Have the Olympics Inspired A Generation?

by Peter Jordan

London 2012 Volunteers, with Mayor Boris Johnson
(source: Daily Mail)

During the Summer I was a spectator at three Olympic events. The cycle time trials (road), men’s triathlon and the final night of the athletics (yes, I saw the Mobot win his second gold medal). However, one thing that struck me was how different the spectators were to the ones I normally rub shoulders with at major sporting events.  No drunkenness or swearing and many more well-behaved spectators.

In the afterglow of a truly fantastic two weeks, the BBC has been focusing on how well the Olympics reflected our country and how it will inspire a generation. While I agree that the London Olympics was a showcase of great behaviour, I would also suggest that this is not a true reflection of the Britain I live in. I am also not convinced that it will inspire a generation.

The inflexibility and uncertainty of the ticket lottery and the need for volunteers to sign up for two weeks and to fund their own travel and/or accommodation expenses guaranteed that the London Olympics would be dominated by affluent and well-behaved volunteers and spectators.  In general, the people I know who got “lucky” in the lottery or volunteered, were typically individuals who could afford to take the financial risk of applying for multiple tickets or take two weeks off work.

So, if it was a middle class Olympics, what legacy benefits can we expect to obtain?

As the middle classes and their children are already inspired and tend to participate in sports, maybe we should have more limited expectations. The sections of society where participation in sport is low may well have been inspired by watching the Olympics on TV but will lack the financial resources to take part.

For most people, the first step to participating in sport is to start exercising to lose a bit of weight and acquire some fitness. However, all exercise outside of schools requires financing.  Unless you have the motivation and confidence to simply buy some trainers and go running on the road, any regular supervised exercise can carry prohibitive costs for large sections of society.

As a result, even those people who are inspired may not ever experience any more than this if they are not able or prepared to foot the bill of fitness.  Unless this issue is solved, any inspiration will be short lived and unrealised, with the vast majority of the country continuing to eat poorly, drink too much and avoid exercise.

As a result, I fear the Olympics will have a muted impact on the sedentary and overweight Britain that was largely hidden away for the duration of the Olympics.

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Best Intentions

an original song by George Chapman,




Read on for George's musical and lyrical overview of the song,

Best Intentions is subtly elegiac, even if evidence to support this theme is not wholly accessible upon first listen. In conjunction with the melancholic chord sequences and harmonies in the choruses, employing extensive tension with comparatively little relief, the underlying drum beat with a low harmonic pass filter from the second verse does not give us the full-bodied drum kit tone we expect, suggesting that more is yet to be revealed. The fourth line of the first verse comprises a mid-line caesura after the phonetically harsh ‘cut it’- mimetic of this very action. As the piece climaxes in the bridge leading into the final chorus, the filter is removed from the drum kit loop and additional instrumentation (such as extra strings) becomes apparent to the listener, inferring that this ‘cutting’ semantic is to be developed upon and explained. However, the chorus simply repeats providing accompaniment for the improvised melodic vocalisations ‘dubbed-over’ the track, before all instrumentation except the legato strings is removed.  5 bars into this section of reduced texture, the dissonant interval in the string part infers that a certain notion of awkwardness still remains for the composer, supported by the unresolved suspended chord on which the piece concludes. Lyrically, the piece encapsulates a sense of loss which often exists following an argument (or series of arguments) with a loved one. By revisiting the immediate emotional aftermath of the dispute in the first verse, the composer questions the impact of the incident on his own state of character, and whether the argument has permanently damaged his relationship with the person with whom he has argued.

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Premier League Prospects For Newly Promoted Teams

by Thomas Penlington

Barclays Premier League Trophy
(image:cedrickdelest.com)

Founded on the 20th of February 1992, the Premier League is the pinnacle and ultimate aim of every football team in Britain. The standard and financial input splits the top teams like Manchester United from lower league teams like Aldershot. Regarded as the greatest league in the world and holding the greatest teams like Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea the Premier League is the most physically demanding and popular league in the world.  Being watched on average by 643 million viewers and with BskyB and BT paying within excess of £3 billion to secure the broadcast of 116 and 38 games respectively, it is clearly popular. Each season, three teams earn the right through the Championship to make the transition to the premier league and achieve promotion.
 
The step up is no easy feat and they must adapt both physically and tactically if they are to survive. The three new teams aiming to battle through the season are Reading, Southampton and West Ham United. Reading and West Ham have already experienced the taste of the Premier League before being defeated but they are back with vengeance, aiming to once again take their place among Britain’s finest teams and the world’s finest players. Southampton are newcomers and will experience the Premier League for the first time. In this article, I evaluate the team’s chances and predict their finishing position.

Reading crowned Championship winners 2011-2012
(image: Daily Mail)

Reading finished the Championship 1st and 1 point clear of second place Southampton. Over the summer transfer window, Reading made a total of 9 signings, a large number for a club with nowhere near the financial opportunities at the manager's fingertips as larger clubs in the Premier League, most notably Manchester City. In my view, the most promising and most inspired signing for reading was Pavel Progrebnyak from Fulham for a free transfer. The most important attribute a team must have is the ability to score goals in order to accumulate enough points to survive, so in that case a team needs a goal scorer. Progrebnyak produced a flurry of goals for Fulham last season and decided to sign for Reading instead, showing he wants to play for them. He also has the technical and physical ability to battle with Europe’s finest players. Overall, I believe Reading will have a successful campaign and remain in the Premier League. I predict a 15 place finish for Reading.

Rickie Lambert, Southampton Striker
(source: saintsnatter)

Southampton had a very successful Championship season and completed back to back promotions to finish second in the Championship after leading for the majority of the season. They ended up only one point behind Reading and had the league’s top scorer Rickie Lambert in their team with a fantastic tally of 31 goals and 27 in the league. Over the transfer market, Southampton signed a total of 7 players and broke a club record to sign Gaston Ramirez from Bologna for £13.5million. He is an up and coming young star from Serie A, the top Italian league, with plenty to prove to the fans with that price tag. Southampton also improved their attack by signing the young talented Jay Rodríguez from Burnley who experienced a fantastic career best performance during the 2011-2012 Championship campaign. However, during the first 4 games, Southampton sit bottom of the league on zero points and minus 9 goal difference. They have had no trouble scoring as they slotted two past Manchester City and United but fell short of the win due to poor defending. This was capitalised on by Arsenal in their fourth game as Southampton lost 6-1. Clearly their defence need improving so they must act, whether they improve training or attempt to sign players in January it doesn’t matter but something must be done soon. I predict a 20th place finish as I don’t believe they are good enough throughout the team to survive; relegation looms, in my opinion.

Mark Noble and Kevin Nolan
(source: zimbio.com)

West Ham United have already experienced the Premier League until their relegation in 2011 to the Championship under the management of Avram Grant. During the Championship season, they led for a period of time during the season but due to too many draws and too many losses at home they slipped out of the title race. They drew Cardiff City in the playoff semi-final as Blackpool drew Birmingham. West Ham progressed to the final after beating Cardiff 5-0 on overall aggregate. They then faced Blackpool at Wembley and after the scores were settled at 1-1. Ricardo Vaz Te made himself a hero by scoring the winner in the 87th minute. During the summer, West Ham made a number of practical and useful signings like James Collins and deadline day signing of Andy Carroll who of course has much to prove but was promising in his first game. If West Ham can maintain defensive qualities and manage to win away from home as well as at home then I believe they will finish 12th.

 

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‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui': A Review

by Mary Mitchell

 

Henry Goodman as Arturo Ui
Minerva Theatre, Chichester
(image: pjproductions)

For those of you who are not Brecht fans, and those of you who did not see this amazingly colourful and energetic production, I send my greatest sympathies. Whilst being a high-energy, frenetic, humorous and satirical allegory of the rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, its main success arises from the chilling accusations levelled at the audience: the horrors of Nazism could happen again.

 

The play, originally written in 1941, chronicles the rise of the Chaplinesque Arturo Ui who is a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster --- albeit modelled entirely on Hitler. Ui gains a stranglehold over the cauliflower trade in both Chicago and Cicero which, in turn, enables him to secure power over and dominate all other mobsters in the region. This lily-livered upstart, who is afraid of his own shadow, is slowly transformed into a megalomaniac, indestructible force for evil.

'The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'
Minerva Theatre, Chichester
(images: manuelharlan)

His rise to power, unchallenged by the vicious gangsters he manipulates, is beautifully and skilfully played by Henry Goodman. Within the course of the play Goodman produces an Ui who is both gauche, childish and pathetically inadequate and yet has the cunning and calculating characteristics of a maniacal and demonic despot. Before our very eyes, Ui metamorphoses, with barely the arch of an eyebrow, into a sinister and brutal dictator. A delicious moment of pure directing genius has Ui learning choreographed movements, from a washed-up Shakespearean actor, which transform him into a goose-stepping caricature of Hitler. This hilarious moment chills the audience to the bone as the central message of the play finally strikes home.


Brecht’s epic style of theatre, and the central message of the piece, is most powerful at the moment  Goodman removes his toothbrush moustache at the end of the play. The audience is swamped by Black Shirts whilst Ui postures, menaces and goose-steps his way through a rally. We have been accused and condemned: our failure to resist the charisma and power of a character such as Ui shows us the inevitable consequences of our inaction when faced with real life tyranny.

Brecht’s didacticism as shown through Ui may seem overplayed, obvious and passé, to some, but the play leaves you in no doubt that his concerns are as relevant today as they were in 1941.Ui is absolutely irresistible!

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Hackers: The Quill

The Quill

Here lies the profit:

trapped

in his legacy of erasers and tipex.

Forsaken. Forgotten

by the Master for whom he built empires

of love and loss. Each night his blood

was spilt in oceans of bold passion

with wings he’d soar through sparkling skies

and please his Lord, so was the fashion

of his kingdom, which was admired

by fans and critics far and wide.

But soon his feathers

crumpled and his

blood boiled

under the artificial shadow

that left his nation

a wasteland.

A castaway remains:

a preacher

abandoned

by a God.

                   Tom Harper

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The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2012: An Insider’s Account

by Emma Ralph



Improvoganza: an improvised fight
(all images: courtesy of Emma Ralph)



 Since the few performances in 1947, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has grown to more than 2,000 shows a day. It is not surprising to note, therefore, that the competition to have a well-known show on the circuit is rife. I was in three shows at the Fringe and one event; my cast of 5 actors took to the Royal Mile, as did almost every other company. We sang and handed out flyers for hours and in that time everyone gets a bit creative.  Comedy-improvising companies took to busking improvised plays; some people took a bed to the Mile and lay in it handing out flyers. There was one case of a giant sperm being lifted through the Mile, the three witches from Macbeth on stilts being raised from the crowd and a bathtub full of actors just wearing towels.

It was late Tuesday morning, in scorching heat (unusual for Edinburgh) and the battle was about to begin; as I stepped round the corner from South Bridge, the ‘Newland’ cast had already set up, A Scholl of yellow T-shirts flooded the Mile. The ‘Clockwork Orange’ boys had started stretching for their demonstration of a physical theatre gang battle – something to behold – the giant sperm was swimming and the bed sheets were made. The crowd of people was immense. Geared with flyers, we began our barbershop number from the musical, then the opening number; if we moved too far away from one another the harmonies would disappear, so moving together to catch people and give them flyers was a climb in itself. ‘Lights! Camera! Improvise!’ were starting to steal our punters so we had to move quickly. One company were lying still on the ground with their eyes closed just holding out flyers – rookie mistake! We littered our flyers around them in a lovely pattern and people started to take ours from the floor instead. Poster on poster was continually pasted on to the stands of the Mile, relentless, unrecognised effort just for people to remember your poster and the ‘look’ of your show; well, I had three and for each a different demographic.

Emma Ralph (right) performing at the Fringe

Reviews are the biggest part of selling a show, there was not a single company that half way through the fringe didn’t experience the late night cutting and stapling to flyers of reviews and star ratings. But there were the most spectacular shows on in Edinburgh. To name only a couple (that are showing in London so you might be able to catch them): “A Clockwork Orange” by Action To The Word is a fantastic physical theatre approach to the Burgess novel. However, “The Loves I Haven’t Known” was a highlight for me. The theatre could only sit roughly 50 people; it was hot and only two men were on stage playing a lot of different instruments as well as singing and acting (mostly exposition) --- all of it was hilarious. These men were clearly extremely talented and yet they were hidden away in the smallest venue.

It’s a comfort to know that, after peddling your show to everyone you knew and met, the performances began. Doing the same shows every day for a month, I must admit, gets frustrating, making silly mistakes or not liking a scene that you have to perform 28 times. The point of it is to grow to build the character and make the boring the scene look good. My two original shows were on at C Main on Chambers street, but after a week I was invited to perform in a show at the Pleasance Courtyard, having the same venue and dressing room as Sean Walsh and Pete Firman.

It’s safe to say that I got a lot out of the Festival this year. Networking is a big part of it; never go without taking your business cards! I ended up hosting and organising an improvising competition; granted it was at 1am but the audience was huge and, maintaining the energy to host for an hour and a half after three shows that day, the only thing I was running on was adrenaline (be sure to catch ‘Improvaganza’ at the Edinburgh fringe, it is on every year).

One month of rehearsals, one month of performances and sixty-one shows later, it was all over: so much work and yet so much enjoyment. From my experience, I would strongly urge anyone who has ever had any interest in an art or a humanities subject to go. Get yourself there by any means possible. You meet people at the top of their game and form the most amazing bonds. I still see and work with the people I met there, the energy of everyone is contagious and it is quite easy to get swept up in the culture. An experience that everyone must have.

“C Theatre’s performers deliver their tale with infectious enthusiasm” – ThreeWeeks ****


See also Charlie Albuery's 'Pick of the Fringe'.

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Cricket: World Twenty 20 in Sri Lanka --- A Preview

by Sampad Sengupta

After a long summer of sports, the ICC World T20 is knocking at the door once again, this time being played in Sri Lanka. Cricketing nations from all over the globe are gearing up for what promises to be an enticing affair, with many teams with their eyes on the trophy.

The International Cricket Committee, the ICC, first launched T20 cricket on the world stage at the T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007. Since then the tournament has been played in England in 2009 and West Indies in 2010, with India, Pakistan and England emerging as winners in these editions.

Let’s take a look at the teams and their chances of victory, starting with hosts, Sri Lanka.

SRI LANKA: Hosts Sri Lanka will be one of the major contenders for the title in front of their home crowds with the likes of experienced campaigners, Mahela Jawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and TM Dilshan about, but are plagued by the inconsistence of their young guns. The bowling, apart from Lasith Malinga, also lacks some serious fire power. Let’s see if the hosts can turn things around with some spirited performances.

AUSTRALIA: Cricketing giants for quite some time, Australian cricket had suffered during a transition period after the retirement of some of the cricketing greats. However, Australia do pack a punch with the likes of David Warner, Shane Watson, David and Michael Hussey. Their bowling unit boasts of a nice blend of youth and experience and if it clicks, the Aussies might be on track for their first T20 trophy.

BANGLADESH: Bangladesh have been inconsistent and not performed to their potential. Led by young wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim, Bangladesh have the best all-rounder in world cricket in Shakib Al Hasan. Their bowling has depth and if their batting can click, they could well provide the surprise element in the tournament.

ENGLAND: England are grouped with India and Afghanistan and are expected to ease through this group along with India. Boosted by firing young talents like Craig Kieswetter, Jos Buttler and Alex Hales, England look a settled unit under T20 captain Stuart Broad. Their batting will however revolve a lot around middle-order batsman Eoin Morgan and bowlers Broad and Graeme Swann will hold the key in sub continental conditions.

INDIA: India are as usual a force to reckon with, with MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag and the in form Virat Kohli in their ranks. However, all eyes will be on Yuvraj Singh who makes his comeback to cricket after recovering from a rare germ cell cancer. India do boast of a strong batting line up but their woes of bowling in the death continue and may just hamper their shot at the title.

NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand could well be the dark horse in the tournament. Coming off some dismal performances in Bangladesh, West Indies and India, they have not done justice to the talent they have in their side. With the likes of Brendan McCullum, Ross Taylor, Martin Guptil and Kane Williamson in batting and the experience of Daniel Vettori in bowling, they have a potent side which could well go under the radar and come out on top.

PAKISTAN: As a cricket expert once said, Pakistan have been “consistently inconsistent”. That has been the story so far for the team. Marred by controversies, Pakistan had won the 2009 edition, but have had their shares of ups and downs since then. Players like Shahid Afridi, Saeed Ajmal, Umar Gul and Abdul Razzaq are match winners along with other talented players in the line-up. However, they have to get their act together and perform as a unit to make an impact.

SOUTH AFRICA: If they can overcome their tag of “chokers” in major tournaments, South Africa promise to be favourites yet again. Their batting boasts of experienced campaigners like Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers and with Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, they have two of the best bowlers in the world right now. Studded with all-rounders, this South African line up is well capable of becoming world beaters.

WEST INDIES: It has clearly been a long time since West Indies dominated world cricket but this tournament just might be their moment to shine once again with the format suiting most of their players’ styles. Explosive batsmen like Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard, the dependable Dwayne Bravo and mystery spinner Sunil Narine are well established experts in the shortest format, capable of single-handedly turning any game around. The team might just spring a surprise or two this time.

ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe have failed to impress in other tournaments they have played in and have to play out of their skins to get through a group with Sri Lanka and South Africa. Captained by dynamic batsman Brendan Taylor, they have depth in their bowling with quite a few spin options such as Prosper Utseya, Ray Price and Graeme Cremer.

Associate nations like AFGHANISTAN and IRELAND will have to work very hard to get through their respective groups, but no one knows what to expect from them and that just might play in their favour.

T20 is undoubtedly the most entertaining form of the game and promises several upsets. The lively and dynamic nature of the game is such that it makes it very hard to predict a winner, with every team having a chance to make an impact. We look forward to watching some exciting cricket over the next few days and hope that the best team wins.

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