabilities of the internet; I watched the top 100 most viewed videos on YouTube. For the most part it was a horrifically depressing experience, I found myself watchiHg video after video of Mentos and Coke exploding, deformed children dancing, women being punched, horribly^ repetitive beat boxing, inane people talking about inane things, horribly gay men giving fashion advice, and, of course, semi-naked women gyrating to bling beats. But in amongst this digital detritus there lurked some amazing footage.
Growing up I was never able to watch Sky, so Top of the Pops was my only access to music television. Perhaps this early starvation accounts for the many hours I spend watching the same videos of the same bands over and over again. The only consolation for these wasted hours is that one of my house mates has decided to watch every Bob Dylan video on YouTube, all 2131of them. So I can take some comfort in the fact that he, and many more,
will have wasted more hours than I. So it is this reason that this weeks Part B music section is dedicated to drawing your attention to some of the best videos with musical content on YouTube. Enjoy.
Now that Al-Qaeda have finally got with the programme and realised that the best way to reach disaffected teens is by posting videos of fuck-off mortars, living wills and sexy machine guns on YouTube, the site has been in the news a bit. Also, Google bought it for $1000billion dollars, a huge safe-full of gold and 15 Parisian prostitutes. So how does YouTube work? Well, you make a video, stick it up, watch it. Do you want a diagram, you slack-jawed yokel?
Apart from pussies in the microwave, military hardware and shitty renditions of Europop, what does YouTUbe offer the cultural voyeur?
The quality of these home-made vids varies. Sometimes you think you've stumbled on creative genius in the burbs, e.g. lonelygirll5, an unsettling blog by a girl-next-door type who seems to be joining a cult. But then you find out SPOILER ALERT that she's actually just a fame-hungry wannabe, with a film to promote and behind her a production company who liked Blair Witch.
But trawling through the trash is fantastic fun, Bufumufu, a trio of Canadian losers (by Canadian terms, here in England they look like sweat-soaked sex gods) dance, work out, play football and demonstrate the worst back-flips on earth. To find them, search for mdunnet. They are such YouTube gods, they have spawned a Scottish franchise, bufumufuuk, search for mag-netmike. I would highly recommend
chriSTh'
How to Pickup AKA the Pickup and The Race, respectively. Skirting the edge between amateur film and copyright infringement ¦ are the Fensler Film GI
ever dabbled in D&D, Fear of Girls will either delight or enrage you. It's been doing the rounds for a while and has prompted a kind of geek-backlash, with



J
Joes. They take the classic 'after-school specials' and dub the characters. Pretty indescribable stuff results. If you've
roleplayers nationwide raising their bearded, Cheerio-dust flecked, drooling faces from their 100-sided dice and elf
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queen fanzines to cry out, "We're not like that, we have themed costume parties and cool stuff like 24 on DVD and original Monty Python records."
Of course, if you like your comedy professional, there's plenty of that on YouTube. It's called video piracy and, as you know, video pirates not only flog shaky recordings of X-Men 3 in dodgy pubs, they also fund international terrorism, send flowers to paedophiles and, on weekends, rain down sulphur on the unwitting folks of WeebleTown. But it's quite good to know that if you miss the Daily Show, you can catch the best bits on YouTube later.
The weirdest thing about YouTUbe is that even though it's feted as the global communication revolution, blah, blah, blah, it's actually just like being at school. Cliques form pretty quickly as the usual suspects big up each others movies, post comments and make video replies. It's so insular that it even hosts campaigns against itself, including a group who got reprimanded for using copyright material, and claimed that it's due to YouTUbe's anti-Israel bias. Their video protest makes use of screen-shots of Hamas, Hezbollah and PLO videos on the site. It's hard to tell if they are the work of terrorists, political activists, or just random clips from news footage. But if the videos go from being cute family memories, pranks, and satire to another front of the GWOT, this should be one net Flame War worth watching.

call me a tube : youtube
H
tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
eleven
glittering prizes and poetic consolations
Ik
"Hi
-e tried to keep on the right side of power, tried to be loyal -to so many things that he himself couldn't tell which one of his selves was the authentic, if any."
How does identity transcend continents, cultures and races? Well, it doesn't. No matter how hard you try, you're inevitably left hanging somewhere



between East and West.
This is the central theme of Kiran Dessii's novel The Inheritance of Loss, winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize.
In a nutshell, the story - spanning generations - charts the lives of a few Indians looking for better lives in Britain and America. They are embarrassed by
First thing on Saturday morning the last thing I was expecting to see was a sword fight. Especially one that ended in the dramatic killing of a woman dressed up in 18 th century costume surrounded by quite young children who, much like me, shuddered at the sight of the woman's body twitching on the groimd. This lovely re-enactment was followed by more mock fighting, this time involving large wooden staffs. Apparently, this was quite a common occurrence at Borough Market back in 1756 and hence a prominent feature of its 250 year anniversary celebrations.
Collecting myself, I decided it was best to leave the sword-fighters and move on to find something that miraculously cure my hangover and hunger pangs at the same time. As it turns out I was in the right place to find just that... at de Gustibus's stall I found a vegetable Tortino, which transported me to a Mediterranean oasis with one quick bite. And that at only two pounds fifty. The festivities carried on well into the afternoon, with 18th century dance, and the passage of the Mayoral progression through the people packed market announced by the town crier, dressed in a royal red cape and a black hat, ringing his bell, which was followed by the beating of drums just a step behind. Sadly, not all the stall merchants joined in the fun and so the few actors in costumes where somewhat lost in the swarm of people. I was able to catch sight of some of the actors however, my favorite was the one clad in a turquoise costume with a large feather hat, which made me wonder
their own cultures as well as the naivete and gaudiness of their own people. But at the same time, though they pander to and try to emulate the apparent respectability and sophistication of the West, they never fully become either American or British. Neither can they expect to return to the familiar, to be embraced with open arms again by their own people, whom they'd chosen to leave behind. So they end up feeling like foreigners in their homeland, alienated by those untouched by 'modernity'. Both sides have their own prejudices after all.
The plot is straightforward. It's the intricacies of the exchanges between the characters, the little glimpses into the windows of their lives that give the story depth and emotion. And the stereotypes are hilarious, especially that of excited gaggles of Indian women visiting London hailing Marks and Spencer underwear as 'the quintessence of Englishness' because it was like the Queen of England; solid, plain, strong and no-nonsense.
The mise en scene is largely India and America, with oscillations backwards in time to Britain. The conceptions of America and Britain are easy to understand, but the going-ons in post-colonial India are more difficult to contextualise, especially when you're ignorant of India's historical and political past.
Despite that, Kiran Desai has a very lyrical style that is relatively easy to read compared with other high-brow literary winners, and the pictures she paints - so vivid - superimpose themselves on your minds.
She is an insightful writer, and smartly refrains from making overt judgements about the virtues or vices of 'civilization'. The ending of the book though makes allusions to the comfort of home and family, perfectly captured by the line: 'Happiness had a smaller location.'
ennilyding [left] reads booker winner 'the inheritance of loss' while josephcotterill [below] attends the tenth anniver-saiy of 'poetry unplugged'
Something is wrong with the spoken word. Its devaluation is a problem throughout our culture. Look at the sorry state of political orator; it's dead like performance poetiy. However the consequences are more noticeable, and in that respect I'm not sure whether the tenth anniversary of the 'Poetry Unplugged' open mic night at Poetry Cafe should be applauded or pitied. Those ten years saw the rise and fall of poetry's vampirisation, but what I saw in the stifling hot, overcrowded cellar of Poetry Cafe that night was just pointless.
It's not as if spoken poetry can't manage aesthetic frisson. Have you ever listened to recordings of T. S. Eliot reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?
Frankly, Eliot gets the emphases of his lines all wrong! In fact, he entirely omits them. What I've read and thought of as really resounding and pregnant lines just vanish amidst Eliot's reedy, fruity, listless meandering. A reflection, perhaps, of Prufrock's state of mind that I missed? I'm not sure. Yet the ambiguity appeared because I had the text in front of me; without text, all the pleasures of poetry -cheeky formalism, recontextualisation, self-allusion - dissolve in voice ether.
One of the night's MC's said that it had always been worth going to 'Poetry Unplugged' during the last ten years because at least it wasn't television. I have to disagree. You can hit the rewind button on television; you can edit and chop it up into new forms; you can reproduce the results for ever and ever on Youtube. It's the same story for other visual culture. You might want to scissor this article up and do something Dada.
Pure oral/aural culture, though, is harder to achieve now. The two good acts that night sort of managed it: one \ guy war-danced around the mic in a wrestler mask making well-modulated, semi-verbal noise. But that's performance art, surely? And another poet imitated birdsong. Nevertheless, they all took their chances to emote - mostly without the flourishes of enjambment or enunciation, let alone a pulsing Anglo-Saxon rh3rthm - the stuff of great performance poetry.
Poetry without text? That's Homer, that's Gilgamesh - just folklore, just anthropological curiosity. 'Poetry Unplugged' is worth it just once if you're curious; and I - guarantee you some steamy anthropology down there in that dark hot basement. But other than that the next ten years don't look good for the poetic spoken word. Nor should they.
Gamston Wood Ostrich stall selling ostrich burgers... not something I was brave enough to try especially after just finishing off my 'ultra chocolate brownie' from the Flour Power City Bakery stall.
Amid the mountains of peppers and baskets of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, I heard snippets of flutes, and decided to head back to the main performance area in the middle of the market, where a 18 th century style concert was getting under way I am not sure if this was equally as popular a pastime in the market as the sword fighting in 1756, but it was pleasant enough to watch nevertheless. Past the performers I saw a sign for the Shell Seekers. Intrigued, I went to check out their shop. Clad in diving suits, these merchants dive for the scallops that they offer and bring them to Borough Market straight from the Devon Coast. Quite impressive I must say. Another impressive stall is the New Forest Cider stall where you can purchase English apple cider straight from the barrel. If like me however you have a slight to severe caffeine addiction, you must, I repeat, must, head over to the Monmouth Coffee Co., where you will find arguably the best coffee in London. On the other hand, if chees.e is your thing, you wont be disappointed. From KaseSwiss, who specialize in Swiss farmhouse cheese, to the award-winning Welsh cheese from the Gorwydd I^rm Cheese stall, there is plenty to choose from and some stalls will even let you try before you buy.
While the celebrations were marking the 250 year anniversary of Borough Market in its present location,
the market itself has been in existence for the past 2000 years. It daties back to before the construction of London Bridge by the Romans. Considering this, it appears strange to me that the market seems so unique and almost eccentric in today's 21st century. Surely, its occurrence should seem more commonplace than it is? Then again, it is part of the market's charm, this sort of unusual meeting of aYnazingly tasty and exotic food finds with its long history and almost hidden location in the heart of London. Going to Borough Market is most certainly a 'must do' activity, at least once. While you will not be able to catch sight of a 18 th century swordfight at Borough Market when you make your way to London Bridge on a Friday or Saturday from now on, you are sure to find something that will appeal to your taste buds and be captivated by its 21st century eccentricity.
kimmandeng celebrates 250 years of borough market
swordfighting and staff bashing


+
01, twelve
tuesday the thirty-first of october, two thousand and six
" 4 6
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9 4
n
is
123
Across
1 unlucky; luckless; unfortunate (7)
5 eight letter of Greek alphabet (5)
8	leaves on the beach (9)
9	horse drawn vehicle (3)
10	cruel and brutal fellov? (5)
12	without sufficient taste to be pleasing, as food or drink (7)
13	of no particular ability (13)
15of or pertaining to the range of volume of
musical sound, (7)
17 you do this for clothes (5)
19	A garland of flowers, especially one worn around the neck. (3)
20	On Atlantis (9)
22	soaked; thoroughly wet; sodden (5)
23	to unfold; open out; spread out (7)
Down
1	big and strong; burly (5)
2	nap. (3)
3	to look into closely (7)
4	of a person, ideas, tastes, manners (13)
5	a limited period of time (5)
6	when Quark goes wrong (9)
7	The fraction of incident electromagnetic radiation reflected by a surface, (7)
11 at the start (9)
13	A small knotlike protuberance. (7)
14	to drive very fast (7)
16 of or like meat. (5)
18 insane (5)
21 the whole nimiber of (3)
5 1
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Merry Halloween young un's! You gave Mr Shaw such a fright at Crush, he jumped out of his skin into Union Jack's hairy arms, ooh my! I enjoyed those saucy nibbles and gnaws I received from a very, very, very friendly vampire. I will savour my bites and scars and reminisce about that oh so wonderful all-night-long fetish fest. Good luck trick-or-treating tonight. Remember, don't take no for an answer. In the meantime, young 'uns, here are some more tissues and issues for the week. This week we've got bizarre fetishes, hangover cures, SU hate mail and, of course, spelling mistakes. Enjoy my blood sucking ghouls, ghost and goblins. Boo!
Dear Auntie
I can't stop thinking about birds in a sexual way.
3rd Year History Name Withheld
Dearest lust filled ornithologist, perhaps all that spare time spent bird-watching has made you forget the pleasures of the human touch. While pigeon-eating pelicans may be something new and exciting to inject into you sex life, I encourage students not to experiment too much. You might regret it. Go and find a proper fanny instead, then bring a feathered friend into the equation. Keep those beaks to yourself
Cock-a-doodle-do-me Auntie Shaw xoxo
Dear Auntie
I almost died in the campaign firing line this week on Houghton St. I
loathe (with a passion)
hacks and the like; they should all be 'hacked to death'. How many of them sleep together for more 'power', or add me as a friend on face-book...friend my arse. The incestuous pack drive me mad. What is the UGM and why the fuck are so many of them self-obsessed?
Grow up and get over it.
Being head of this, officer of that is really NOT that big of deal outside this LSE bubble. It's tragically sad.
Hacktivist Association,
High Hobom Name Witheld
My, my, so much anger. Either you are very jealous or very bored. I was the first Gen Sec with a fanny back in my day when this campus was so radical, you had to wear professional protective body and head gear during campaign week, so count yourself lucky young man. The best way to get involved (I know you would love to!) is (a) sleep with one of them (b) use facebook as a campaign vehicle, add anyone and everyone who can be (c) befriend the media group so they will only sing your praises on air or in print. Mind you they will dislike you already if you are hack. Watch out for those cartoonists too, they can be wonderfully harsh.
Bonne Chance!
Auntie Shaw xoxo
Dear Auntie
Is it just me or does eddy fonyodi look strikingly similar to David Walliams from Little
Britain..."Compu'ar says naowwww"
2nd Year Actuarial
Science
Waseem
Oh my, how right you are! I! The media group would like to thank you for humouring us this weekend. Boys and girls reading this, if any one else thinks we have a celebrity look alike on campus, do let us know!
Bosom love Auntie Shaw xoxo
Dear Aimtie
Aimtie, who makes the shit up that gets printed in The Beaver. It's raucous. So a friend of a friend told me he's got this problem. He chokes the chicken too much. He wakes up. He beats one off. Out the shower, he's doing it again. Hot checkout lady in Sainsburys and he's looking for the nearest room with a lock. Fit girl next to him in economics lecture, that's why he brings a spare pair of clean pants to campus with him. How can we wean him off this self-indulgent habit?
Name Withheld
Economics
Government
and
You seem awfully concerned that your friend is constantly exploding semen left, right and centre. As long as he covers his tracks and isn't harming anyone, I believe it a healthy and natural way to enjoy and relax. I'm very impressed that he has a spare pair of clean pants, how
considerate of him. After all, when Mr Shaw was away in the flalklands as a soldier, I was very much in a drought and I kept satisfied (with a little help from my friends). It seems to me that you ihay be the one in need of a five knuckle shuffle so shake white coconuts from that veiny branch, pat the porpoise, batter that sausage, burp the worm, pump the Primus, pop your weasel, bop the bologna, clear the snorkel, squeeze your eclair, choke the bishop, wax the dolphin and whip up a batch. Be sure to save some for Mr Shaw and I.
Waste tissues Auntie Shaw xoxo
Dear Auntie
My hangover ciure this weekend went very wrong. Still suffering from the effects of alcohol the morning after, I accidentally read and vsTongly carried out a recipe I found on the internet. I replaced sugar bamboo with mUd shampoo and ginger with vinegar. To make matters worse, I went on to make myself a fry up, which I later projectile vomited over into the kitchen sink. I feel poorly, my flatmates are pissed off and I'm too embarrassed to go a doctor and-e3g»lain^the situation. HELP.
LLB Law, 2nd Year Name Withheld
My poor munchkin!!! Pop up to the Shaw Library and Mr Shaw and I will give you a cure that works like a charm. It involves a whip or two, suspenders, leather handcuffs and a mouth
leaver | 31 October 2006 11 '
nd in fire, some say in ice
gun and it is time we take notice
: Alex Small questions whether flying is a personal right or an ethical error
effects of climate change as the Greenland reindeer. This was the lesson leamt this summer in Poland. Although experts agree it is impossible to pin individual occurrences on climate change, the worst drought on record has ruined harvests nationwide. The government was forced to provide massive amounts of assistance to farmers and there is growing concern about food shortages.
In the UK, most agree that the immediate dangers to agriculture are slight. It is predicted that as our climate changes, British farmers in the south will be able to grow new crops such as sweetcom, sunflowers, soya and maize. Farmers in the north wiU find it easier to farm livestock. However these are predictions based on slow gradual change. But what happens if, as some expect, the Gulf Stream effect turns off and we are left with the same climate as our latitudinal neighbours in Moscow and Alaska? More importantly, how will third world countries with a lack of capital and agricultural knowledge adapt?
It is expected that already short growing seasons will shorten further; nutritional content of crops will decrease under combined increases of temperature and C02. Freak weather could knock out crops with a single blow. Many countries are already struggling to feed their populations in hard environments and with the distortions caused by global trade. The west can no longer take for granted cheap imports of food from poorer countries and if it continues to subsidise its farmers and flood foreign markets, neither the free market nor government intervention will bring about the change needed to ensure food supply for future generations. What is needed is a reduction in western involvement in third world food markets and greater assistance in helping farmers adapt.
Conversely, food supply is not just about weather conditions and inequalities in world trade, it is dependent on the entire ecosystem. Take fishing, for example. Water is clear at
the top of warm seas and 1$ oceans because plankton.

the basis of every marine ecosystem, cannot live in warm conditions. As the sea temperature continues to rise, plankton will struggle to flourish and it is hard to see how the rest of the ecosystem will not come crashing down around it. It is already agreed that 'over-fishing' is depleting fish stocks, but what happens when the foundations of the food web that supports human life are unable to survive these new conditions? Grilled jellyfish, anybody?
The most important point about the decline in ecosystems is we can only guess what form it will take or how it will affect us. What is certain however is that change is happening faster than Mother Nature can adapt. ¦Whether it is English flowers blooming in October or recent sightings of grass in Antarctica, the balance is being torn apart. Back in 2000 the Costa Rican Golden Toad became the first official extinction primarily due to climate change. The disappearance of low-lying cloud, as a result of ocean warming, in its native forest left the toad susceptible to disease and it was wiped out. Animals have evolved over millennia within their specific ecosystems. The extinction of the toad is a specific example of how climate change is changing ecosystems, so fast that many ecosystems face collapse.
Therein lies the tragedy. A complex world made up of tens of thousands of beautiful creatures; each perfectly adapted to living in its chosen environment is being destroyed by human activity in the blink of an eye. Climate change is not an additional factor to be brought into consideration in an Energy Review or the reason to reconsider Transport Policy; it is the single greatest threat to the future of the human race. We must make a monumental change in policy before the things that make our world so beautiful, and the systems that support humanity, disappear completely. Because once they are gone, they will be gone forever. ¦
Climate change is everywhere at the moment. Amidst a flurry of political catching up, Tony Blair has been the latest to chip in, saying last Friday that the world faces a "catastrophic turning point" over climate change. Mr Blair is right. Yet despite the encouraging noise made, Mr Blair's government remains committed to policies that will push us over his "catastrophic turning point." The expansion plans for the Ml motorway are one such policy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that more space for cars mean more cars which lead to more carbon emissions. At £3.5 billion the plans also happen to cost 1,500 times the amoimt that is currently being pledged to the
a greater burden on the economy in the longer term. If expansion occurs, aviation will be the highest contributor to global warming by 2030. In fact, even if we were to make the neces-
Simply put, there is almost without exception no defence for flying anywhere
sary cuts in every other sphere by 2030, an aviation industry allowed to grow would emit 101% of the carbon allowed to
U S A I i<\v/\ysi
in the UK 75% of flying is done by social classes A-C (the lowest is E). This highlights the great injustice that, while it is the rich world doing most of the flying, the effects of climate change will be felt most of all in the poor world. There are those who would argue that, despite this discrepancy, the freedom to fly brings economic benefits even to those who cannot afford it, through tourism in particular. This also fails to stand up to argument: the disastrous effects of global warming caused by flying would outweigh these benefits even if tourism was still attractive. Who would want to safari in a Kenya under economic collapse due to years of successive drought, or party in an Ibiza beset by unbear-
else. Change is pointless unless it occurs on first a national, then a worldwide scale.
When researching this arti-j cle, I had hoped to be able to propose some moderate means that we might achieve this change. Unfortunately, George Monbiot, who got there before me, found that there are none. The development of more efficient fuel for airliners is a long way off, especially given that any new technology, even if it was discovered, would have to be tested and manufactured before it could be used. There no viable alternative to
t	9 $ a
building of low carbon, renewable energy sources.
The Ml is a small hypocrisy compared to the governments stance on the aviation industry. New runways at Stansted and Glasgow are part of expansion plans equivalent to building a new Heathrow every five years, while the exemption of airline fuel and air tickets from tax is equivalent to big subsidy. Gordon Brown defends these decisions by arguing that more airport capacity will bring benefits for the wider economy, given rising demand for air tickets. He is certainly right about rising demand. Predictions are that air passengers will more than double by 2030 - bringing 400-600 million people through our airports each year. But is he right about the economic benefits it will bring us?
In the short term, more flights means more jobs and greater revenue from flying. The other 'benefits' expansion will bring are less welcome - flash floods, loss of land, loss of homes, death. All due to a rise in sea levels and increasing heatwaves. Furthermore this will be
the entire economy. It would ^ more than override all of our other cuts.
Aircraft fuel (kerosene) has a warming effect 2.7 times greater than ordinary carbon dioxide, due to the water vapour released in trail clouds that trap the earth's heat. Secondly, aircraft often travel much further than other modes of transport, emitting far more C02 - London to Paris by air emits 244kg of C02 per passenger compared to 22kg by train. Simply put, there is almost without exception no defence for flying anywhere. I write this as someone who has flown all over the world. I write this while studying at the LSE where 75% of the student body come from outside the U.K and have often little viable alternative but to fly to come to university. There is nothing wrong in principle with flying, nor are the undeniable benefits it has brought to the world bad either. The policies of our government reflect the reality of this privileged world that, for a few, flying abroad on holiday or business is a nonn, even a right.
However, just 10% of the world can afford to fly, and even

^ able temperatures and p tropical storms?
^	There are, of course,
ways in which individuals can make a small difference, carbon offsetting- paying for trees to be planted to offset the amount of carbon used in your flight-

Whik: it is the rich world doing most of the flying, the effects of climate change will be felt most of all in the poor world
being one example, simply using other means of travel when possible being another. However, even if I was to cycle everywhere from now on in my life, and plant trees wherever I went, I would likely come nowhere near to offsetting the emissions I have already produced through flying. More importantly, my place on the plane would simply be filled by someone
kerosene, including hydrogen, and we cannot wait until there is one. If we wish to continue enjoying high speed travel around the world, other forms of highspeed transport might be proposed.
Unfortunately, even a high speed train link from London to Scotland would deliver a 10% emissions rise, while taking the QEII, a high speed liner, to New • j York and back emits 7.6 times' as much carbon as the same journey by plane. To meet the necessary cuts, there is no option but to cut aviation by 90%. Since there is no viable alternative to fljdng that can transport us as fast, this means we must consent to take longer in order to get where we want. For those of us privileged enough to have been brought up in a world used to fast travel, it will be an imposition. It will, however, in contributing to the prevention of unmanageable climate change, safeguard the living standards that we enjoy** elsewhere. For many of those in the third world who do not currently enjoy those standards, it will mean life over death. That is surely something worth taking the train for. ¦
[.oiiise Ro!>!nson argues we must re-examine our lifestyle habits and urgently adopt renewable energy solutions
The time for change is now. With the current levels of energy consumption looking unlikely to decline, and the ever increasing 'need' for energy as individuals fuel their high-powered lives, alternative solutions to traditional industrialised sources of energy and dangerous nuclear sources are being put back into the fore. Put simply, many kinds of alternative solutions (in the true sense of the word, as a substitute rather than just a Utopian idea) are currently on the drawing board, because of the extreme urgency as we countdown to climate disaster
It's looking pretty unrealistic that anything short of enormous changes in personal living and attitudes to energy consumption will have significant impact, so it makes sense to look at the root of energy consumption. Individuals need to look at
cutting our own energy wastage. But businesses have continued to be irresponsible and reluctant to acknowledge the urgency of changing their practices to consider the long term (or maybe now not so long term) effects of their practices, forcing solutions to be sourced from non-governmental organisations, individuals and the government.
It seems natural that we look to the vast wealth of resources that nature presents us with. If we can harness the kinetic energy of water movements or wind power, then we can power turbines in ways that are sustainable - as the tides will always turn and winds wiU always blow. We can therefore generate energy without moving yet closer to peak oil and without contributing to the global warming crisis further. Decentralising energy through
micro-generators which feed back into the national grid may also make individuals think twice before recharging their iPods; about the energy they actually use and the energy they actually waste.
The trade-off between aesthetic beauty and renewable energy sources is a luddite argument that must be dismissed -and soon. In most climates, solar panels on house roofs would make very little difference to the appearance of a street, but a huge difference to the consumption of fossil fuels, and the feeble justifications for yet another nuclear generator. The debates about the suitability and volatility of nature in providing a practical solution to our energy problems are easily resolved by taking renewable energy options as one whole package, with each source offering a diversity to reap the full poten-
tial of renewable sources for adequate energy production.
We know that climate change is going to affect us all. We know it will affect the poorest in developing countries even more. And we know we're on a one way ticket to disaster unless we act now. We also must realise that our consumption habits in recent years are wreaking havoc
on the fragile eco-system around us, yet we're selfishly reluctant to change them any time soon (we should have done so years ago). So, it's logical to take some consideration in where our energy comes from, while simultaneously seriously reviewing our consumption ^ habits.fl
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I
12
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IBeaverl 31 October 2006
FEATURESiPOLITICS
OPECs pipeline politics
Yee To Wong asks whether the end of oil dependency is just a pipedream
Global politics these days seems to boil down to one word: oil. This dirty little word manages to creep into the headlines almost everyday. We use oil to produce electricity and we own or aspire to own cars, most of which still run on oil. For many, the word oil screams of money. Unsurprisingly then, nine of the top ten companies on Fortune 500 are in the vehicle or oil businesses. The word oil is not only dirty, but also powerful. I need not remind all you economists out there of the very basic principle of economics: scarce resources for unlimited want. Oil derives its power from the very fact that more people are demanding it but its supply is running out.
Those who ovsm oil are in a position of great power. Oil-producing countries are given a lot more political leverage in world affairs. Just look at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which holds about two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. The 11-member cartel sets output and, in doing so, prices of oil, very often according to their own political needs. The Arab oil embargo during theYom Kippur War in 1973, which resulted in the world's first oil shock, is the classic example. Thomas L. Friedman argues vehemently that the war in Lebanon over the summer was financed by the oil revenue of Iran, which is OPEC's second-largest


Syria is able to survive US sanctions because oi' its oil exports, which keeps its corrupt and antiquated regime
producer. In Friedman's words, "Hezbollah and Iran are like a couple ^ of rich college students who rented ~ Lebanon for the summer, as if it were a beach house." Similarly, Syria, another OPEC member, is able to survive US sanctions because of its oil exports, which keep its corrupt and antiquated regime alive.
OPEC is by no means the sole expert in the game of pipeline politics. It appeara that a new "Cold War" in Europe is looming on the horizon. ^ This time, though, the war is literally about the temperature. When Russia turned off the gas to Ukraine last year, it sent shivers across Europe where many are increasingly dependent on Russia to keep warm. About 40% of Europe's natural gas imports come from Russia, and that is expected to rise to 70% by 2030. Cliff Kupchan, an energy analyst with the Eurasia Group, describes the mindset among the Russian political elite as * infused with "petro-confidence". Indeed, Russia's vast reserves of energy allow Vladimir Putin to exercise


"petro-authoritarianism" in the near abroad, forcing the former Soviet republics into submission. In dealings with the West, Putin is using this newfound "petro-power" to push back NATO expansion.
Oil can easily translate into political power for smaller countries seeking regional hegemony. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, who denounced George Bush as "the devil" at the United Nations General Assembly last month, is trying to use his country's oil riches to sway democratic elections in Latin America and promote an economic populism in the region. Venezuela was due to ship 350,000 barrels of oil to Nicaragua this week in an effort to boost the election campaign of fellow US critic, Daniel Ortega, who hopes to lead the Sandinistas back to power next month. Nigeria, with one-tenth of the world's crude oil, is the fifth biggest supplier of America's crude imports.
Oil, therefore, makes Nigeria the most populous country and the largest economy in Africa after South Africa, with which it competes for continental leadership.
The countries that do not have oil of their own are therefore pretty much at the mercy of the oil-exporting countries unless, of course, they have the money. This is precisely the case of resource-hungry emerging economies like India and China. India's car market is set to grow by 10% this year. Consequently, this has boosted the demand for petrol, which, when combined with industrial demand, has sent demand for energy soaring. India imports almost three quarters of its energy to meet the demands of its population of more than a billion people. By 2020, the country may have to import all of its energy needs. Indeed, India is already looking overseas for energy. Earlier this year, India and Saudi Arabia signed the Dehli
Declaration, in which both sides agreed to enter into a long-term.

Few would dispute that the War on Terror has nothing to do with oil
strategic energy partnership. It has also been in talks with Iran and Pakistan to build a US$17 billion natural gas pipeline from Iran.
China, too, is thirsty for fossil fuel. With a fifth of the world's population, China is importing about three million barrels a day. The Chinese have been on a buying spree around the world, signing oil deals with everyone from Iran to Angola. The country has several pipelines planned that would theoretically receive supplies from fields in Russia, Central Asia and Burma. In February, President Hu visited Gabon hoping to secure agreements in Africa. In June, he led a delegation from China's natural gas industry to Uzbekistan to establish a Chinese presence in oil-and-gas-rich Central Asia. It is no wonder that China is trying to block a UN resolution calling for the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Sudan to halt the genocide: China has invested a reported US$15 billion in Sudanese oil projects, and Sudan nowadays supplies about 7% of China's oil imports.
And then there is the US.' Few would dispute that the War on Terror has nothing to do with oil. As President Bush admitted in his State of Union address in January, America, being the largest net oil importer in the world, is addicted to oil. Given the abundance of oil supply in the Persian Gulf, it is commonly imderstood that whoever can exert the most influence over the Gulf region, especially if that extends to a capability for military control, would yield extraordinary international power. Despite exporting vast quantities of oil throughout the 1990s, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and the Emirates have all seen an increase in the size of their oil reserves. Iraq's estimated reserves actually went up 15% in the period 1990-2002. This certainly helps explain why the Bush administration is so attached to the idea of a pro-US government in Baghdad.
In addition, the Bush administration has used the War on Terror for a massive military build-up in Central Asia to further American oil interests in the Caspian Sea, underneath which lie the world's biggest untapped fossil fuel resources. According to the US Department of Energy, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone could sit on more than 130 billion barrels of oil. As early as May 2001, Vice-President Dick Cheney, in line with the policy of diversifying US energy supply, recommended in the National Energy Policy report that "the President make energy security a priority of our trade and foreign policy", and singled out the Caspian basin as "a rapidly growing new area of supply".
Clearly, oil-exporting countries and energy-hungry economies are very powerful in our world today. Nonetheless, the problem of scarcity still persists: the planet's remaining oil and gas reserves are going to last for only a few more decades. The struggles over access and profits between countries and multinational corporations are fast becoming fiercer. With the industrialised world's dependence on fossil fuel, the stage for future energy wars has been set.
However, this volatile scenario can be prevented if we start looking for sustainable alternatives now. Renewable energy is the way forward. Look at what Brazil is doing with sugar ethanol. Not to mention wind, water and solar powers, all of which offer hope for the future. The world needs to go into "rehab" to kick its oil addiction. It is time for the international community to go beyond oil diplomacy. ¦
+ •
FEATURESiSOCIETY
Adopted by a beautiful stranger
Features Correspondent	asks how can 'Papa now preach' after he gave his child up for adoption?

m
The Queen of the British tabloids, Madonna, is once again at it. No, she has not fallen off horseback while mimicking Keira Knightley's accent in Pride and Prejudice again, but she certainly is following another of Great Britain's favourite pastimes. In the footsteps of 19^^^ century Victorians before her, Madonna is adopting a little bit of Africa unto herself.
This days, Madge is not doing it in high marching boots, but I am sure she was in a certain amount of stylish attire when setting foot in Malawi just a few weeks ago. She seems keen on invoking those famous Rudyard Kipling lines about 'The White Man's Burden,' written to describe the difficulties of imperialism to Americans from a British perspective.
Perhaps someone should have lent her a copy of the poem beforehand because she certainly is finding her latest movement to keep up with the celebrity Jones' a bit troubling. It is the latest
She [Madonna] views this child as just another accessor}' in her Immaculate Collection' of a family

way to express yourself but what should have been Angelina 2.0 instead turned into a farcical drama.
Looking deeper and deeper into this, the most common derision for Madonna on this latest third world shopping spree is just that: she views this child as just another accessory in her Immaculate Collection of a family. Child one, the product of an affair with a dancer, child two product of a tabloid marriage to Britain's most famous director, and the icing on the cake, an adopted African child. It's as if she had the iPod, Louis Vuitton purse, and is merely polishing it off with a Chihuahua. At least this is the way the press seems to be looking to spin things at the moment.
How can you resist it though? She goes on Oprah (the Housewife show of America) and spews this story about seeing a child on a video showing the awful conditions in Malawi. Madonna, ditching the dance floor for the dirt floor, takes the next flight on holiday to this small, crisis stricken country and was "transfixed" and crazy for him. She then laboured through the process of adoption, dealing with the
dead-beat Dad who, according to Madge, had not seen the child since week two of its life. And, upon return to the UK, was hit with a barrage of reporters, just like the glory days.
It seems most think that this is simply a ploy to get back in the groove and take back some of the spotlight. The coverage from the outset has been highly negative and biased against the Queen of Pop. Its not as if she if raping the country of Malawi by removing their native bom son, who is now named David. She is merely trying to adopt a child, a child from a poverty stricken country where there was little hope for his survival, let alone his success in life.
But there is a broader issue at hand here. Some might argue that Westerners, or Northerners I suppose in this account, are doing more harm then good by aiding these impoverished countries. Adopting a child is no different than dumping aid; only it's a singular act. Perhaps that child would have been the next great political leader of his countiy, capable of resurrecting the failing economy and propelling a new generation of Malawis greater than the last. Or he might have struggled on for the next 10 months only to die another day of pneumonia when the medication he needed to survive ran out.
To try and apply these broader issues of global poverty onto a simple test case such as Madonna's adoption of an African boy is pointless. It just displays a public who over expose their celebrities and fail to understand the complex realities of Africa. To be honest, I haven't a clue what its like to be an impoverished child in Africa, plucked from an orphanage sick bed, taken away from the world you know to a nice place in Primrose Hill. But what I do know is that writers for The Sun, The Daily Mail, and even The Times haven't a clue either.
While its tempting to get hung up on Madonna for this act of aid (publicity stunt), a much better path to tread is one which recognis- • es the reality of the situation: it is just one boy and should she really have to justify her love? Had Madonna tried to airlift the whole of Malawi to a festival gig at her countryside estate or sent Guy Ritchie to film a stark street side drama about Malawi with Madonna as the star I would see the need for concern. So its time the press take a step back, put down their new, red Africa-aid Bono sponsored iPod Nanos, and ask themselves a simple question: If you had what Madonna has, and could help a single African child survive and give him a ray of light, would you? ¦
A society of stress and distress
Shanela Haque highlights the dangers of an over^¥orked society
London: alive, diverse, multicultural and cosmopolitan city but also the location for one of the largest 'rat races' in the world. Whilst being constantly on the go, chasing after our careers is often exciting, it is often too easy to lose track and become overwhelmed by it aU, by getting caught up in a dangerous cycle of stress and anxiety.
According to statistics from the Mental Health Foundation, around half a million people in the UK experience some form of work-related stress and believe this is making them physically ill. In the most severe cases, this has led to physical symptoms such as high blood pressure, stomach ulcers and rheumatoid arthritis. Psychologists have defined stress as a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed their personal and social resources or abilities. Whilst most of us may experience some level of stress at difficult periods of our lives, in excess stress can be dangerous; by triggering depression and often affecting the physical health of our bodies. NHS records show approximately 12 million adults complain of mental health problems to their GPs each year, much of it stress related. What may seem like a bit of harmless stress could potentially escalate into something far more dangerous.
The solutions are not easy. Obviously prevention is better than cure; a healthy diet, adequate amounts of sleep a balanced lifestyle and limited amounts of smoking and drinking can all help. Unfortunately as students, too often we do not
meet these requirements and too many of us may experience a higher amount of stress than is normal. In such cases, it is important not to be afraid of seeking professional help in trying to address the problem.
Ultimately however, the increase in levels of stress can be traced back to a wider societal cause. In a society, where materialism dominates,
12 million adults complain of mental health problems to their GPs each year
there is a constant pressure upon all of us, to work longer and longer hours. Britain has the highest number of daily working hours and the lowest number of public holidays in the whole of Europe. In short we are the most over-worked and pressurized population in Europe, the rising numbers of patients experiencing stress related mental health problems is no surprise then. To address stress, we must look at the wider root causes; an evaluation of our priorities and a change in societal attitudes is needed.®
Students who are having dijficulties dealing with stress can contact the Advice Centre on 020 7955 7145 Mon- Fri: 10am to 5pm.
Photograph: Liam Chambers
fhri.ttuM	Massage Therapist and Energy Consultant at St. Phillips Medical
Centre offers a massage service which incorporates the techniques of reflexology and aromatherapy as well as paying attention to Chinese meridians and using avocado, grape seed and lavender base oils. The facility is available to both LSE students and staff. Christina who has been qualified for twelve years, says she works on each client's specific needs. From mid-November, she will also be introducing a 'desk massage' service, which focuses on basic pressure points and will mean clients will be able to get a massage in their place of work or study.
A 30 minute massage costs £18 for students and £23 for staff members.
Appointments must be booked in advance by calling the Medical Centre on 0207 955 7016. As it is a private consultant service and not an NHS facility, cancellation charges apply.
FEATURES:IN\^:STIGATION
Nightmare on Houghton Street?
Features Editors Ben 'Mulder' Bi^s and Fatima 'Scully' Manji investigate paranormal activites at the LSE
There have always been legends of 'hauntings' surrounding the LSE. With a place that has been in existence for over 110 years, it is inevitable there will be some level of myth and mystery associated with its name. One need only think of the feud
between the founders of the School; George Bernard Shaw and the Webbs, over the direction the LSE should be
"I heard a strange knocking sound in the Old Building...now Fm scared of going back and haven't slept for six or seven days"
Babak Eslamian 2nd Year Economics
taking. Whilst Shaw advocated a radical, socialist curriculum, the Webbs insisted the School should impart
independent and politically neutral knowledge to its students. Despite the fact, all the individuals involved are now deceased, many have claimed the feud continues here at the LSE in the form of 'extra-human' spirits. All this seems perfectly innocent. However, a recent telephone call made to The Beaver (possibly by a drunk friend, possibly not) led us to re-evaluate our cynicism on these supposed 'hauntings.' -
The call from an individual with a deep, masculine voice, claimed there had been a "cover up" from the "leadership of the School," who wished to suppress LSE history. The man, who only identified himself as "Professor G or Anthony for short," says key information has been "exorcised from the public domain" regarding the School's history. One such passage is that from Sidney Webb who said philosopher Bertrand Russell had "spiritual ties to the School." 'Professor G' claims the words "spiritual ties," are used to mean Russell still strides the lecture theatre today, unseen by the masses. The School wishing to protect its students from what are deemed "stories and rumours," has thus tried to smother such allegations according to 'Professor G.' Following these revelations, we decided to investigate further and uncover the truth. Can a strong case for supernatural experiences at the LSE really be made or had this caller simply been hold- ;
ing a grudge against the School?
After much research, our investigations led us to the door of Liz Thomas, from the LSE Catering Service. Although we have never had any contact with Thomas before, it seems strange she was expecting us. The School's communication networks certainly seem efficient, but with their immense workload, it seems strange an innocent investigation should attract so much attention.
Left: Eslamian wlio experienced unexplainable activity in the Old Building
Thomas who has allegedly been at the School for thirty years jokes about supernatural experiences, saying she is the "spooky" one. Yet, whilst she is quick to dismiss claims of 'hauntings,' she does state she will be avoiding particular locations at the LSE,' dur-Halloween. Could this indicate an attempt at a cover up by the School? Are the staff being suppressed in discussing certain issues?
Interestingly, after weeks of investigation we discovered several long serving staff members have	supposedly
"retired." Many spoke of 'John,' a veteran porter who was often seen : walking the corridors at night. However, despite our efforts we could not trace this man. Some senior staff, who did not wish to be named have even denied his existence. Is 'John' a real character
or something more than human?
The most helpful member of staff your Features Investigative Team encountered, was a woman introduced to us as 'Helen,' who is based as a catering assistant in the Senior Dining Room, on the fifth floor of the Old Building. 'Helen,' who is reported to be one of the longest serving members of staff at the School, says she "believes in these sort of things." She talked to us of "spiritual places" and provided vivid descriptions of her memories and imagination which include picturing "old gentleman" in the academics common room.
'Helen,' looks fondly back to former times at the School and despite her years of employment, still avoids certain corridors in the Old Building, late at night which she describes as "eerie." Insistent that there has "got to be something," in a "place like this," she states her "hair stands on
Below: your Editors investigate.
1
end" for no rational reason, as she wanders through areas such as the Shaw Library. She spoke of a haunted painting that hangs in the room.
We decided surveillance was required and equipped ourselves with the latest technical gadgets known only as 'cameras' and 'dictaphones' from The Beaver office. After spending several hours in the darkness of the Shaw Library, we were unfortunately unable to collate any primary evidence to substantiate such a claim. However, just as we were about to leave and had already svidtched off the recording equipment, we heard one unexplainable sound of chains rattling. We leave it up to the reader to decide what this could mean.
So what do students think? We spoke to sixty students from a variety of departments; of this sample, fifteen have allegedly experienced "something which cannot be explained as rational human behaviour." Sadly, almost all of these individuals refused to explain further or provide further details for The Beaver. Suspiciously, with faces clearly showing fear, more than one student provided us with the standard statement of "No Comment."
Yet one brave student was willing to share his story with The Beaver, in the hope that others who were affected by similar supernatural experiences would also come forward, so
that they would be able to get help to overcome any trauma or psychological effects they may be experiencing. Babak Eslamian; a second year Economics undergraduate says he has heard "strange knocking sounds" in the Old Building, leading him to believe something sinister is at foot. On Thursday October at nine pm, Eslamian had had just come out the library and gone to retrieve his belongings from his locker in the Old Building. As he passed the Old Theatre, he heard a knocking sound from inside the theatre. He went towards the room, attempting to discover the source of the sound, but found that the doors locked from the inside. As Eslamian pressed his ear against the door he claims to have heard "three more knocks." It was at this point that the subject got scared, he says this is nothing like any sound he has heard before and cannot be explained through human means. Eslamian says he is now experiencing a "deep psychological trauma" and is scared of going back to the Old Theatre. He is experiencing sleep deprivation and advises other students not to go to the Old Building late at night. Even if they should need to go during the day, they should ensure they are "accompanied by at least one friend." In addition to this he claims LSE authorities have ignored his pleas for help, by simply laughing at him and saying he was "crazy,"
His message to all LSE students is this; "If you experience anything weird, speak to me and we will complain to the School together."
The evidence is largely hear-say, yet it


The Old Curiousit> Shop; A siglit of possible paranomal activity?
seems difficult to deny that it is certainly suspicious. Your Features Editors have been brave enough to risk their lives (reputations) in bringing you this story. The rest is now up to you... Students, studying late this Halloween, you have been warned! Wk
Photography; Tahiya Islani
Below: chains were heard rattling near the Shaw Library. Do these seemingly innocent bicycle chains stand for something more sinister tlian would first suggest?






f?T7 ATT 1T?FC. liJTQJhJTi'QQ

iBeaver 131 October 2006 ji5
Commercialisation of Halloween
Johannes Opfermann asks if we have been tricked into treating Halloween as a proper holiday
What's wrong with dressing up and having a bit of fun? What's wrong with children going from house to house playing trick or treat? The simple answer to these questions is "nothing as such", but of course these are the wrong questions. Nobody, apart from a couple of grumpy misanthropes wants to deny people their right to have fun, but it is more than appropriate to ask why we are celebrating Halloween at all. Halloween, celebrated on October 31, dates back to the celtic festival of Samhain, marking the end of summer.
Those who have been looking for actual proof of cultural imperialism in action can now stop looking
which was adopted by the Christian calendar as All-Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints.
The recent celebration of Diwali and Eid Milan demonstrates how tra-
ditions from different cultures can flourish far away from their origins, and create more intercultural understanding and harmony. This is what Halloween is not about. Whatever Halloween's roots, pagan or Christian, modem Halloween has nothing to do with the tradition Irish immigrants once brought across the Atlantic in the wake of the Great Famine. The product or franchise or whatever it might be called which has been reim-ported in recent years, spearheaded by Hollywood scary movies and seasonal Simpsons specials, has profit written all over it. 'Those who have been looking for actual proof of cultural imperialism in action can now stop looking. It is the example par excellence. It could be argued that because Halloween has lost all its connections with tradition and religion it can be enjoyed equally by everyone. This is what makes it so appealing, and at the same time repulsive. It is greed, pure and simple, dressed up as tradition (pun intended) gatecrashing the party of real actual traditional celebrations and posing as one of them. And people, especially children who have grown up believing Halloween is an actual tradition, and their parents are
literally buying it. It is no coincidence that Halloween is so heavily promoted over here, alas successfully, and also increasingly on the continent. In America it is a massive business. Although, over there it ranks only sixth among the spending holidays, people are expected to spend a staggering $4.96 billion this year, up from $3.29 billion in 2005, a growth by roughly 51 per cent. No surprise supermarkets and specialised costume shops are jumping on the bandwagon in this country too, offering everything from the silly to the outright useless.
Most money is spent on costumes, decorations, sweets, and pumpkins, the latter awaiting a truly horrific fate. They are gutted and carved into jack-o'-lanterns instead being used for food. What a waste. What is clear from all of these spending is that boycotting it is unlikely to produce results people would want to live with. A boycott of Halloween by individuals for whatever reasons, either because there is nothing holy left in this holiday and it has become an abominable celebration of Satanism and the occult, or because it is blatant capitalism exploiting the gullible masses by luring them into consumption, is not going to make any difference.
Even if the boycott idea seems rather unworkable on a large scale, there remain some powerful arguments against Halloween. It might be cruel not to let children participate in the fun of collecting sweets, but considering the endemic childhood obesity and the appalling state of dental care in this country, both in a personal and an institutional sense, one might get second thoughts. Additionally, in view of recent statis-
tics that about two thirds of all Britons are too scared of the ASBO generation to stop youths from acts of vandalism, one might wonder why this country needs Halloween on top of that. Only to give yobs an excuse for antisocial behaviour and make adults shiver in fear everytime the doorbell rings? What a spirit of the holiday indeed.
Spirits? Wasn't there something? Yes, once upon a time Halloween or Samhain was about warding of the evil spirits. If only it was more than just hocus-pocus, maybe the evil spirits of greed and profit could be exorcised on Halloween. Those believing ¦ in witchcraft may want to give it a go this Halloween. Good luck. M
Are you thinking what we're thinking?
Laura Coombe on why Britain should open its borders to Eastern Europe
It seems to me that people can be forgiven for viewing the Brits as a nation of xenophobes. Accused of stealing our jobs and our homes, or of driving down wage rates, the Poles have certainly not been received with open arms, and the future does not look good for the Bulgarians or the Romanians, or eventually, the Turks. Particularly when, as happened last week, the Home Secretary marches in like a bull in a china shop and agrees with popular, misguided opinion!
Since Poland and Lithuania joined the European Union in 2004, an anti-Eastern European feeling has been brewing underneath Britain's welcoming exterior. This feeling has
We are lucky to have so many skilled migrant workers choosing to come to work in Britain
manifested itself in a recent poll conducted by The Times, which found that many Brits want a "tougher immigration policy", with three quarters of those interviewed calling for stricter limits on the numbers of "foreigners" entering the country. Contrast this with the language of integration and the removal of borders and barriers to free movement
that characterised the accession talks, and it seems clear that we have a problem.
I find it difficult to understand why people are so set on believing that Eastern Europeans are "stealing" jobs that rightfully belong to the Brits. Which jobs? It seems that in reality the characteristic that sets the Poles apart is that they are prepared to work their socks off in jobs that unemployed Brits would turn their noses up at. So while jobless'John and Jane sit on the sofa at home, claiming the dole and watching daytime TV, the hardworking Pole is doing 50 hours a week as a kitchen porter at the local restaurant, or cleaning at the local factory.
Another fact that we may have to face up to, sooner rather than later, is that we are lucky to have so many skilled inigrant workers choosing to come to work in Britain. There is now a recognised shortage of British plumbers, electricians and building contractors in this country; just try to get a plumber to fix your central heating before Christmas! These are the ramifications of the devaluation of practical skills in the British education system in favour of 'Mickey mouse' courses like David Beckham Studies. I'd like to see any xenophobe lose his central heating system over the winter; he or she might then be less inclined to drum out the Eastern Europeans.
On a less practical note, I think we need to emphasise how enriching it is to have people from different countries and cultures seeking to make their homes in Britain. It is only through mixing with people from
other places that true integration can take place. I had a summer job, waiting tables in a restaurant in central London, and was one of the few non-Polish employees. I really enjoyed hearing about life in Poland, and I appreciated how hard everyone there
to. Such narrow-minded, old-fashioned inwardness should not be accepted in a self-professed multicultural society. Secondly, if, as has been asserted. Eastern Europeans are working for an income below the national minimum wage, then it is the

worked and the team atmosphere that existed. Give me the Poles over the Brits any day!
It was reported in The Times last week that "Labour MPs are now picking. up a lot of anguish in their constituencies over the impact of this influx of low-paid workers."There are two assertions within this statement that need to be addressed. First, I take issue with this so-called "anguish" of the British people. This is ignorance that needs to be countered with cold, hard facts. It should not be pandered
unethical employers, exploiting the vulnerability of migrant workers, who deserve public censure. The answer is new, tougher legislation to facilitate equal employment rights for migrant workers, not capping and quotas.
This is why the recent announcement by Home Secretary, John Reid, proposing a new tougher immigration policy is so disappointing and unwelcome. It is also unabashedly hypocritical. Since the talks for accession of the Eastern European countries first
opened, Britain was one of the biggest champions of the cause. Now, having finally achieved a date, 1 January 2007 for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, John Reid is basically closing the door to citizens of these two countries. It seems that only the food processing and agricultural sectors will be open to "unskilled" Bulgarian and Romanian workers for a "transitional period". And how long is transitional? Well, how long is a piece of string?
Beyond their hypocrisy, these new measures are only just within the limits of the law of the European Community; ministers are not allowed to restrict EU citizens' movement, but they are allowed to restrict their ability to work. Yet, in practical terms the inability to work in Britain will restrict the movement of Bulgarians and Romanians, who are unlikely to risk entering this country with their families with the warning that they will not be able to use their skills to earn a living.
Labour needs to grow up and stop its preoccupation with winning the next election, instead focusing on the wider picture; the future of the EU. Britain can no longer view herself as a self-sufficient, self-contained island. The reality of globalisation necessitates a more expansive approach. Britain's destiny is tied up with European integration. Yet, will Labour, or any future government, be prepared to look beyond domestic popularity and work towards achieving this paramount objective? Will pigs ever be able to fly?B
131 October 2006
i;A^:rURES:INTEimEW/POLITICO

Darren Johnson on tackling climate change
Green party members Philip Pacanowski and Mich.iel Deas speak to the former Green candidate for Mayor of London CCT^
I '
J.J
"only expected to be handing out a few leaflets." Darren .Johnson was interested in 'green politics' from the*age of 19, but didn't seriously expect it to become his area of expertise. He is now a Member of the London Assembly and one of the most prominent members of the Green Party. We spoke to him about his background, the recent rise in awareness of 'green' issues and climate change.
What got you into green politics? Was it a specific event, or a set of related events that made you become a Green thinker, more specifically, interested in climate change?
What really got me initially interested in green politics was the Chernobyl disaster. Since then I've had a big interest in energy issues and so much of what we do here at the environment committee comes back to climate change. We've been looking at the risk of flooding here in London. Climate change could increase the risk of flooding by up to 10 times; we've looked at water shortages, due to more dry weather, more droughts.
We've left climate change alone for far too long. We should have started reducing C02 emissions in 1990. Woking council managed to reduce their 1990 levels by 70%, but generally the last sixteen years have been squandered. We are facing serious problems - not just global problems, but here in London. The Greens are painted as doom-mongers sometimes, but this is an opportunity to live a better quality of life. A low-carbon future shouldn't be a miserable future
where we're all shivering in a cave.
Would say there is an existence of both past and present evidence which indicate climate change is something we have to focus on?
Absolutely. I think people have really started to grasp that message now. It isn't something to worry about in the distant future, it's happening now. People notice the extreme weather patterns, flooding etc. What we haven't seen is that massive shift to actually change behaviour in order to tackle climate change. But at least people are aware of the current problem.
What have you done in the past that you think was especially useful in helping to tackle climate change? For example, raising awareness, or introducing a key policy.
One of the key things, when I was elected here in 2000 was to really push the Mayor into renewable energy requirements. Now the Mayor has introduced a policy that at least 10% of all new developments must source their energy from renewable energy onsite; mini-turbines etc. He's now looking at increasing that requirement to 20%. I'd like to see incremental targets introduced so that we're aiming for every new development to become carbon-neutral. That's if we actually want to reduce C02 emissions by over 80% over the next fifteen years. Another thing was the congestion charge; we've achieved exemptions for clean vehicles and the Mayor has agreed to levy a £25 charge
on the gas-guzzling vehicles that are really contributing not only to climate change but air pollution as well. We've also negotiated additional resources for environmental and energy projects, including extra resources for 'green' homes and a series of energy advice centres across the capital.
You said earlier that there needs to be a shift towards green living and green thinking. But there seems to be a lot of apathy about climate change. How do you think we should engage those who are resistant to living a 'green' lifestyle?
One of the things to point out is that not only can they save energy, but that they can also save money. As long as people do it, whether it's because we're appealing to their pocket or their environmental conscience, it doesn't really matter as long as they change their behaviour - that's what the Energy Savings Trust has been promoting this week for its awareness campaign. I'd like to see more financial incentives for people - the number of people with solar panels in London is in the hundreds, when it should be in the hundreds of thousands. We really need to provide more financial incentives; Germany has been really good in promoting such incentives. Also, there should be financial incentives for recycling, for example, council tax discounts for recyclers. We should be pointing out to people that if they do these small things altogether, it will make a massive difference. That's not an excuse for government inaction - we do need the government to s"how far more

leadership; and there are huge glarmg contradictions in government policy at the moment - they have a commitment to reduce C02 emissions on the one hand and airport expansion on the other. And we're still looking at an old-fashioned road-building programme that's going to add to the problem, so we need a far more consistent programme across the board. It's not an either/or situation; individuals and business and government all need to play their part.
What do you think students can do to tackle climate change - to raise awareness, or take action themselves? Obtnously, students are living on a very stringent budget...
Something that students can do is pushing for environmental improvement in their college through their
student union, for example if your college hasn't switched to renewable energy and to get renewable energy installed in halls of residence. Often I've found student halls have very poor recycling facilities and the students have actually wanted to recycle, but that standard of service just isn't available to them. That's something I can think students can push for. Yes, students are living on a limited budget, and usually on temporary accommodation, so I'm not expecting them to shell out £8,000 quid for a solar panel. However, in terms of simple money-saving, living a greener lifestyle is an obvious way of saving money. And by very nature of being a student, you come into contact with lots of other individuals, so you can work together; that's a very good way of raising awareness.®
The environmenfaZist agenda
Alkesh Woods is sceptical about the concept of 'green' taxes and socialist environmentalism
You'd have thought socialism in this country was permanently consigned to the history books as the Berlin wall fell and both Thatcher and Blair rose to power. Yet it seems that the cobwebs are now being dusted off such prehistoric socialist principles as protectionism, forced re-distribution of wealth, higher taxes and greater state control all under the guise of saving the planet.

It would take incredibly wishful thinking to think that, paving another penny on a litre of petrol will make us all buy hybrid cai-s
This does not make socialism any less dangerous; for, as we will see, its policies will not only fail to solve problems such as global poverty and climate change but they will compound them vrith the problems of the past; of
r
economic failure and state tyranny.
The situation of all parties proposing more public spending and not lowering taxes is something that hasn't been seen since the postwar consensus years ago. Yet what I'm specifically concerned about here is the set of taxes seen by some as 'good' and with being imposed by the day, the so-called 'green'
taxes. Yet what is all too easily forgotten is that these taxes have next to no effect on improving the environment, For it would take incredibly vnshful thinking to think that paying another penny on a litre of petrol will make us all buy hybrid cars or another £10 on our plane ticket will stop the annual holiday to Majorca. Worse still are ideas like 'carbon rationing'; suggesting people can't be trusted to conserve energy and only by cutting off people's electricity and gas can we make them do it. Again I see this as approaching the problem in completely the wrong way; surely a compulsory GCSE in environmental stud-
ies, for example, would go much further in getting people to act responsibly than any number of climate change levies ever could? The only affect these bills could have is in their regressive effect that people pay a higher percentage in tax the lower their income is.
Even state regulation, the comer-stone of socialism, has been reclaimed by environmentalists, again with a new name. Here corporate social responsibility is the new way by
which companies will be subjugated by the state; with legislation being proposed to force companies to give a higher priority to the environment and developing countries. To start with this ignores the fact that many, if not most, of the anti-competitive practices that harm developing countries are already illegal, in this country at least, and it would be far better to establish these laws across the globe_ than constantly picking on the UK government. Also much like aid I
think corporate social responsibility is a great idea, but that state regulation is, if anything, a hindrance to it. You can't make a company care more about 'green' issues any more than you can make atheists believe in the existence of God. Instead you should channel your efforts in educating people, such as the many at LSE who wiU become the CEO's and shareholders of tomorrow, to think more than about their personal gain when they come to make company decisions. ¦
NOAXURA
Before you tell us about you, here's a little bit about us
Graduate and Intern Opportunrties 2007
We're looking to recruit high-calibre graduates and sumnner interns who are a little different from the usual. We don't want clones, stereotypes or anyone who fits neatly into a box. We want sparky individuals ready to make their mark. Put simply, if you're
Graduate deadline ~ 1 December 2006'";:" Summer loternsyp deadfine -19. January 2007
give-aways and me
best music for
for your	25
day!
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tune in to PULSE this week for:
we mitiio itrom morfon V4i€i)&€
wmmmy
HOUGHTON STREET WC2
Gir/ GF wtsTMrnsres
Mcxton Vaiance joins Dominique on her Wednesday 'soundtrack' siot. Expect an uplifting, fun rock sound!
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This week sees the (re) launch of PULSE's orignal soap.
Houghton Street promises scandal on an unprecidented scale. Tune in every day at 14.25.
5kk-^'i'|r^ jaliwts (kiltj jrm 11.15
Tune in on Tuesday when Luxton and Berry present 'Muck Up Your Life'. Catch up with Alex on Wednesday for phone antics and 'rate my mate'. Friday = Quiz: Who's The Best? We'll see!
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WWW.
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18 iBeaver 31 October 2006
SPORTS
The Punter
Bet on Blair
Matthew JCG
Partridge
Join the party and have a
punt on the biggest casino
in the world!
The American humorist Ambrose Pierce once said that, 'the gambling known as business looks with austere disfavour upon the business known as gambling'. Nowhere has this been more evi--«¦ dent than in last month's decision by Congress to ban online gambling in the United States. However, this rather strange decision has created an opportunity for those who like to liven things up by taking a bet on the stock market as well as the horses. Indeed, the collapse of shares such as PartyGaming.com from a peak of 158p to 30p is an good opportunity. Given that its non-US sales are mushrooming, the existence of large numbers of non-US gamblers willing to defy the laws and the possibility that a new Congress will change the law back, it seems a pretty good • • punt. Indeed, IG Index allow you to bet money on changes in PartyGaming's share price (this is betting not investment advice).
Utrning onto slightly more traditional betting pastures I'm still bullish about the chances of the Democrats retaking the Senate in a fortnight's time. Indeed, even the experts are beginning to agree that, in the words of political analyst Charlie Cook, '(the midterm elections are) the worst political situation for the GOP since the Watergate disaster in 1974'. Fortunately, this hasn't filtered through to the betting markets with the GOP control contract an incredible 73-75 on Tradesports. Unless the experts, opinion polls and my gut feeling are all wrong, and the chances of the Democrats re-taking the Senate are less than 25%, this is an real opportunity.
Closer to home, despite the unlikelihood of a leadership election during the winter and ^ clear evidence that he is going to stay on until next summer, people are still willing to bet on Tony Blair leaving office before the end of this year. This presents an opportunity for those who are willing to take the other side of the wager and bet against him leaving.
Use any advice given here at your own risk and don't gamble what you cannot afford to lose. Columnist(s) may have positions in wagers mentioned. Prices quoted are correct at time of going to press.
Hockey 2nds dont look back in anger
Andy "lighter than lightweight" Harris
LSE Snd .XI. Battersea
In a hard fought game, our 2nds narrowly missed out on their first points of the season. The ball hardly left the Canterbury half but LSE just couldn't convert their chances. Not one of Canterbury's goals was the least bit memorable; the jammy gits just bundled the ball into the goal. After an early goal from the away team, our boys responded with an equaliser but were then unable to come up with the goods when the ball found its way into their net again. A 60th minute strike gave hope of a late comeback, but it just wasn't to be.
A sterling performance was put in by Dan, whose silky skills and solid defending impressed all (obviously AJ's spirit lives on in his stick). The
big man between the sticks once again showed form and Tricky seems hell-bent on finishing every game this year covered in blood (maybe you can take a leaf out of the girls' book and make it the opposition's blood next week). Both our goals came from Canadian fresher, Waylon who owned the centre of the pitch. The Rosebery boys played well (showing great restraint in not smacking the whining shit up front for Canterbury in the face) and new boy Kav had a good run. Ricardo was as reliable as ever, Fkhreed and Ash were unlucky not to get on the score sheet. Judging by his top notch work-rate Jasper "Deep HeafWelch obviously got that butt massage he was after (question is, from whom?). Sicknote Sheth lasted marginally longer than he did last week, it all being over for him in a matter of minutes (never mind son, it happens to the best of us) and although I had a mediocre game at best, apparently I'm a 'completely different player from last year', which begs the question, just how shit was I last season?!
To encourage greater com-
munication on the pitch,'shit is better than silence' was the maxim of the day. But after his dodgy, mumbling impression leading to a rank-smelling curry-wine-vimto-indian beer concoction, I'm sure the rather
aptly named 'Dick of the Day', Dicky Holden, wished he would've kept his mouth shut.
Although we came away from the game empty handed, we're a proper team now; knowing how we play as indi-
viduals and how to support each other Our first win is definitely going to come next week lads, all you've got to remember is quick passes, use the width and to get down on your man...
Netball
Goal-a-minute gals rock week 4
Pui
Chay
LSE 2iidVII	31
Berrylands	
LSE 2n<lVM	59
Berrylands	
Following their nail biting 27-28 defeat to Goldsmith's the previous week, the LSE 2nds were determined to set the score at the second match of the sea-
son. The first match of the week against the Royal Vets went without a hitch. Clearly the resident Beriyland foxes were supporters for the Vets, for one had decided to relieve itself in the centre circle before we arrived. The midfield combination consisting 2nds skipper Lindsey, Shamila and Rosie, had no problems getting the ball to the shooters, Steph, Jen, and Charlie promptly put in the shots to ensure we were almost one up against the enthusiastic vets. The defensive team of Claire, Pui and Sophie once again pulled their weight and prevented any unnecessary goals from being scored. We were convinced that the vets .were taking it
easy the first two quarters. The vets piled on the pressure in the next two quarters, but their 100 percent was simply a breeze to handle.
Second match of the week and this time, we were sadly missing the presence of our two goal attacks Jen and Steph, but Shamila stepped up to the plate and proved that-she was not to be messed with. The 2nds bravely made their way down to Berrylands despite the Waterloo derailments to meet our Strand neighbours. The King's team, I'm sure, was keen to take a bite at us after last year's Barrel. And they were looking pretty confident after their 2nds beat the LSE 3rds the
match before. Eager to settle the score on behalf of our fellow LSE netball girls, we started the match on full gear. Lindsey stunned them with her daring lobs from mid court, while the defensive triangle comprising of Claire, Pui and Sophie effectively shut down their attack except for occasional lapses of judgement. Suzie's performance was far too impressive for someone who just had an appendix op. Even without an appendix, she was still too fast for a full-anatomied King's player. Rosie too was confusing the King's defence, for she seemed to find herself in all the right places throughout the match. Shamila and Charlie worked
the D in style to produce probably the best netball score for LSE this year Charlie's claims that she couldn't execute dodges were unfounded, for her unpredictability gave her an edge over the equally tall King's substitute, who was 4 more absent than omni-pres- I ent. At the final minute of the match, King's still hadn't given up hope. At 59-9, they needed one last goal to make it to ten, while we thought sixty would be a nice number. We figured a little sympathy would exchange for a little post-bar-rel friendship and let the last one go. Nonetheless, 59 goals in the space of 48 minutes puts that an average of slightly more than a goal a minute.
Our fanny is back in action
I'm back sports fans! And two weeks worth of gossip is about to be revealed! I'm very sorry for my absence last week; despite rumours that I had checked into the Priory for a choc and nut cornetto addiction I was actually in hospital having my stomach pumped after drinking a questionable "cocktail" given to me by a rather generous rugby player I will certainly be staying away from this so-called "microwaved wine" in future and I suggest you lot. do too. Its reported aphrodisiacal powers unfortunately had no effect on me and I ended up throwing up something that looked like it should have been found on a Calellan hotel room carpet. It did however have the desired effect on an unsuspect-
ing female member of the Rowing club; after being forced to drink the juice from a Wheel Barrow, busty JAP Beth Wartyhood proceeded to spend the night with the garden tool.
It seems rugby aren't the only team with a strange diet. In an ambitious attempt to manufacture a clone army of herself, Hikki Action has proposed her team begin a demanding training schedule and eat a strict diet of only pineapple, cookies and banof-fee pie. I^nny thinks this will unfortunately produce a team worthy of 'Trisha Goddard's analysis.
Back at Walkabout, the usual suspects were out and full of lovin'. Flick Gammon lost his keys and heard Cloudier Than Whitby had hid-
den them in her clown's pocket and so he proceeded to have a rummage up there, in front of Don't Holdthis. Mr Holdthis was however disinterested and instead had the attention of Gash Tendtoher who then tended to him.
After regular mentions in Fanny, Handy Birdman made a poor attempt at keeping a low profile by shunning fuck buddy Kath With NoNicksOn for an inebriated Lippy Slyer and then he initiated a dance-off competition between the girls to decide who he went home with. Lippy was crowned champion after bustin' some tricky break-dancing moves. It is rumoured that Lippy shared a taxi back with Netball friend Orgy Khunt who was in search of a
bed for the night, Haz Fishcock being more than happy to oblige.
Whorer Halfwit was not at all happy after being reprimanded by several members of Walkabout staff and took out her anger on a defenceless barmaid in what was described by the manager as a "sadistic" attempt to set the girl on fire. Wheel Barrow came to the barmaid's rescue using his unique ability to urinate on demand, despite the obvious option being to pour his snakebite on her, which he categorically refused to do, since he had forgotten his Swot card. Whorer was then forcibly removed from the establishment and was later found wandering around Trafalgar Square at 5am.
I must now take time to air my opinions of my beloved Athletics' Union. Too many times have we been condemned for practising healthy student behaviour and some non-AU members think they are above us for this reason, when infact they themselves often participate in irregular extra-curric-ular activities. Take Paris More-cote, for example. Fanny was informed that the union bike likes to take riders for a trip down Cadbury road, a fact that can be "backed up" by numerous AU members. So please people, continue to M drink but stay out of that ~ stink. Until next time!
Kisses XXX
iBeaver I 31 October 2006 119
Golf
Good golfing finally come to those who wait
Scott Hall
LSE
Victorious
It was the first match of the season and a new and improved squad, it's no wonder Joel, the new Captain, woke up, as he put it "mildly aroused". Even I was quietly confident; firstly because of the keen and competitive foreigners now in the team. Matt (Wisconsin),	Andrew
(Massachusetts) and Felix (Hamburg) and secondly because the recent departure of James Hackett from golf had given hope to those that had played under his fascist rule last year. As always the weather was the only thing letting us down but this didn't put off the new members who were just excited to finally meet the top scorer from last season and get started. The Essex team arrived with a travelling entourage of twelve, including coaches, executives, physios and ball cleaners. This did nothing for Matt's nerves and he had to make a dash for the pro shop and do what all Americans do best, buy loads of shit that has the name of the course on it. After all the formalities, asking who the cap-
tain was, finding out their handicaps and exchanging a few golf stories from the summer, all of which were rubbish compared to mine, the matches got under way.
Essex, for some unbeknown reason put their team out in reverse order so Joel and Matt were out against two complete hackers, both of which barely got passed the ladies tee on the first. Joel suitably showed his opponent how golf should be played and is always played in Scotland, by winning eight and seven, whilst Matt had to battle it out against a man in form to win two up. Even though they played disgustingly slow, the next two Essex players were absolute baUs. Andrew dominated from the off and won five and four along with Felix who embarrased his opponent, seven and six. Being out last, Oz striker and I were against some quality opposition and despite birdieing the first and probably many others I managed to lose to some disgusting Essex creature, that made me putt a three footer through a puddle on the last green, which I promptly missed and lost. Bastard. Oz was let down by his irons, woods and putter and sadly lost to a very average golfer four and three. However victory was already ours and the LSE golf team celebrated its first victory in two years. Bloody good show boys, here's to many more, off we jolly well
go-




LSE 3rds devastating double
Libby Meyer
Netball 3rds	1.0
Berrylands	
Netball Srds	6
Berrylands	
The power team endured the toughest week of their lives last week. It all started with rain so heavy that there was no need to shower. As true battlers, the 3rd team refused to cancel the match and fought through torrential rain to get to the waterlogged fields of Berrylands.
The 3rds were ready to bring on the Sabai and continue their awesome winning streak. Emma Say-No-More, Jess Can-Always-Get-It-Right and Lauren Brings-It-On were working their magic in defence. Their play was so beautiful it was making the umpire emotional. Emma More-Energy-Than-A-Coker-Cola gained Mad Dog status as she constantly intercepted the ball. The centre court was on fire vidth Anita Wings-It and Jen Barking-Mad while Rose Does-Harm and Laura King-Khong effortlessly scored goal after goal. Naturally we were winning with flying colours.
By half time the Medics knew the only way they could get possession of the ball would be through dirty tactics. One Medic tried distracting our fabulous play by talking about mucus and blood. But nothing could stop the LSE power team!
In the third quarter break the Medics had a crisis meeting. Desperate to snatch victory away from us, their tactics stooped lower. They resented our great Sabainess. They wished they had a mascot as beautiful and exotic as our wonderful fork. But most of all they were jealous of our exceptional netball talent. They knew the only way they could crush our stunning win would be through injury. More evil than Satan, they chose Mad Dog Emma first. In a striking blow Emma twisted her ankle was forced to hop off the court T h e i next victim was Rose.
Little did they know of her bodyguard pastime. The Medics relentlessly barged Rose at every opportunity yet as immortal as her liver, somehow Rose survived the match.
With only a few minutes left in the game, the Medics hit desperation point. Suddenly, one of their players remembered an evil spell from DC608 (compulsory final year witch doctor subject). When the spell hit the fantastic Srds, tragedy hit Berrylands. The Medics zapped all of the Srds energy and amazing talent. Suddenly it was the Medics scoring goal after goal. When the final whistle blew, the Medics had stolen the Srds win. (We are currently awaiting the outcome of our appeal against practising witch doctoring on court.)
The power team were ready to seek revenge o
Wednesday, this time against King's College. But before the match began something was wrong. The train derailment the night before was a bad omen. Worse still, the Srds were missing the guidance of their awesome captain Anita. Could they Wing-It without her?!
When the match began, the fabulous Srds' worst fears were realised. They were stiU stricken with the witch doctor curse! The players that were unable to make Monday's match tried desperately to resurrect the situation. Younghum was always On-The-Mark while Rajal did more than just Pat-The-Ball and Wendy Better-,Than-A-Royal made her debut intercepting every one of Kings' passes. Sadly the Srds fighting spirit wasn't enough to cure the curse and win the match.
Rose, our fountain of knowledge, was discussing the many great benefits of alcohol on the train back to Waterloo. Suddenly we realised the cure to our ciirse: excessive alcohol consumption! Lauren was on a dedicated mission to become the first cured member of the power team by polishing off numerous bottles of wine. Just in case one night of drunkenness wasn't enough, we have selflessly decided to booze it up straight after training on Monday. As Mad Dog Emma so eloquently described, now that we're healed, we're ready to "kill the bitches on Wednesday!"
Hospitalisation hockey style
Louise and Sarah
Hoerainpton	1
Bank 'back ass of England
What a day. After trekking to somewhere leafy near to Kate Moss's second home (the Priory), maneuvering past 'security' and his squirrel friend, only to be told "Changing rooms? No... we usually just kit up on the pitch", the LSEWHC started warming up for their BUS A season debut.
Things weren't looking hopeful with Betty rushing off mid drill, Sarah coughing up one lung, Gabba the other, Fishley off for a fag, no Keeps, no Slav and captain's pulled hamstring. You may be forgiven, reader, for thinking LSE would capitulate, but no.
We burst into the match, giving a hundred and fifty percent from the push back (thanks to a little pre-match pep talk from Lolly) despite our many ailments. I can't tell you the pain involved. Yet, we laid siege to the goal, passing well, and shooting to kill, for the whole first half. We tirelessly worked the baU from the midfield to the goal, with Juicy Ju pushing up with the tackles on the left, Fishley and The American 'Like' holding the right back, whilst Sarah and Lolly made sure the ball found our little dynamo newbie Alex upfront. It was even commented by our spectator that 'our. superior technical skill really showed in the first half, but sadly, this goalie was one quick beast to beat, and we just couldn't find a way past her.
Amazingly, we were still standing ready to go for the second half, despite not having worked this hard in years. We dived.back in, and it seems that once again our friends across the pond have provided women's hockey with the perfect. .. yank. 'Like' made the breakthrough with a goal mouth scramble to die for and after that we remembered how much fun winning is. Alex finished off a great team goal to make it two, then we felt bad and let them have one, especially after they 'accidentally' scored (and were disallowed) a corner from the wrong spot. Parf capped a good performance with a clean strike, and looked almost as surprised as the sideline contingent when it
went in (Fishley; 'Parf, Parf, I love you, you're excellent'). 3-1 but the fun was only just beginning...
The opposition marched us straight off to their union, nestled in the middle of Biker Grove and demanded we send , our 'man and moose' to join theirs. We in the WHC have never considered ourselves to be 'mooses', but we obliged by putting Man of the Match Sarah, and Dicks of the Day Gabba and Fish on the 'stage' with a shot. Standard. But no, these beasts were hardcore, with dirty lumpy pints! Caught up in this pintage, Lolly immediately challenged all takers to Guinness races. Bad move there Lol. Not only did this induce near-vomitous moments for her, but it also unleashed the monster in the 'Like'. Soon, utterly unprovoked, she was in the middle of the imion giving us a demo of her cheerleading skills from back home, and Sigma Kappa Gamma Alpha's not-so-secret handshake. Then we made the wise choice to go straight to the Tuns, riding on our euphoria. We lost a few members on the way, but had fun anyway chasing geese, and drinking wine out of the bottle on the tube like Chavs (Parf). 'Like' ¦ kept up the show by shouting for 'help' from inside the toilet during our mid-journey toilet stop - what an absolute waster. We made it to the Tuns shouting and singing all the way about the greatness of this American who was falling over every two feet; "Hands Up If You Love The Like". But then she disappeared. Turns out...
"I had a nice tour of the Waterloo Hospital yesterday. Apparently when i got home I hit my head on the heater. People on my floor came over to see what the noise was, only to find me sleeping with blood gushing out of my head. They came up with the genius idea to call the ambulance (unnecessary for a grazed knee I thought at the time) which picked me up in a wheelchair and then onto a stretcher (still don't remember any of this) and escorted me nicely to the hospital.
I woke up this morning to find three tubes sticking out of me and was nicely informed that my head was "glued" back together and I cannot shower • for seven days. Oh yay! Oh yeah... and I was still in my kit. Nice.
Overall I had a nice laugh out of it. I missed all classes today and my hair is falling out in chunks. My parents told me to stop drinking. All in all, good night.
Your favourite American drinker"
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her
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<v
Fanny's back
Did you miss her?
Fanny
Hav? a Diint o]].
Ever}1;hing from 3pm kick Tony's last clay.
The Punter
Want? *5* New Editor
Think you've got what it takes?
Details inside
sports
Scrumilicious rugby succumb
		¦¦	
		|HH	
			


i .....::



Kim 'Boobs' James
Scrittle poly Writtle College
•24
a:
s we approached the stormy path of Writtle .College (who the fuck are they?) we could see the fattest beast of a woman we had ever seen wobbling up towards the sports pavilion... I took a glance at Little Whippet and Cheeky and made an executive decision to avoid mauls as much as possible. She could % have hid the ball in her rolls.
Seriously. , Tactic no.l: when fatty is running with the ball and you are in her line of running scream 'Cake!' whilst pointing behind her and rip the ball from her as fast as possible. Josie did a 'bad ass' nm into one of them at full speed and literally it was like bouncy ball to concrete. Anyway, we needed some good play to redeem ourselves after
last week's karaoke crashed and burned; I think my awful overpowering	brummie
accented singing sent a good few to the bar immediately after.
For a team of beautiful ladies of whom two thirds had never played rugby before in their lives, I couldn't have asked for more so early on in the season. They played their sexy little asses off. We conceded a try within two minutes and still all played on as if it had never happened. Bowered. We put up an awesome defence with Rachel Warner putting in some fantastic tackles. Despite this, we were unlucky again 10 minutes later - it was a shit tiy anyway. Bit like the first, bit like every try we've had conceded against us ever to be honest. Their third try was super shit and their fourth try was knocked the fuck on before
they touched it down but shit happens... guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Writtle got two of their conversions but they were shit too. More importantly, how hot on the ball were we in second half. Holy shit, Nas 'the machine' Akuete touched the ball down twice to make a total score of ten and we spent most of the time in their half of the pitch. Fantastic rucking by our forwards who had one hell of a good game, vnnning practically all scrums and line-outs. We even won their scrums on a couple of occasions thanks to my hook-tastic foot combined with barbaric driving force from Rachel, Ivy and our flank-tastic Disney Allchurch and Heather. My right and left-hand ladies also taking the hit in the scrum with Josie and Naz leading the scrum strongly. Ivy also succeeded to capture the baU from
the air on their throw-ins.
Hannah Whippet and Cheeky Vett dodged, weaved and manoeuvred through the opposition... a bit like Sarah 'ASBO' Todd trying to get to the bar on most nights out. Wicked play. Vett made some sound decisions on what penalty routine we were going to sport...Filthball 1? Filthball 2? KimmyBall? Dirty moves, captain assured. All of which vexed our opposition and gained us valuable ground on Poly soil. We couldn't have done it vrithout old hat Jen Bush's intelligent play at inside centre going in hard and fast, straight through the opposition and as for Megan... Jesus I'm glad she is on our team; vicious when she had the ball but gaining us extensive ground on many occasions. Talking of vicious. Miss Laura Smith loves a good yeU at the referee and loves to put
off the opposition whilst they are taking conversions. Awful, but I love it. She did a fantastic job ensuring everyone was onside after the ref sternly allocated her this responsibility and thus we were never penalised for offside. Good commimication lady.
Put your hands up for Komal's (she's from Detroit), powerful forward running. Stick-ankled. Nisha also needs to be commended for her quick decisions on kicking the ball out of play where emergency called.
Bring on the rest of the season LSE Women's Rugby; you should be proud of yourselves. You put their number three in an ambulance and the team work I saw and experienced on Wednesday was worth a good ten minute clit flick... lady of the match definitely deserves a man to do it for her too. Muchos Banteros.
"I'd suck off Clinton, but not Bush..." - Gabby shares and scares