Cheese Grater Magazine- Issue 37

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The Cheese Grater THE OTHER MAGAZINE OF UCL UNION Issue 37 — Spring 2013 www.cheesegratermagazine.org ALL HAIL KING ARTHUR UCL’s new Provost profiled KNOW URANIUM is and more in our UCLU round-up THE MCCARTHY ERA Mick stamps his authority on UCL GOLF WARFARE Dispatches om the Crazy Golf World Championships TOP GUN FAN Interview with NRA head WILLING TO DIVE FOR YOUR COUNTRY Making a splash in Syria PANDA SUTRA Saving the species Oscar Webb UCL has entered the initial phases of its £500m “Bloomsbury Masterplan”, management’s strategic plan for the fu- ture, and it’s not looking too pretty out there. In September it was made public that UCL management will close the Gower Place Practice next year. The service is nowhere mentioned in the Masterplan. “UCL has informed us that it has no plans to renew our lease when it expires in 2014. It does not wish to provide a space for the NHS practice on the UCL campus”, Dr Clare Elliot, a partner in the practice told us. 15,000 UCL students who use the practice will have to look for a GP elsewhere and the staff at the practice will lose their jobs. This magazine has gained special access to a full draft of the Masterplan docu- ment - only the summary is available to the public - and baby, we ain’t seen nothing yet. UCL management’s vision is of a shiny, colourful, airy new campus with open-plan seating, “student-hubs” and coffee bars galore, but the cost of these new developments will be immense. Li- braries, lecture theatres, offices, class- rooms and labs will be moved, down- sized and in some cases lost altogether. The most ambitious project will be the merging of the main library and the sci- ence library. The science library will be moved into the basement of the Wilkins Building. “Releasing and reconfigur- ing” the building’s basement will appar- ently create enough space for the entire science collection, believes the Master- plan document. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to realise that the amount of shelf and work space will be reduced considerably. Much of the collection will go into stores, possibly on the new Stratford campus, the plan suggests. Entire departments are to be moved and downsized; academics and students (Cont’d on page four) THE COSTA PROGRESS Beloved bins to be replaced by world-class coffee shops

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Issue 37 of the Cheese Grater Magazine.

Transcript of Cheese Grater Magazine- Issue 37

Page 1: Cheese Grater Magazine- Issue 37

The Cheese GraterTHE OTHER MAGAZINE OF UCL UNION

Issue 37 — Spring 2013 www.cheesegratermagazine.org

ALL HAIL KING ARTHURUCL’s new Provost profiled

KNOW URANIUMThis and more in our UCLU round-up

THE MCCARTHY ERA Mick stamps his authority on UCL

GOLF WARFAREDispatches from the Crazy Golf World Championships

TOP GUN FANInterview with NRA head

WILLING TO DIVE FOR YOUR COUNTRYMaking a splash in Syria

PANDA SUTRASaving the species

Oscar WebbUCL has entered the initial phases of its £500m “Bloomsbury Masterplan”, management’s strategic plan for the fu-ture, and it’s not looking too pretty out there. In September it was made public that UCL management will close the Gower Place Practice next year. The service is nowhere mentioned in the Masterplan. “UCL has informed us that it has no plans to renew our lease when it expires in 2014. It does not wish to provide a space for the NHS practice on the UCL campus”, Dr Clare Elliot, a partner in the practice told us. 15,000 UCL students who use the practice will

have to look for a GP elsewhere and the staff at the practice will lose their jobs. This magazine has gained special access to a full draft of the Masterplan docu-ment - only the summary is available to the public - and baby, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

UCL management’s vision is of a shiny, colourful, airy new campus with open-plan seating, “student-hubs” and coffee bars galore, but the cost of these new developments will be immense. Li-braries, lecture theatres, offices, class-rooms and labs will be moved, down-sized and in some cases lost altogether. The most ambitious project will be the

merging of the main library and the sci-ence library. The science library will be moved into the basement of the Wilkins Building. “Releasing and reconfigur-ing” the building’s basement will appar-ently create enough space for the entire science collection, believes the Master-plan document. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to realise that the amount of shelf and work space will be reduced considerably. Much of the collection will go into stores, possibly on the new Stratford campus, the plan suggests.

Entire departments are to be moved and downsized; academics and students (Cont’d on page four)

THE COSTA PROGRESS

Beloved bins to be replaced by world-class coffee shops

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2 Spring 2013 The Cheese Grater

Hopeful Presi-dent of Tory Soc, Matthew Gibbard AKA Glibbard AKA the human stain

AKA the Worst Man, is still a racist. Ellie Stetford, Tory Soc Vice Presi-dent, quoting Gibbard, tweeted “I was looking at the Telegraph dating section...I don’t want a muddy child.” UCLU has received at least one com-plaint regarding these tweets, which have since been deleted and Stetford’s account made private. It’s rumoured that when running for Equality Of-ficer last spring, Gibbard covered his face in black shoe polish to pose for an ‘unofficial’ election photo. Bitch wishes she were joking.

Boat Club President Elliot Knott is having trouble coming to terms with the basic laws of matter. In a Boat Club email, Knott complained about the busyness of the Loop Bar, saying last Wednesday’s Sports Night had been an “EPIC FAIL”. Knott went on to lament that the queue at the Roxy had been “non existent” – it’s almost as if everyone had gone somewhere else…

Norman De PlumeMen’s Rugby have won their appeal against disaffiliation from UCLU. Hav-ing been under a suspended sentence dating back two years, the club were automatically disaffiliated in December after receiving disciplinary action on the grounds of sexual harassment for leaving pornography in the Phineas bar. The pornography in question has since transpired to be copies of Nuts and Zoo magazine. An Appeals Panel found the initial Activities Disciplinary Panel deci-sion to have been too harsh and Men’s Rugby were re-instated.

The situation is much more complex than this, however. In a separate incident that occurred around the same time as the leaving of pornography in Phineas, four rugby members were accused of groping a woman in Moonies as part of an initiation ceremony. The Activities Disciplinary Panel deemed these allegations, which are far more serious than those relating to Phineas, as the actions of the four individ-uals involved and not of the Rugby Club. A union insider told us that the Moonies case is being “pursued through different channels” to those which were used to disaffiliate Men’s Rugby.

There have been accusations from Rugby Club that UCLU acted unfairly in their disaffiliation case, which solely regarded the incident in Phineas. They cite the misapplication of a key case-law against them as a subversion of Union bye-laws, claiming that UCLU effectively broke their own rules to kick out Rugby. The fact that Rugby’s appeal was success-ful is embarrassing for UCLU and the Activities Disciplinary Panel. Some have questioned whether current Union pro-cedures are adequate for cases as serious as sexual harassment and have suggested that distinctions between different cases must be more rigorously enforced during disciplinary hearings.

Referen-doneThe results of the most recent referen-dum were a small victory for the left cabal

within UCLU, bringing them one step closer to changing the union’s bye-laws. The referendum asked students whether UCLU should create up to four new full-time paid officers, which would bring the total number to ten.

Question one asked voters whether Education and Campaigns officer should be split into two roles and whether Medi-cal and Postgraduate officer should be split into medical, pharmacy and health officer and postgraduate officer. 83.6 per cent voted yes. Question two asked whether a full time women’s officer and a full time black and minority ethnic of-ficer should be introduced. 68.15 voted yes. On top of the new officers, the ref-erendum also voted to change UCLU’s decision-making processes; more General Assemblies will be held. Michael Ches-sum, ULU President, and Ben Towse, UCLU post-graduate officer, were the main drafters of the constitutional chang-es. The changes are largely a reversing of those made by Mandy Smith, UCLU De-mocracy and Communications Officer, 2010-11 - known amongst lefty hacks as the Thatcher of UCLU - who took away the black and minority ethnic officer and the disabled officer.

The referendum was inquorate. Less than two per cent of UCL students vot-ed. Only 469 votes were cast for question one and 485 for question two. But this did not matter: the referendum was not binding, UCLU Council always had the final say on whether the changes would pass. Michael Chessum said, “the refer-endum will only ‘advise’ council on how to vote, though it would be weird if coun-cil didn’t take the advice”. A 75 per cent affirmative vote at UCLU council is re-quired to pass the changes, which should be an easy win for the lefties who are well represented within the body

In Rod We TrustUCLU’s Democracy and Communi-cations officer, Sam Gaus, is running for NUS President. In a comment on the NUS leadership, and especially the

Down Your Union Society Bitch

president, Liam Burns, Gaus is standing as the ‘bearer’ of the ‘inanimate carbon rod’. Starting as a Simpsons-based meme on facebook in mid-January, Inanimate Carbon Rod #1 for NUS President has grown to acquire 1,400 ‘likes’. Gaus is tak-ing the trolling of the NUS a step further, producing a manifesto which reads: “As an Inanimate Carbon Rod, it has already done more than any National President in the last 3 years to challenge the agenda of the government”. Gaus intends to make a campaign video and will be giving a seven minute speech to the NUS conference. He has said that he will use his seven minutes on stage saying nothing but holding up a large fluorescent green glow stick, the rod.

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The Cheese Grater Spring 2013 3

New Provost: From Leeds with LoveProfile of Professor Michael Arthur

Alex Catling, Oscar Webb and James Donaldson-Briggs

Incoming Provost Michael Arthur, who will join UCL in September, has a dis-tinguished academic record. The first ever leader of a Russell Group university to have been educated at a state compre-hensive, Professor Arthur has gained in-ternational recognition for his research into the biology of the liver. He also has a track record of cutting academic jobs and a penchant for the finer things in life.

Professor Arthur joins us from the University of Leeds where he has been Vice Chancellor since 2004. He won the American Liver Foundation Research Prize in 1987 and was the Fulbright Dis-tinguished Scholar from 2003 to 2004. And, like our current Provost, Malcolm Grant, he dabbles in the NHS, being the current Chair of the Advisory Group for National Specialised Services.

A self-confessed Blairite, the new Provost toes a predictable political line on the issue of higher education. While condemning the coalition government’s current approach to higher education as “completely mad”, as leader of the Russell Group from 2009-2012 Professor Ar-thur was a key proponent of raising tui-tion fees. “The lower [earning] quarter of graduates will actually pay less than they

do under the current scheme” he told The Leeds Student in 2010.

Despite being vocal about govern-ment cuts to higher education, Professor Arthur attempted to slash his own staff numbers at Leeds by 10 per cent in 2009, subsequently suffering a vote of no-con-fidence and strike action by the Leeds branch of the University and College Union. In 2011, the Leeds Vice Chancel-lor again faced UCU strike action over the closure of the classics department at Leeds. “It’s a department that hasn’t done terribly well in research terms… its fund-ing is not coming together in a way that’s financially and academically stable” he told The Leeds Student.

While steering the Leeds ship through choppy waters and forcing much of his crew to walk the plank, Professor Arthur has still managed to enjoy himself on the University’s account. Figures obtained by The Cheese Grater found that from 2006 to 2012 he charged the University of Leeds close to £70,000 in expenses. On top of this he, like the UCL provost, gets an apartment paid for by his univer-sity. He appears to have a particular affin-ity for high-end hotels, on one occasion charging the university £618 for a one-night stay in the Russell Hotel, London. His hotel bills have cost Leeds on average

£7,000 annually since 2006; more than double what the current UCL Provost claimed for his accommodation in the last financial year.

The new Provost has already stated that Malcolm Grant’s tenure will be “a hard act to follow”. Professor Grant’s legacy will certainly be a great burden to bear for Professor Arthur, with the uni-versity currently committed to spending £1.5 billion on the Bloomsbury Mas-terplan and the new Stratford campus. Commenting on the change at the top, Chair of UCL Council Sir Stephen Wall likened Professor Grant’s departure as Provost of UCL to Otto von Bismarck’s resignation as Chancellor of Germany. This is an intriguing comparison to make considering that Bismarck was fol-lowed by a series of ineffectual successors, whose overambitious drives for expan-sion ultimately culminated in the First World War. Michael Arthur will have his work cut out.

Fit Provost

Hairy silver fox Foxy silver hare

Tell us a libellous fact about yourself:

“Whilst working for the NHS I stole a little baby from a hospital. I had to give it back when my boss said that wasn’t okay”. -Malcolm Grant

“During the Olympics I used my Merc as an unlicenced mini cab. When my GPS was on the fritz, I would count to a hundred inside my head and then drop the passengers off re-gardless of where we were”. -Michael Arthur

Juicy goss guys, but which one do you think is fitter? Tweet us @UCLCheeseGrater.

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4 Spring 2013 The Cheese Grater

Contributors: John Bell, Roxy Blake, Alex Catling, Alex Daish, James Donaldson-Briggs, Alex Dutton, Bo Franklin, Charlie Hayton, Will Rowland and Oscar Webb.

(Cont’d from page one)

alike will be dis-advantaged by the changes. The His-tory Department,

which currently oc-cupies several of the Georgian houses on

Gordon Square, will be

moved into the much smaller site of Gor-don House. The Bartlett will first be moved into Central House on Woburn Place and then moved a second time into the DMS Watson building, formerly the science li-brary. Geographers from Bedford Way will be “co-located” - IE crammed in - with graduate geographers in the Pearson build-ing. The ground floor of Life Sciences will be integrated into the anatomy building. A “number of Union services” are earmarked to move into the new student centre be-ing built on the empty site next to history. The Print Room café will be demolished to make way for a new staircase.

How will entire faculties fit into their new premises? Simple: UCL management intend to abolish individual offices. Accord-ing to the plans, the offices of academic and administrative staff will be changed from “cell-like environments” to “den-like envi-ronments”; UCL aims to “achieve higher occupant densities and lower operating costs”. Faculty office space will be reduced from 21 per cent of total space currently, to as little as 10 per cent, a significant loss.

Responding to a Cheese Grater comment on the subject, Professor Alister Scott of

Birmingham City University wrote: “I have to work in open plan and whilst

efficient for admin managers is useless for doing work. I go home to work”. The worst part is exactly what the spaces vacated by aca-

demics will be used for.UCL’s corporate wing will expand

markedly. Estates, the Registry, Finance and Human Resources office space will grow from 5 per cent currently to as much as 25 per cent in the future, which would make these activities the single largest us-ers of university space. Exactly why UCL’s auxiliary services require so much space is uncertain. The houses vacated by history on Gordon square will be turned into lux-ury apartments and a “social lounge” for what the Masterplan vaguely terms “visi-tors” to the university.

Up to ten new cafés are going to open on campus; this is on top of the six that already exist. Going on college’s previous choices, these will likely be Costas or Star-bucks. Again, the reasoning behind such a steep increase in the number of externally run cafés is not alluded to by the college. Malet Place will be transformed into a “teaching and learning ‘high street’”, with retailers invited in to set up shop in “under-used areas”. “Com-mercial opportunities” are mentioned throughout the Masterplan. Artists’ im-pressions have glass front-ages to every accessible ground floor, making the re-developed campus look a lot like a shopping centre.

UCL senior manage-ment refer to the Master-plan as a “living document”, suggesting not all of it will be implemented. And yet, much of it is now coming into effect. Archaeology,

Anthropology and Classics had their first taste of things to come when management began to plan a redevelopment of these departments early last year. In September a senior faculty member of Anthropology sent an impassioned email to students de-tailing UCL’s intentions: the ground floors of these departments will become a large “student hub” and a Starbucks. Offices, a lecture theatre, a common room and a small museum will be demolished. Asking that the students occupy the space whilst UCL management and the architects looked around, the senior lecturer wrote, “as staff we find this whole prospect horrendous”.

UCL management is attempting to keep as much of the Masterplan imple-mentation behind the scenes, apparently gagging academics involved. When asked to comment on the “student hub” plans, the head of Anthropology, Professor Su-sanne Kuechler, told us that she was “ada-mant” we should not report on them as “negotiations are complex and sensitive”. It’s not incorrect to assume there must be many other Masterplan projects now underway at UCL, most of them behind closed doors.

“My eyes are down here”

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The Cheese Grater Spring 2013 5

Dr Karl LogoYesterday, a team of leading scientists at the J.H. Kellogg memorial labora-tory announced the findings of their investigation into why it was that Kel-logg’s Corn Flakes© are just so amazing. On every variable they could measure, and that’s all of them, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes© were just found to be really brilliant. It’s hardly surprising, since as every man, woman, and child between the ages of 2-82 knows, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes© are the happiest and most won-derful cereal available on the market.

We received a letter from 96 year old mother of seven, Ethel. She asked, “Dear Kelloggs. I’ve eaten a bowl of Corn Flakes every morning since I was small

enough to fit in the packet! Having sur-vived five husbands and the Korean War I was just wondering, is it Kellogg’s Corn Flakes© keeping me alive? Am I immor-tal?” After busting our chops in the lab for almost an hour, we discovered that Kellogg’s Corn Flakes© are full of corn – which makes you live forever! We sent Ethel a complimentary box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes©, a complimentary rooster mouse mat, and some complimentary advice on how to deal with the loneli-ness of immortality.

In other news, Kellogg Company PLC has strenuously denied accusations of using their new position as owner of several large media conglomerates to in-fluence news coverage of their company,

with a spokesman calling it “almost as laughable as the joyous laughter of sat-isfaction that our products bring to peo-ple all around the world”.

Scientific Fact: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes© are Great!ADVERTISMENT

Ethel, 96, is going to live for ever

Passion and Putting on the Golf CoastThis article originally appeared in the

Hastings and St. Leonards Bugle. Re-printed with permission.

Local hero Hescott, putter in hand, walks up to the final hole. The usually restrained crowd at the Hastings Adven-ture Golf Complex breaks out in tense applause. A woman screams: “come on Trevor”, a man: “one more putt” and a seagull goes: “squawk”. Trevor steadies his shaking hands as his rival Trudge looks on. This shot will decide the tour-nament. This shot will be heard ‘round the world.

This is the Crazy Golf World Cham-pionship, which takes place in the ‘Cannes of East Sussex’, Hastings. The field features crowd favourite Ian Hes-cott, West Sussex badboy Maximilian Trudge and an entire class of a local pri-mary school on a fun day out for the end of term. At the pre-tournament press conference Hescott says “I eat crazy golf, I sleep crazy golf, I work as a handyman. But whenever I am bleeding a radiator or lagging a boiler, I’m not thinking about what I’m doing, I’m thinking about my putting action”. Trudge used the press

conference to promote his DVD ‘Put-ting Putting First’ and to claim ‘that he will putt like a butterfly and sting Hes-cott like a huge wasp”. The teacher of the school class commented “we weren’t re-ally aware that this tournament was go-ing on when we planned the trip”.t

Tensions surfaced before the tee off when the players went to the little hut to pay and collect their putters. Trudge blocked Hescott’s path and said: “I didn’t drive here all the way from East-bourne to lose this championship”. Hes-cott pressed his chest against Trudge’s and retorted: “Au contraire. I think you did drive here all the way from East-bourne to lose this championship”. The players had to be forcibly restrained by event staff as they attempted to get each other in a headlock.

The World Championship’s course is curated each year by live-in grounds-keeper Ron Hargreaves. This year’s course is based on the teachings of the Old Testament. The course begins in the Garden of Eden, with players having to negotiate lush foliage, a tempting snake and a windmill. The fourth hole sees players negotiating the ruined cities of Sodom and Gommorah avoiding fire,

brimstone and a windmill. The course is incredibly difficult and at the 14th hole a little girl gives up trying to traverse Mt. Sinai, bursts into tears and looks for her mummy. “That’s right, keep on walking” shouts Trudge after her. By the 18th hole only Hescott and Trudge are left.

So it comes down to this: the final shot on the final hole. Hescott needs a hole-in-one to win. Hescott strikes the ball; it passes through the flock of sheep, bounces off the angel Gabriel, squeezes between the frankincense and myrrh, through the windmill and into the manger. He’s done it! The crowd erupts.Trudge throws his putter into the sea with disgust. He has risen and he walks amongst us. He is Trevor Hescott.

Concept art for the 14th hole

Martina Growler

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6 Spring 2013 The Cheese Grater

Shrove ManlyRarely is gun control out of the public eye in America, yet following a wave of recent shootings it has never been more contro-versial. I’m meeting the head of the Na-tional Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, in the Covent Garden branch of TGI Friday’s, midway through his official visit to the UK. Walking in, I find LaPierre propping up the bar, spurs glinting on his boots, hat pulled down low across his face and a tumbler of whiskey rolling between his palms. Next to him, a table of excited children freeze during a heated game of pass-the-parcel, and a single party popper echoes out.

After exchanging pleasantries, I com-ment on the prophetic nature of his half empty glass, with many Americans seeing the current state of gun laws with a ‘glass half empty’ kind of pessimism. Meeting my gaze, he downs the whiskey and asks for another. “It’s empty now, boy, cuz no-body ain’t never gun’ take away my con-stitutional right to a JD on the rocks.” I ask whether he believes that he shot him-self in the foot when he reacted to calls for stricter weapons restrictions with ‘the only way to stop a good guy with a gun is a bad guy with a gun’. Moving closer, he assures me that he has never shot himself in the foot, with the exception of an ac-cident on his ranch involving a randy bull

and a semi-automatic M1 Carbine rifle. Breath heavy with alcohol and curly fries, he adamantly reiterates his ultra-conserv-ative stance on weapons, unwilling to back down.

Feeling the need to lighten the atmos-phere, I ask him a less accusatory ques-tion, namely what he believes has caused the rise in high profile shootings in recent years. The answer I receive is unsurprising, “the goddamn culture of kids these days” being brutalised by “games like Mortal Kombat and Spyro the Dragon”. He then goes on to claim that video games aren’t the only area of popular culture which promotes violence, quoting lyrics such as ‘tell me the days of the week bitch, or I’m a blow that cereal outta your fucking bowl’

from Dr. Dre and Rebecca Black’s recent hit Dre-gorian CalenDre.

When I point out the low level of gun crime in the UK LaPierre’s mood dark-ens. He challenges me to a duel, slamming his plastic tumbler down so hard that the curly straw bounces to the ground. I re-fuse and LaPierre flies into a fierce rage, tearing down a life size inflatable alligator from the adjacent wall and wrestling it to the floor, before firing sixteen rounds into its belly. Punctured, air spews out of the sagging beast, causing it to career across the room and land slap in the middle of a birthday party. Amid the screams of trau-matised 8 year olds, LaPierre downs his whiskey, puts on his Stetson and passes out.

Weston Super ManFollowing reports of a great shiggy-ing and diggying in the south cloisters, I, UCL’s greatest poet rushed there as fast as my lack of speed would allow. The long and extensive walks I’ve taken through the darker side of my psyche had led me to believe I had seen everything. Nonetheless, the scene that confronted me escapes description by normal and proper civilian words. Such things can-not be described by one of your hacks.

Instead, let the reader lap at the bowl of my logophilia. For I have recorded the event described by onlookers as “just in-describable”. Brace your body. Restrain your mind.

A man was shiggying and diggying where no biggying was to be normally found. When the shiggies outnumbered the diggies the liggying crowd could be seen fleeing in all directions. Only the most steadfast of souls remained, among them yours truly albeit with a slight shig-

ward shake in my diggying heart. As the ambulance took away the hapless shig-gydiggyer who was shiggydigying still, I couldn’t help but shigger and digger a little myself, and stepped outside and upwards onto the Portico. I turned the collar of my trenchcoat up to the cold, in sharp contrast to the pulling down of my trilby moments before. I lit a cigarette. I stared at the sky. Stars twinkled above the cruciform. Sentences started short-ening. Night enveloped. Shiggy.

Shiggy Diggy An eye for a diggy will make the whole world shiggy

Guns don’t Kill People, the NRA doInterview with multimedia gun man enthusiast

Page 7: Cheese Grater Magazine- Issue 37

The Cheese Grater Spring 2013 7

J D Treacherous BastardIn a radical departure from both previ-ous announcements and common sense, UCL Council has declared that football manager Mick McCarthy is to become the new Provost of UCL. In an audacious move, the university will be renamed ‘Mick McCarthy’s UCL.’

At a press conference McCarthy said of his appointment, “I’m very proud to be-come the new Provost of Mick McCarthy’s UCL”. The press conference was cut short at this point however, as McCarthy discov-ered his water was fizzy and demanded eve-ryone leave the room to let him calm down.

UCL Council Chair Sir Stephen Wall later played down this incident, in-stead choosing to focus on McCarthy’s ambitions for the university. “Mick re-ally wants to shake things up around here. He’s a big believer in what he calls ‘direct education’; which means firing answers directly into students minds through constant verbal bombardment, rather than faffing about with inefficient ques-tioning systems like examinations”.

Describing his own man management

skills as “bloody marvellous”, McCarthy defended himself against accusations of inexperience for the role of Provost by highlighting his career in football. “I’ll tell you what I told Roy Keane at the 2002 World Cup when he dared ques-tion my experience. I said, ‘Roy, you can go hard or you can go home’. He went home. Problem solved”.

“Now granted, I may not know much

about Bloomsbury, or London, or much of England come to think of it, but I know how to get results”. At this point the interview was cut short by McCa-rthy’s discovery that his toasted panini contained tuna. We were instructed to vacate the room to let him calm down.

Vice Provost Robbie Savage later dis-missed the incident, explaining, “Mick hates tuna”.

Mick McCarthy to be New UCL ProvostChange of management at the top

Welcome to Mick McCarthy’s UCL

The BBC has given diving star Tom Da-ley his biggest challenge yet. The Olym-pic bronze medallist is to present a four part documentary, In the Line of Fire, on the civil war in Syria. Episodes see Da-ley charting the country’s decline into vi-olence over the past four years. Drawing on the history of Syria’s complex sectar-ian divisions, historic Arab nationalism and the current international power play at work, Daley paints a delicate picture of the underlying tensions that resulted in the current conflict.

During the first episode, Daley meets refugees in Aleppo and testament to his enduring sense of humanity, says to the camera, “and I thought I was in at the deep end!” The show has had difficulty drawing a Saturday night audience, but

has been lauded by critics. John Pilger writes in the Independent, “not since the days of Robert Fisk’s exposé of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut have we seen such incisive reportage”, adding, “Daley looks great in his trunks”.

John Simpson injects his usual musty sex appeal into ITV’s new celebrity com-petition show, Splash. The renowned war correspondent is tasked with train-ing celebrities how to jump into water from a height.

Our TV Picks

Page 8: Cheese Grater Magazine- Issue 37

UCL UNION CHEESE GRATER MAGAZINE SOCIETYPresident and Editor—Will Rowland [email protected] Editor—Oscar Webb [email protected] Editor—James Donaldson-Briggs [email protected]© UCL Union, 25 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AY. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UCL Union or the editor.

8 Spring 2013 The Cheese Grater

11 February 2013 01:14

Earn £3-5 in Biology Experiments!

Dear UCL Student,

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If you are still interested, and meet the criteria, reply to this email. Those who reply will be entered into a draw to win an ipod shuffle with free engraving.

Kind regards,Professor Stanislav Thrast BSc

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