Wednesday 2nd July 2025
Blog Page 2055

Out of Breath Podcats: On Bats

0

Take a seat in the lecture theatre and enjoy…

Performed by Sam Caird

Chronicling transformation in ink

0

The Ashmolean’s first artist-in-residence has recorded its redevelopment, from the beginning of expansion in 2006 to its completion and opening last year. While it’s not always clear if the medium suits the content, He’s work is striking for its human sympathy within scenes of mechanical mess.

The first thing you see is a wall mural, which manages to convey the noisy, dusty chaos of a construction site within a carefully balanced composition. Bits of brickwork, wooden planks and workers carrying objects to and fro make the image bustle with activity wherever you look, but each area includes just enough white space for it to remain legible. I wanted to stand up close to the mural, but unfortunately the curators have a placed an odd batch of laminated extra drawings all along the floor in front of it. These obstruct both the mural and one of the best mounted ink drawings, on the wall to the left: its sharp tonal contrasts, unique in the exhibition, create a sense of the new building’s vast depth.

He seems to have made himself a quiet observer of daily life during the redevelopment, and much of the work on show here – not originally planned, one suspects – comprises portraits of construction workers and museum staff. The exhibition information is keen to reconcile He’s ancient Chinese ink and paper techniques with his images of a contemporary and Western world, but this didn’t entirely seem to work. Particularly in the portraits, the use of traditional ink to depict people in crumpled suits in front of laptops drew attention to its own anomaly in a distracting way. However, the ancient world of the Ashmolean’s concern is frequently suggested too: one of the portraits shows a museum conservationist retouching a large vase which sits on her office desk, in charming contradiction.

The most striking works are the woodblock prints, which exploit the hard, opaque lines to emphasize the rigidity of construction scaffolding. The scaffolding itself often acts a compositional grid laid over each picture, contrasting with the fluid expressiveness of the workers’ bodies as they twist, bend, reach and loll about.

Indeed, He manages always to highlight the humanity of his subjects in their industrial surroundings. His images are intricate, and nearly always rendered in stark black on white. Yet there is something in the loose smudginess of the lines, and the slightly cartoon-like workers’ bodies, which conveys the friendly camaraderie between everyone involved. The overwhelming sensation is of human warmth, underlined by the myriad further portrait drawings included in the catalogue: one depicts a pregnant woman sitting quietly, another a man with Star Wars toys all over his office desk. The tone is softly humorous, and He seems to genuinely love the people he draws.

(four stars)

 

Image: Ashmolean Builders VI, woodcut printed with oil based ink, Weimin He

In search of loves once lost

0

On the west side of Naples is a steep little park with winding paths. Near the spot where Vergil is supposedly buried is a botanical garden at the bottom of the hill: if you bend down to peer at the labels, you will see that every plant in this garden has been plucked from the poetry of Vergil, together with a couple of lines of Latin. It was here, among the rain-jewelled tamarisks and clumps of rosemary, that I finally got the brilliance of Vergil’s descriptions of the Italian landscape. To see, to scent, physically to grasp the object of a thought or feeling: this is the way we truly learn and understand.

Orhan Pamuk has chosen this mode of experience as the theme for a new novel stunning in its simplicity. Kemal has it all: a sinecure in his father’s company, a smart set of friends and beautiful, cultured fiancee. When he wakens to the impossibly good looks of his distant relative Füsun and makes her his mistress, he thinks his life is complete. Everything, of course, falls apart, Füsun leaves him, and he collapses into a pit of despair. Wracked by emotional and physical agony, he can soothe himself only by the touch and smell of objects that remind him of his lover. He snitches earrings, postcards, fragments of wallpaper, anything, until he becomes a connoisseur of memory, and assembles his hoard into a museum dedicated to his love. The painfully honest narrative is told as a kind of guide to this museum. ‘The ancient Chinese thought that things had souls,’ the narrator says, but it would be more exact to say that he gives little shards of his own soul to his exhibition. Each item recalls a host of memories, and so we are told the life-story of a love affair through cigarette butts and smashed cars.

Yet this is also a story about Istanbul. Pamuk’s deep affection for his home city suffuses all of his work, and it is not much of an exaggeration to say that he has done for Istanbul what Dickens did for London and Hugo for Paris – he has made her a living icon. In part of his memoirs of Istanbul, he sets out to describe what the Turks call hüzun, the city-wide melancholy compounded of nostalgia and unrequited longing that settles in the streets from time to time like a sea-fog. Istanbul may be European Capital of Culture this year, but the seventies were dark days of extremism on right and left. Kemal’s desperate passion for Füsun comes to symbolise this tragic love affair between the city and her ideals. Every object he cleaves to in his hunger for memory speaks as much of his city as of his emotions.

Pamuk’s delicate portrait of obsessive love has drawn inevitable comparisons with Proust, but his style is less subtle and anaemic, less slumbrous and cumbersome. When he describes hüzun in Istanbul, he reaches not for Proust but for the livelier wisdom of Montaigne, and that same spirited frankness is found in The Museum of Innocence. Kemal bares everything. It is such an immediate book that any reader could fall into it on the spot. Maureen Freely’s translation is limpid and simple, larded with the occasional homely Turkism: people of integrity, for instance, are called ‘straight arrows,’ and a woman is said to hate another woman so much that she ‘would drown her in a spoonful of water’.

A lingering, sweet melancholy drifts through the story’s veins; as Kemal wastes away with love, the old, old city about him is fraying at the edges. The streets are full of running battles, the televisions full of military coups, the beautiful chalets of the Ottoman nobility are crumbling in the sunset on the shores of the Bosporus. The sense of loss and the passage of time sometimes threatens to overwhelm the reader, but there are always slender moments of hope and humour to soften the darkness. The final thirty pages describing the composition of the museum are as sure of life to come as they are tragic, and the novel’s end is possibly the best passage of new writing I have seen this century.

This book is not perfect. I remain to be convinced that Pamuk can conceive real, living women in his books who are more than just the bearers of ideas; perhaps, too, the story dwells too lovingly on some feelings and moments. Yet Pamuk has written a book for anyone and everyone: a book that teaches us the thick magic that gathers like dust about china dogs and matchboxes, the little things we touch and love and forget that mark out the course of our lives.

No horsing around here

0

Director Anna Hextall has put together an ambitious, effective and imaginative production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus, which will open at the OFS studio next week. Joe Murphy deals well with the complexities of playing the horse-blinding Alan Strang and Edward Fortes (as child psychiatrist Martin Dysart) is more than enough to match him, even if one or two of his mannerisms (such as running his hands through his hair at every stressful moment or keeping his hands on his hips when addressing the audience) could be toned down without losing any of the drama.

Helen Slaney and Tim Kiely worked well together as Alan’s parents – especially in the flashback ‘television’ scene. Slaney’s vocal range was particularly impressive, as she made a sudden yet believable transformation from mousy housewife to religious zealot.

Kiely’s performance was also strong but a habit of closing his eyes on certain words while speaking was a little distracting. Elizabeth Bichard (as magistrate Hester Saloman) gave a very strong facial and vocal performance, but at times the very stationary staging of her scenes with Dysart was a little restrictive.

Cuppers Best Actress Ruby Thomas plays stable girl Jill Mason and was strong in her opening scene (although, due to the shortened length of the press preview, we were given little clue as to how her character would develop). The scene involving the ‘horse’ chorus was atmospheric, even without the lighting which should add a lot to the whole performance.

Rachel Beaconsfield Press’s ‘horse head’ constructions gave the play a much-needed visual interest. Combined with the eerie humming of the ‘horse’ chorus they looked quite otherworldly and added a lot to the sinister atmosphere.

But what stood out most about the preview was the success of the piece’s direction – scene changes were fluid, staging was well thought-out. A challenging play was well executed. From the acting to the marketing this is a student play with the attributes of a professional endeavour and I am looking forward to seeing it in full next week in a setting that will do the production justice.

four stars

Equus is at the OFS studion, 2-6 February, 19.30 

CORRECTION: In today’s newspaper, an additional paragraph was included in this article suggesting that Anna Hextall’s production would feature no nudity. This was factually incorrect, and we can assure you that there will indeed be nudity in the play. Cherwell apologises to its readers and to those involved in the play for the confusion.

 

Thou Shalt not…

0

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock with earplugs in for the last few years you will not have been able to escape the infectious sound of Scroobius Pip vs dan le sac. In 2007 the Brit hip-hop duo seemed to appear out of nowhere with their debut single ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill,’ comprising of a satirical spoken word rant from Scroobius Pip and undercut with an electro dance beat from dan le sac: it was simple, fresh and effective. Now they’re back with a new album, The Logic of Chance. I caught up with one half of the Essex two piece, producer dan le sac, to discuss their sophomore album, song writing and Simon Cowell.

Dan describes their sound as ‘a mish mash of everything I’ve ever listened to; sometimes from the electronica stuff, like Squarepusher and Lack Luster and, on a more commercial level, maybe Underworld. It also incorporates the hip hop and disco stuff that I love.’

One of the reasons for the duo’s success is that each artist is bringing something fresh and exciting to the table; as a collaborative effort it’s something really special. They push each other into new territory. ‘I’ve got this blank slate where I can write anything that I want and it works because the diversity of what I do enhances what he’s already doing with his vocals. I’m like a child in a toy store!’

The thought provoking and witty verses that Scroobius composes are slammed down on top of Dan’s beats to create their own original brand of hip-hop. Would he rather that their music made people think or make people dance? ‘As the producer, the ones who makes the beats, I would always go for dance. People are bombarded with information everyday. There’s too much to think about already. I’d rather give people an opportunity to let off a some steam.’
Whilst collaborations can be restrictive, this doesn’t seem to be the case for Scroobius and Dan. The duo write separately most of the time. ‘90% of the time he’ll be writing vocals and then when I’ve finished something I send it across to him. I’ll e-mail him five or six beats and he’ll pick one or two and come up with a vocal for them.’

Are there ever any problems with this method of song writing? ‘Every now and then he’ll send me something with a beat underneath it where he’s sampled The Cure or whatever and then I’ll spend days trying to figure out what I’m meant to do with it without using a big Cure sample!’

Debut album ‘Angles’ was released in 2008 and followed the success of their first collaborative single. The album entered the UK top thirty and the progressive pair embarked upon a tour of Europe and the US.

As the release date for the highly anticipated The Logic of Chance approaches I wonder what new directions this album might take. After all, ‘Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music.’

Is it important for them to progress musically or are they happy to stick with their winning formula? ‘Well it’s only important for yourself as an artist really. If I felt like this was the exact same album as we did last time I wouldn’t feel very excited about it.’ As if unconsciously echoing their upcoming single ‘Get Better’ Dan continues, ‘it’s the same with all creative processes; you’ve got to feel like you’re progressing, to feel like you’re getting better. And if you’re not getting any better then why are you releasing it?’

Although the new album has only been finished for a matter of months I still want to know if there’s a particular track we need to look out for. Dan is quick to say that they haven’t had time to fall in and out of love with the songs yet but that if pushed he’d probably select ‘Inert Explosions’ as his favourite ‘because its lyrically the strongest track on the album and the beat is just really simple’.

One thing that has changed for the duo since they started out is the amount of influence they can have on their music videos.

‘On the first album I didn’t take part in that side of it at all because we were touring and writing at the same time. We didn’t have time to sit down with a director and hammer out ideas. At the pitching stage, where we were choosing directors, I’d been involved just to say ‘that guy is good, we like him’ and that would be it. This time we’ve been a little more involved.

‘We spent a few weeks emailing the director of ‘Get Better’ before we shot that video. It’s important that this five minutes is a representation of us; that it’s a representation of our song’.The video for ‘Get Better’ (which is directed by Richard Heslop, who has worked with such legendary bands as The Smiths and New Order) shows Scroobius Pip delivering a motivational lesson to a group of teenagers through his modern poetry. It is a typical music video for the pair; low budget and high energy.

Dan claims the ‘Look for the Woman’ video as his favourite so far, ‘just because it has a really nice premise.’ The video shows a man with a TV set attached to his head being accompanied through his day by an angelic representation of Scroobius Pip, as if he were being guided by his guardian angel: ‘Pip is his inner self; he’s the voice in this guy’s head.’

A few years ago Scroobius and Dan created a spoof video of themselves doing an X Factor audition, spliced together with footage of the show’s panel. They are clearly not fans of Simon Cowell, however, Dan insists that there’s a fascination there, as well as hatred.

‘I wouldn’t want to hang around with him for too long but I’d like to meet the bloke, it would be quite interesting; I’d like to see if he really is that up himself. If I met him I’d ask, ‘why is your hair like that, has no-one ever told you it looks terrible? And you don’t need to pull your trousers that high!’ It’d be simple little helpful hints and tips.

‘He may be the face of commercial pop music, but there are still a lot of other people in the industry who are equally evil as he is; it’s just that they don’t choose to go on television.’

Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip certainly practise what they preach when they tell us that ‘thou shalt learn to think for yourselves’ they managed to avoid becoming victims to commercial music giants by showing a bit of independence and foresight.

Dan admits that ‘it was really hard finding a label. After ‘Thou Shalt’ we talked to quite a lot of the major labels and we had some really big offers, a lot of money. We thought about doing it. We spoke to one label in particular and the boss said he was really into us. Then we saw him on TV talking about a truly terrible pop band, saying the same things about them that he’d said to us..’
Instead of taking the easy way out, they held out for the right label and eventually signed to Rob da Bank’s ‘Sunday Best’. Having almost reached the point of giving up and doing it all themselves they realised that the perfect label had been right in front of them all along.

‘It is really important to find a label on your level,’ says Dan, ‘If we’d signed to Sony or Warner we’d be in a really dangerous position; we’re a little bit too far left to make loads of money out of record sales. We’d have released that first album, the label would have lost loads of money, we’d be sitting there wondering if they’re going to let us put another one out. We found a label that was big enough to do all the promotion it needed but small enough not to need millions of pounds back in return.’

It’s no surprise that the artists that inspire dan le sac are also independent thinkers pushing the boundaries of their music. He cites Michachu and the Shapes as one of the more exciting bands of the moment: ‘it’s really exciting to see someone doing something so off kilter and also receiving acclaim for it. I’m inspired by people who are being themselves, by people who do what they’re meant to be doing and not trying to bend what they do to fit a commercial model and make vast sums of cash.’

Refusing to compromise from the beginning seems to have been the making of Scroobius Pip vs dan le sac. With a firm base of fans, a supportive label and their combined talents they can confidently begin to build on the solid foundations they have created.

Massachusetts in Red

0

Why did the election happen?

A special election was called following the death of Ted Kennedy in August 2009: Kennedy had served as senator for Massachusetts for nine terms totaling forty six consecutive years in office. Up until 2004 such an election would not have occurred; however in 2004 the Massachusetts General Court altered the law that had previously permitted the state’s Governor (then Mitt Romney) to appoint a senator should an unexpected vacancy arise. Thus Governor Deval Patrick scheduled the special election for January 19 2010; the Democratic party put forward Martha Coakely the state’s Attorney-General, the Republicans selected Scott Brown, a state senator.

Why was the Democrat loss such a shock?

When the results came in the polls demonstrated a clear Republican victory: Brown took 51.9% of the vote to Coakely’s 47.1%. This was a catastrophe for the Democrats on two fronts; in the first instance because Massachusetts is widely considered the be one of the ‘Bluest’ of the blue states, Barack Obama took 61.8% of the vote there in the Presidential Election in 2008. The state is famous for being the spiritual home of the Kennedy political dynasty; Ted Kennedy took over his seat from his brother John when the latter became President in 1960. In a broader sense the Republican win in Massachusetts is a disaster for Democrats across the country. With Brown’s victory the balance in the United States Senate has shifted to a Democratic majority of 59-41, as opposed to a previously filibuster-proof majority of 60-40. T

his means Senate Republicans can now obstruct any legislation – particularly healthcare reform – should they so wish.

How did Martha Coakely lose?

Martha Coakley was widely considered to be a shoe-in for the seat: it was almost inconceivable that a Republican senator would be elected in Massachusetts – let alone to Ted Kennedy’s former seat. This complacency is seen to be at the root of the upset, Coakley seemed to consider herself the Senator-Elect and accordingly made little effort to campaign; she even took a holiday in the middle of the election campaign. When a local newspaper asked her whether she thought she was being too passive in the campaign she responded with indignation: “As opposed to standing outside Fenway park? In the cold? Shaking hands?”. Not only was her campaign complacent, it was also incompetent: she misspelt ‘Massachusetts’ in one of her election broadcasts.

How did the Republicans win?

In contrast to the seeming inevitability of the Coakley campaign, Scott Brown was an easy target for political satirists across the country. Brown became infamous after the media got hold of a nude photo shoot he did for Cosmopolitan in 1982; in addition Brown’s daughter had been a successful candidate on American Idol. However, Brown ran an astute and dynamic campaign. He attracted populist appeal in televised debates with lines such as “this Senate seat doesn’t belong to any one person or political party. It belongs to you, the people”. He also courted anti-Obama sentiment by forging an alliance with the Tea Party Express and condemning healthcare reform: in his victory speech he committed himself to opposing healthcare reform in the Senate stating that reform “would raise taxes, destroy jobs and increase debt”.

What is the significance of the loss for healthcare reform?

In the worst-case scenario Brown’s victory could be the death-knell for Obama’s ambitious healthcare reform package. The Republicans in both houses of congresses have up until now adopted a policy of obstruction without having any real ability to actually block reform. With this one extra seat the specter of the filibuster has been raised and, should they so wish, Senate Republicans could either kill the bill or hold Obama hostage in exchange for political concessions. Some Democrats have prematurely adopted fatalist positions; Anthony Weiner a Democratic congressman from New York stated that “I think you can make a pretty good argument that health care might be dead”.

What was the reaction in the White House?

Republican strategists intentionally framed the special election in Massachusetts as a referendum on the Obama administration and in particular on proposed healthcare reform. Republicans were jubilant following Brown’s victory, now nicknamed the ‘Massachusetts’ Miracle’ which many read as a good omen for the Congressional elections taking place later in the year. The White House has reacted calmly to the Republican victory with Obama promising not to ‘jam’ healthcare legislation through the Senate before Brown can take up his seat.

The news of Brown’s victory came exactly a year after Obama’s triumphant inauguration and in an interview the President reflected that he might have become too involved in getting health care reform passed and “lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people”.

Guest Columnist: Jancis Robinson

0

Oxford is responsible for how I have spent my working life. I was one of the first three undergraduates to embark on the three-year Maths & Philosophy course in the supposedly rabble-rousing year of 1968 (a very small rabble was roused in sleepy Oxford). By 1970 I had a boyfriend with a particularly generous father. As a result, I was treated to many a superior meal and indeed my first journalistic billet was as restaurant correspondent of Isis.

As with so many people who end up devoting their lives to wine, it was a glass of red burgundy that made me realise how wonderful it could be. In fact more than a glass, a shared bottle of Chambolle-Musigny, Les Amoureuses 1959; a wine that would be far too expensive for me ever to order in a restaurant nowadays.

‘It was heady and sensual on the one hand but on the other I could tell that there was something rewardingly cerebral about it too’

One sniff was enough to show me just how very different this liquid was from student plonk. It was heady and sensual on the one hand but on the other I could tell that there was something rewardingly cerebral about it too. This single liquid was expressing history, geography, psychology, economics – and maybe even maths and philosophy.

I was especially lucky at St Anne’s to know Alison Forbes, who was in the then very unusual position of having been brought up with wine. Her father was a member of The Wine Society, and had encouraged her to assess wine in an intellectual way. She would buy two half bottles of wines that were similar but different and show me how they varied.

I even remember standing in front of Oxford wine merchant G. T. Jones in the High Street (do people still call it ‘The High’?) chanting the bottle colour mantra ‘green for Mosel, brown for hock’.

‘The subjects of wine and food were viewed as irredeemably frivolous by undergraduates of the early 1970s’

I did not get up from the table at the Rose Revived resolved to become a wine writer. The subjects of wine and food were viewed as irredeemably frivolous by undergraduates of the early 1970s. It would have been seen as a waste of my Oxford education to have pursued a career in either of them, however much I wished to. I frittered away three years organising holidays because I liked travel, and then, as was the prevailing fashion, dropped out.

I then spent a year in Provence, and came back resolved to look for a job in either food or wine. In December 1975 was lucky enough to be taken on as assistant editor of a wine trade magazine.

At the interview, the publisher had told me they had had many applicants for the job. ‘Either we have to take on a wine expert and teach them how to write,’ he explained, ‘or we get a trained journalist and have to teach them all about wine. You of course are neither of these things. But nevertheless you’re the favourite for the job.’ I tried not to look anything like as surprised as I was.

I immediately embarked on wine courses that would eventually culminate in my becoming the first-ever non-trade Master of Wine. After I’d been there a year, I asked the publisher why he had chosen me. Was it my glorious career on Isis? My temporary job with the Good Food Guide? My year in France? None of the above. Was it, I asked hesitantly, the fact that I had worked temporarily for a London wine merchant? (Technically true but in fact I was just a barmaid in a City wine bar they owned.) No it wasn’t. Apparently what had clinched it was that I had been in charge of the skiing side of Thomson Holidays and they thought that I was obviously such a good organiser that I would organise myself to learn about wine.

If he had thought during the interview to ask me whether I could type, my life would have been very different.

Jancis is offering readers of Cherwell a special discount on a year’s subscription to Purple pages, the meatiest bit of www.JancisRobinson.com. Usual price is £69 but those who enter the promotional code STU2210 at https://www.jancisrobinson.com/static_pages/join will get 12 months’ unlimited access to ‘the wine website worth paying for’, according to the Los Angeles Times for just £49. But there is much to explore on the free pages too.

 

 

The drugs don’t work

0

Simon Singh is speaking at the Union at the invitation of the Invariants, Oxford’s maths society, and well he might, having popularised subjects as diverse as cryptology and Fermat’s Last Theorem in his books. Yet tonight he is here to talk about a very different book. Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial – ‘in retrospect,’ he muses, ‘the subtitle was a bit unfortunate’ – has sparked a fiery debate that has spread across the whole field of libel law. The world is watching: the Goodman Library is packed to the rafters, and a queue stretching halfway down St Michael’s Street has to be turned away.

Everything started with an article he wrote in The Guardian to accompany the book’s release in 2008. He took on the world of chiropractic, calling the claims of some chiropractors to be able to cure ailments ranging from asthma to ear infections ‘bogus’, and denouncing such practitioners as ‘fundamentalists.’ The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) was distinctly unamused, and threatened a libel writ. Although they were offered the chance to refute Singh’s article in the paper, the chiropractors declined and began an action that has dragged on for almost two years and sucked in £100,000 of Singh’s money.

He will not retreat. Everything about him seems geared for combat: his trademark squarish spike of hair is bristling, and he speaks with the electric energy of a young debater. This is no longer just about his own pride, though: he is a figurehead for Libel Reform, an alliance lobbying to make cases like Singh’s simpler and fairer for the defendants. Libel Reform – whose supporters include the likes of Stephen Fry and Carol Ann Duffy, alongside politicians from all the major parties – have picked out crippling problems with the British system for libel law.

‘For a start, libel law is unique in that the defendant is assumed guilty until proven innocent’

For a start, says Singh, libel law is unique in that the defendant is assumed guilty until proven innocent. In his case the judge has ruled that his article called the BCA dishonest – ‘they’re incompetent,’ he says, before conceding, ‘they don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re not dishonest’ – and he is on the back foot from the first ball. Libel action in the UK is so easy for the plaintiff that we are attracting what Singh calls ‘libel tourists’; foreigners who wish to sue foreigners and do so in London’s courts. ‘London has become the libel capital of the world.’ Worse still is the cost: he shows us a graph with a British spike almost as striking as his hair. The average case costs two million pounds, about a hundred and forty times the European average. This is a price only the richest can afford, and so principles are in danger of becoming a luxury. For Singh and Libel Reform, this is a struggle for freedom of speech.

‘There is a huge amount of misinformation, disinformation about alternative medicine…there are bizarre claims being made’

Just how rude about alternative medicine is he? I have brought along a bottle of tincture of St John’s Wort acquired at a high-street chemist. It smells like Calpol, costs £5.99 for 50ml and undertakes to lift my mood. I was hoping that Singh would say something offensive about it, but he’s too reasonable: ‘it might work, but be careful of side effects such as reducing the effect of the birth control pill.’ ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ This is not clear from the bottle, though, and this is what gets to Singh. ‘There is a huge amount of misinformation, disinformation about alternative medicine…there are bizarre claims being made.’ One of his colleagues was sued for libel after questioning whether a vitamin pill could really cure HIV, and spent over half a million pounds in legal fees.

‘People say it’s natural, so it must be safe. Arsenic is natural, cobra poison is natural, and they’re not safe. It’s been around for thousands of years so it must be safe? So has blood-letting’

Singh is forthright about the failings of the industry: ‘people say it’s natural, so it must be safe. Arsenic is natural, cobra poison is natural, and they’re not safe. It’s been around for thousands of years so it must be safe? So has blood-letting.’ He looks again at my bottle of stardust. ‘There is some evidence that some herbal medicines are effective, but they’re complex cocktails of chemicals. There are serious side-effects.’ He believes he is presenting these scientific facts about the efficacy of these products for the good of the consumers, and that the suppression of such statements is an infringement of his basic freedom of speech. ‘I’m being sued for libel for writing for the public’s benefit.’

‘If I lose this case it will be the worst thing I have ever done’

There is, of course, a flipside to Libel Reform’s proposals. The word ‘democratisation’ has a comforting ring to it, but an inevitable consequence of opening up libel cases to the public is that it will be easier to prosecute as well as to defend. In the dog-eat-dog world of student journalism, this could mean that writers have to walk on eggshells to avoid provoking lawsuits every time they put pen to paper. Every Union hack could threaten to call in his lawyer at even the faintest insinuation from Auntie Evelyn. Singh freely admits that his lobby could result in a ‘litigation society’ like America’s, but believes that people in Britain are ‘basically reasonable’ and that freedom of speech is worth the risk.

The stakes are high. While only four libel cases take place each year, hundreds of threats are issued, and this leads to a ‘chilling effect’ as journalists become more timid about writing things they could end up having to retract later. If he wins, Singh thinks, this could be a great step towards the democratisation of libel law. If he fails, he runs the risk of setting a lethal precedent for others like him. ‘If I lose this case it will be the worst thing I have ever done.’

If you would like to support Simon Singh and his campaign, you can sign up at www.libelreform.org/sign

How to Cook… Pea, Mint and Feta Risotto

0

Marc Kidson shows you how to make an effortlessly impressive risotto that will make you think of Spring.

Recipe Re-cap:

Pea, Mint and Feta Risotto, Serves 2

1tbsp olive oil
a knob of butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
Two generous handfuls of risotto rice
1 pint of vegetable stock (plus extra water if needed)
Salt and black pepper
Frozen peas
Feta
Fresh mint

1. Heat the olive oil and the butter in a large saucepan until butter has melted.
2. Add the onion and fry gently until soft.
3. Add the risotto rice and stir to combine with the onions, oil and butter.
4. After a few minutes, when the grains are starting to turn translucent, begin adding the stock a bit at a time, waiting for the risotto to absorb the last lot before adding more.
5. When all the stock has been added, taste some of the rice, it should be creamy with a slight firmness in the grains, if it is too firm continue adding water.
6. When the risotto is done, add the frozen peas to the pan, breaking up any clumps and mixing them into the rice.
7. After 3 minutes or so the peas will be cooked through, tear some mint and add it to the pan. Then add the feta.  Stir well for 1 minute,
8. Remove from the hob, serve immediately. Garnish with mint leaves for an extra touch.

For the Love of Film

0

Laurence and Matt talk about what Avatar could possibly mean and why, and review Up in the Air and The Book of Eli.

Music by Inokentiy Aksentiev.