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Meet the UK’s largest IT graduate employer and find out about what it is

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Please contact louise.raycraft@fdmgroup.com for information on how to find us

Drop Everything • Drop-In and Discover IT!

Location: Kingston University, Penhryn Road Campus

Date:

Thursday 7th April 2011

Time:

11.00-2.00pm and 2.30-3.30pm

Find out about a

CarEEr In

IT anD BusInEss

@ FDM’s Drop-in session

DETECTIVES are investigating a suspected arson attack after a classroom fire caused chaos for thousands of students.

The fire is believed to have been deliberately started when books were put under an internal phone and lit.

The blaze caused black smoke to billow out of the classroom as panicked students rushed out in fear for their safety.

First year student Ryan Rocastle, 19, said: “We were lucky to get out when we did.

“We saw the smoke coming towards our direction because the fire was in the room next to us.

“It looked like it was getting worse.”

Security staff used fire extinguishers to keep the blaze under control until firefighters arrived on the second floor of the John Galsworthy building at the Penrhyn Road campus.

History and international relations student, Rita Serghis, 20,

said: “This man came in holding a fire extinguisher and shouting ‘get out, get out, it’s a fire’.”

A Kingston police spokeswoman confirmed that detectives were treating the incident on March 9 as arson but have so far made no arrests.

She said: “Investigations are ongoing therefore we are unable to comment on the specifics.”

A university health and safety officer also said he believed the fire was arson.

It is possible to trace students who enter rooms across the university through the swipe cards they use to gain entry. From this officers

may be able to use a process of elimination to work out who had entered the room that day.

Staff and students were escorted from the building and courtyard to the main entrance of Penrhyn Road by security and fire marshals.

Dave Englefield, watch manager at Surbiton fire station, said: “It was arson. Someone set fire to stuff. The security guards put it out but the police will have to investigate.”

Primary English student, Charlotte Ward tweeted: “It’s pure stupidity to start a fire.”

FULL STORY P5COMMENT P11

Issue No. 46 www.riveronline.co.uk March 18 - March 31 2011

KINGSTON UNIVERSITY AND SOUTH WEST LONDON

OLIVIA HEATHK0816568

TheRiverNEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR

Police hunt student arsonist after uni blaze causes chaos

EXCLUSIVE

First impressions to first jobsP10

The River heads to AnuvahoodP20-21

Students claim they were ‘lucky’ to get out as hundreds evacuated from uni building

Evacuated students anxiously wait to be let back in Natasha Roberts

KINGSTON and other UK uni-versities may face the prospect of cutting courses if controversial Government proposals to limit foreign student visas go ahead, according to a number of vice-chancellors.

The proposals were put forward by Home Secretary Theresa May and branded the “most radical for a decade if not a generation” by lead-ing figures in education.

Tony Millns, chief executive at English UK, said: “It is the case that international student fees sub-sidise home student places, they keep courses and indeed whole de-partments open and in some cases where universities are more than 60 per cent non-home students they

are vital to the survival of the in-stitutions.

“International education is a key growth factor for the future of the UK. The proposals by the border agency and the home office are ac-tually a real threat to that expan-sion and to the foreign earn-ings which UK international education can provide for the economy and the future.”

The loss of income from in-terna-tional s t u -

dents is likely to increase tuition fees for British born students.

Kingston University’s fees are already set to rise up to a maximum of £8,000 a year.

Vice-chancellors from 16 leading universities ex-

pressed their “profound concern” about the visa restrictions in a letter to The Observer and argued that the “re-ductions in student numbers will lead to reductions in income

and jobs.” Interna-tional students

bring over £5 billion each year into the UK

e c o n o m y,

of which over half comes from tui-tion fees.

“Without international students, many university courses, par-ticularly science and engineering courses, may no longer be viable. This will in turn reduce the courses available to UK students, said the vice-chancellors.

“International students bring ex-tensive cultural and political ben-efits to the UK.”

Nicola Dandridge, chief execu-tive of Universities UK, said: “In-ternational students are not eco-nomic migrants. They come. They go. They bring money into the UK.”

A Kingston University spokes-woman refused to speculate on the plans implications until the out-come of the Student Immigration System consultation later this year.

Kingston students are likely to see classes cancelled next Thurs-day as lecturers join a national strike against cuts, job losses and pension changes.

Nearly 500 Kingston lecturers who are members of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) have been urged to boycott lectures and seminars in their first strike in five years, and the academics want stu-dents to support them.

“There should be no classes or research at Kingston next Thurs-day,” said UCU representative An-drew Higginbottom.

“We want to continue in a united front against the cuts. We hope that all students and staff members will recognise the justice of our case and support us.”

The strike, backed in a vote by a majority of UCU members nation-ally, follows a long-running dis-pute over pay for academics, who are also angry over plans to change their pension arrangements re-vealed last week in a report by the Labour MP, John Hutton.

The UCU is believed to have around 470 members at Kingston but officials could not say how many would support next week’s strike. In the past the union has complained of apathy about the cuts among the staff.

Kingston University manage-ment said it was aware of the strike call and pointed out that the action was not connected with the univer-sity’s own cost-cutting plans.

A univeristy spokeswoman said: “The Universities and Col-leges Union has called for a day of industrial action over proposed national changes to university pen-sion schemes, as well as pay and job security. This action will take place next week on March 24.” “This national UCU action is not related to the University’s cost re-duction programme, which is being implemented in response to the an-ticipated cuts in Government fund-ing.”

The spokeswoman noted that

Kingston University was in a strong financial position, adding: “We also hope there will be no need for com-pulsory redundancies as a result of the funding cuts, but this cannot be completely ruled out.”

The UCU says lecturers will see a cut of around 10 per cent in the value of their pensions by 2012 if the Hutton recommendations are accepted, and their pension contri-butions will also increase.

“Our staff earns their pensions through years of service,” said Dr Higginbottom. “We really like our

jobs, but we work hard and don’t want to be taken for granted.”

The strike is fighting not only for current lecturers but for those who plan on becoming teachers or working within the public sector in the future, he said.

Kingston members of the Univer-sity College Union (UCU) want the university to argue within the em-ployers’ body, the University and College Employers’ Association, that staff should be paid salaries that keep up with inflation and that they respect their pension rights.

NEWS2 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

BY NATALYA BENJAMINK0713023

KU lecturers set to strike over Government pension plans

KU security tackle student in ‘drug raid’ at Penrhyn Road

BY BECKY LUCASK0808042

Kingston lecturers will fight against Government plans to cut their pensions Rex

Academics slam decision to limit foreign students

Home Secretary Theresa May Rex

BY NATASHA ROBERTSK1000053

A first year student was tackled to the floor by university security guards in a drugs raid on Pen-rhyn Road campus.

Police were called to deal with the incident after security were alerted to suspected cannabis dealing on the patio area outside the Space Bar.

Megan Smith, a first year in-ternational relations student, witnessed a man being dragged to the ground.

“The security guards grabbed him from where he was sitting with his mates,” she said.

“The security guards were agi-tated. They told us to keep away, because the situation might get out of hand.”

Ten police officers descended on the university in a convoy of two vans and three cars.

They arrested a first year so-ciology student who had been in the beer garden of the Space Bar. They allegedly found drugs and cash on him.

Another unnamed witness said: “Security were quick and got him on the floor. One security guard wrestled the man to the ground.”

The security guards then re-moved the suspect into Town House and detained him until police arrived.

“All the police cars came with sirens blazing from Kingston town,” said Miss Smith.

A man was later charged for possession with intent to supply class B drugs. He is understood to have attended magistrates’ court on Saturday March 15.

The student union’s general manager, Mark Horne, said: “We take a zero tolerance approach to drugs in the bar.

“All instances of drug taking within our bars are reported both to university security and the police.”

The university’s policy on the misuse of substances states: “Students convicted of supplying illegal substances will normally be expelled under the Student Disciplinary Procedures.”

These procedures state that “any student who has been con-victed of dealing in illegal sub-stances will normally face expul-sion from the University”.

Possession and supply of can-nabis carries a penalty of up to 14 years in prison or an unlim-ited fine.

NEWS 3Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011TheRiver

Holy slopes!

THERE’S nothing Neil Elliot likes more than speeding down the side of a snow covered moun-tain, cutting through obstacles and perhaps performing a tail-grab 360 turn on the slopes.

However, Neil is not your normal teenage snowboarder who likes ex-treme sports and Avril Lavigne.

He is a 48-year-old priest from Canada, who has been awarded a bizarre doctorate explaining the connection between the snow-boarding and spirituality at King-ston University.

“I needed an excuse to spend a season snowboarding,” said the Anglican reverend.

Neil admitted his love of snow-boarding led him to the strange top-ic for his thesis in which he aimed to show the difference between what is spiritual and what is not.

This led him to conclude that spirituality and snowboarding do intertwine with each other.

According to Reverend Elliot, his thesis is about snowboarders who discovered that snowboarding was their spirituality.

“I had a lot of people who said ‘Snowboarding is my religion’,” he explained.

He also pointed out that he want-ed his thesis to steer away from too much theology and theoretical is-sues and look at “the kind of stuff you can actually measure”.

The thesis has been described as daft by some.

“One theology PhD dissed me;

there are also a lot of haters in the blogosphere,” said Neil.

But this does not appear to have deterred the priest, who has already gained four degrees.

“I think that learning is worth-while if you use it and grow from it,” he said.

Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Neil’s lec-turer in Sociology, who also has a PhD in the sociology of religion herself, said: “Neil’s thesis on the spirituality of snowboarding was inspired by his love for snowboard-ing, his professional work as an Anglican clergyman and his keen interest in sociological approaches to knowledge and understanding.

“His thesis provides an analysis of spirituality which sheds light on what is often a confusing field of study in academic circles, and as such will be useful for the analysis

of spirituality in a range of contexts – snowboarding being just one.”

Growing up and going to school near Kingston made Kingston Uni-versity Neil’s first choice when de-ciding whereabouts to do his PhD.

He said: “Kingston University has an awesome professor on youth spirituality, Dr Collins-Mayo, who was really helpful with long dis-tance learning.”

Neil interviewed 30 snowboard-ers from Canada and the UK for his PhD.

While many of his religious in-terview subjects did not consider snowboarding a spiritual experi-ence, they did identify with many of its elements.

However, others spoke of their outright rejection of religion in fa-vour of spirituality.

The thesis was set up as a model

which identified three dimensions of spirituality - context, experience and identity.

Each dimension was made up of varying elements, including risk, peace, transcendence, community and lifestyle. The elements were chosen by Neil to incorporate fea-tures of snowboarding that might be interpreted as spiritual by those interviewed.

He explained: “One of the prompters to this research is, you have a lot of people saying, ‘I want to be spiritual, but not religious’ and I’m trying to find out what that means especially for me as a priest and a representative of religion.

“I want to try and understand that because it has big implications of what is happening to religion.”

About a decade ago the minister of St Andrew’s Anglican Church

in Trail, British Columbia, came up with the term “soulriding” to describe the sport. “Soulriding, like spirituality, was a frame of the snowboarder’s reality,” said Neil in his thesis. Whilst there was no sim-ple answer to the question about the nature of soulriding and spir-ituality, soulriding seemed to be a mirror for perceptions of the es-sence, the spirit, of snowboarding,” he continued.

While this may be his fifth uni-versity qualification, Neil has de-cided that he will not be doing any more learning for the time being.

“I’m done now,” he said. “I just want the quiet life for riding.”

When asked about the impend-ing university fee increase, he said: “Any fee increases will stop people getting education.

“This is regressive for society.”

CHARLOTTE PRIORK0707497

Snowboarding priest awarded KU doctorate

Neil Elliot on the slopes Neil Elliot Neil, not in his boarding gear Neil Elliot

KINGSTON police are handing out bells for handbags after a re-cent wave of pick-pocketers.

The simple crime-fighting scheme has seen Kingston police join forces with The Beverley Safer Neighbourhood Team to hand out bells to vulnerable tar-gets in the area.

Sergeant Helen Plunkett from The Beverley Safer Neighbour-hood Team said: “The people responsible for committing these

crimes are spotting unattended bags or bags that are left un-zipped.”

Crime alert posters have been created and distributed to all shops along the high street warn-ing shoppers.

“Over 200 anti-theft bells are being given out to elderly mem-bers of the community and those who could be victims of this crime.

“These bells hook onto purs-es and handbags and alert the wearer if someone tries to grab your purse or wallet.”

NEWSFriday March 18 - Thursday March 31 20114 TheRiver

KINGSTON University has been named as one of 84 worst univer-sities in the country for cheating after 80 universities were investi-gated in a recent survey.

The league table, which was compiled by The Times newspa-per, revealed a cheating epidemic sweeping the nation’s universities with Kingston completing a top three along with Greenwich and Sheffield Hallam.

According to the investigation, one KU student contributed to the university table topping perform-ance by lying on their ‘mitigating circumstances’ form in order to get a better mark in their assessment.

There were also 14 students who were ejected from exams because their mobile phones rang during test conditions.

The university reported 799 cas-es of cheating in 2009/10 with only Sheffield Hallam and Greenwich above them recording 801 and 838 incidents respectively.

Out of the top five universities, four were based in London with Westminster and East London completing the line up.

The survey revealed a number of different cases of cheating that had taken place across the 80 uni-versities in question, ranging from plagiarism and cheating in exams, to buying essays on the internet and attempting to bribe lecturers.

One devious student at Kent Uni-versity targeted a member of staff,

but was caught by the university as they attempted to “influence a teacher or examiner improperly”.

There were three cases of “im-personation” at Derby University whilst at the University of West Scotland a student was caught re-ferring to notes stored on an MP3 player during an exam. The prize for honesty went to Cambridge University coming bottom of the table with only one case of cheating in 2009/10 its fierce rival Oxford trailing in their wake recording 12 cases during the same period.

While here at Kingston, one cheat confessed: “Luckily for me, an opportunity came up that I couldn’t refuse.”

A French man, working in a lo-cal restaurant, was propositioned by the cheater to write an assess-ment in return for £30.

“I received a letter with some coursework to complete to pass the module. It said I had to pass to move onto second year French, so I was pretty worried. He did it and returned it within a week. I got a B+ and to be honest, I’d do it again. If it’s this easy to cheat and get away with it, then why not?”

Despite the damning statistics, a University spokesperson denied that there was a culture of cheating at the university.

“The number of students caught cheating during 2009/2010 still

represents only a very small per-centage of the University’s 25,000 students - 3.2 per cent,” she said.

“Kingston University has a rig-orous, zero-tolerance policy on cheating, whatever form it takes. We are determined that the actions of the few will not undermine the genuine hard work and dedication of the majority of Kingston Uni-versity students.”

“Our academic misconduct poli-cy is strictly enforced, and we have comprehensive guidelines on what constitutes as cheating, which in-cludes poor referencing, mobile phones ringing in exams and re-submitting sections of work which have already been handed in.”

I asked a friend about plagia-rism.

“Everyone does it!” Well I don’t do it, but this response did not surprise me.

Back in the day when plagia-rism involved substantial reading it was probably easier just to write your own piece.

But now all it takes is Goog-ling and hitting Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

Ah, student life would be so simple if Turnitin, an anti-pla-garism software, did not exsist.

Ironically, to avoid being ac-cused of plagiarism they make up their own academic sources, when they cannot be bothered to look for real ones.

All you have to do is come up with a smart sounding surname, make up a book title and include it in your bibliography.

Because, hey, I am sure there must be at least one academic in the world who would support your thesis if he knew about it.

Why bother looking for one then?

It’s depressing because we all pay huge amounts of money to study and because there billions of non-literate people all over the world who would kill for an opportunity to study.

I find it depressing because most of them have never been caught and get better grades than me. I guess in the end, there is no justice. Kinga Wisniewska K0825750

GREG NEWCOMBEK0705616

NATALIA DA SILVAK0814773

METROPOLITAN Police are to wear CCTV cameras on their helmets to keep criminals and troublemakers away from the streets of Kingston.

The head cams will work as port-able CCTV cameras and evidence taken from them can be used in court to prosecute criminals.

“It’s a good initiative,” said Joe Morgan, manager of Lloyds Bar, opposite night club Oceana. He added that CCTV cameras have

been helpful when it comes to evi-dence from incidents such as fights to hand bag thefts.

“We haven’t had a fight here for three months, so it’s going well, but increased safety is always good.”

PC James Larden-Price said: “People tend to behave better when they are being filmed.

“Some guys go out just to fight and hopefully some of them get caught now,”

Krishen Nallee, 19, studying civil engineering, said: “It might be a step too far. I always feel safe in Kingston.”

Pubwatch, the police and the council and Kingston First recently discussed facial recognition CCTV, ID scanners and thumb printing equipment in clubs and pubs as an-other bid to keep Kingston safe.

ELZA HOLMSTEDT PELLK0816562

CCTV headgear for police to catch troublemakers

Police using the CCTV headcamera

Warning bells for Kingston thieves

COMMENT

KU students ranked among worst cheats in the country

Where Kingston ranked in the cheaters table

A SUSPECTED arson attack on the second floor of a university building caused gridlock in the surrounding campus and left thousands of students with can-celled lectures.

The classes are said to be re-scheduled in study week, meaning many students will have to come back to Kingston early in order to catch up on vital lessons.

Politics and international rela-tions student, Fiona Richards, condemned those who started the fire in the JG building in Penrhyn Road. She said: “I think it’s stupid, irresponsible and pretty pathetic. It is a university with adults who should be behaving. It’s not a pri-mary school.

“It’s ridiculous that students are now having to give up time during reading week to attend re-sched-uled classes.”

Throughout Penrhyn Road corri-dors became a fire risk themselves when huge numbers of students flocked to nearby buildings after escaping the fire.

The fire caused a frenzy as the building closed for the whole day.

Although no one was injured, concerns have also been raised about the fire alarm system in the £20m building as students claim that they did not hear the fire alarm go off until they got outside the building.

Harry Roberts, a sport science student, said: “We made it down two flights of stairs and got to the doors to the fire point and only then did the fire alarms go off.

“It was actually a pretty big fire. It’s worrying to think what might have happened had nobody seen the fact the room was on fire.”

Film studies and television stu-

dent, James Finlayton tweeted: “We pretty much carried on our lecture for a few minutes because we thought it was a drill.”

Journalism lecturer, Mary Braid, who was teaching on the same cor-ridor, said: “All of a sudden we heard a man shouting ‘It’s a fire. It’s a real fire’. This was before the alarms had gone off.

“We went into the corridor to have a look and there was lots of black smoke.”

Kingston University will now review the incident which will in-clude an audibility check of the alarms in the six storey complex.

Ian Appleford, health and safety manager at Kingston University said: “What might have happened in this specific instance is that a few students on the second floor were verbally told to leave the building by security staff just before they sounded the alarms.

“I attended the scene very soon after everything started. The alarms were sounding loudly and could be heard from Fassett Road as staff and students were evacuating.

“Initial reports and observations suggest the evacuation procedure worked well with the building be-ing evacuated within about seven minutes.”

Staff and students were escorted back into the building in groups to collect their belongings but the John Galsworthy building remained closed for the rest of the day and opened the following morning.

Arson is a serious crime which can carry up to a life sentence. Ag-gravating factors include whether it was pre-planned and risk of the fire spreading. The fact that it is a public building makes the crime even more serious. Kingston Police are looking into who may have been responsible for the fire.

IN THE Young Ones he was a hell raising student.

Now 35 years later Rik Mayall is teaching Kingston Students how to do the same.

A short film by a Kingston University student has attracted the British comedy legend to the proceedings.

The film, co-written by second year history student, Red Richardson, mocks celebrity and

modern culture, and stars Mayall, famous for films such as Drop Dead Fred and comedy series, The Young Ones, as Tommy, a useless celebrity agent.

“Sid, the other writer, showed him the script and he loved it, so we offered him the part of Tommy,” said Red. He believes the attention is mostly down to Mayall’s involvement in the film, and believes if it turns out to be a success then they will mostly have him to thank.

According to Red, the character of Tommy played by Rik “is

basically a complete scumbag”. “He tells his girls where to go

and who to sleep with so he can sell stories to tabloids,” he said. He is a completely useless manager and a complete pervert.”

The half-hour film was written by Red and Sid Mayall, who is Rik’s son, and was released on YouTube and Facebook on March 11. “Our initial goal is to hit one million views on YouTube,” said Red, 22, who hopes the film will become a YouTube sensation.

The main characters, Red and Sid, are two guys that like to party

hard and sponge off their celebrity dads’ cash and have no problem with the way they live their lives.

Red said: “They both consider themselves actors and musicians, but neither do anything to achieve this goal. They are two pointless reality TV stars.”

The film, which took eight days to film, involved cameraman, Nick Page, 24, who has experience working on many films, including Steven Spielberg’s film War Horse

The writers have ideas for six more episodes and are hoping for a TV company to take an interest

and perhaps make it into a TV show.

Red urged people to see the film for themselves. He said: “Go on YouTube and watch it, it’s sick!” He also wants people to join the ‘Showbiz Kidz’ Facebook group.

NEWS 5Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

LARS THOMESENK0929606

Fire chaos cancels students’classesOLIVIA HEATH

K0816568

Rik Mayall films with Kingston’s Young Ones

TV fire students caged for 2 years TWO Sheffield University stu-dents were jailed for two years in a similar incident last month.

The drunken pair put a TV in an oven and set fire to a chair in their halls of residence.

The biomedical sciences stu-dents returned to their four-storey block of flats where they then covered heat detectors and smoke alarms with plastic bags after starting the fire.

The pair were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Febru-ary 24. Daniel Gyi, 21, was jailed and Joshua Hart, 20, sent to a young offenders’ institution - both for two years after pleading guilty to criminal damage and recklessly endangering lives.

The court heard how the stu-dents panicked and fled from the building when toxic fumes poured from the oven and started to fill the room, leaving their oblivious flatmates sleeping nearby. Gyi told the police “we just fancied burning it for no reason”. Emma-Louise Geary,

Rik Mayall during filming, and below creator Red Richardson

Worried students evacuating Natasha Roberts

A KINGSTON graduate whose baby son’s body was removed from his grave by a fox last year is celebrating the birth of a sec-ond child.

Godwin Iferi, 36, a communica-tions engineer with a masters from Kingston University, along with his wife Emem, 33, proudly showed off their new baby, Asher Elnatan, who is helping to heal the memory of the unspeakable horror.

Last year their son, David died aged just five days. He was buried in a mass grave at Battersea New Cemetery in Morden, but was dug up and taken by a fox, causing an enormous public outcry.

Mrs Iferi said: “He is God’s gift to us, a miracle baby. But falling pregnant brought up painful mem-ories of carrying David.”

Earlier this month the couple returned to the cemetery to unveil

‘The David Iferi Evening Stand-ard Charter memorial bench’ a seat placed in David’s memory under a chestnut tree.

Mrs Iferi said: “We chose a bench, not a memorial stone, be-

cause a bench can be used by the community who come to honour this forgotten section of the grave-yard.”

The inscription reads: “In loving memory of David Iferi, 28/7/09-

2/8/09, beloved son of Godwin and Emen Iferi.”

Speaking of the horrific news of their first son David, Mr Iferi said: “We couldn’t get the terrible memory of what happened out of our minds.

“The police calling to say that his grave had been dug up, that they’d found his identity bracelet, the shawl in which his body w a s wrapped, the scratch marks of a fox on his open coffin, but no sign of his body.”

T h e c o u p l e w e r e not in-

formed of the details of David’s burial. “Nobody told us anything about a mass grave,” said Mr Iferi.

David’s fate assisted the cam-paign against mass graves. Mr Iferi said: “That a child can live for just five days and leave such a legacy.

“The only way I can make sense of what’s happened is to think that David came for a higher reason - to

change the system. We took the pain, but now Asher is our reward.”

Couple celebrate ‘miracle’ baby one year after cemetery fox horror

ADVERTISEMENT

BY NATALIA DA SILVAK0814773

NEWS 6 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

Battersea New Cemetery where baby David was buried Nigel Fox

Fox numbers are increasing Rex

NEWS 7Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

FROM singing in church, to performing in front of thousands and now penned as a modern day version of soul pioneer Sam Cooke, making the move into the music industry is one step closer for this Kingston graduate.

Chris Demontague, who graduated with a degree in economics, is now preparing to make his debut album with a host of Grammy award winning producers.

The 21-year-old singer-songwriter said: “I hope my music will have an impact around the world. The sky is the limit.”

Originally from Brixton, South West London, Chris now lives between Jamaica and the US and will release his first single ‘Missing You’ at the end of this month.

“Music is my life but I’m also happy that I have a degree in economics. Kingston University was great. ”

The young vocalist is currently working with J R Rotem who has worked with Rihanna and Cirocco, who has collaborated with Michael Jackson.

Soul Train, a brand that has broken many of the great African American, Motown and hip hop voices has honoured Chris as an artist of the next generation.

Chris said: “I have always aspired to be a singer but it wasn’t until a year or so that others in the music industry gave me the opportunity to follow my dreams.

“After a few live shows and positive reviews, people started using complimentary phrases like ‘artist to watch’ to describe my performances.”

Having created a buzz from thousands of people in America at the Soul Music Summit, American Music Festival and X-Fest, Chris said: “My music basically describes me. It’s multicultural and mixed up.”

Gary Bernstein, owner of Oceanic Tradewinds Music, the company that manages Chris, said: “Chris is a remarkable vocalist with substantial talent as a writer. He has all the tools to be a major force in the entertainment world.”

Chris is planning a tour of the USA and UK in support of his debut single and his album is pre-dicted for release at the end of the year.

KU graduate gets vocal

NEWS IN

BRIEF

Chris Demontague dubbed the modern day Sam Cooke Music Powers

STAFF at Kingston University have raised concerns over the release of over 6,000 email ad-dresses, following a Freedom of Information request issued to the university.

The request, made by pressure group www.academicfoi.com, was initially made back in May 2010 but was rejected by the university on the grounds that the email ad-dresses constituted personal data, and so were exempt from being disclosed.

Academic FOI appealed to the Information Commissioner’s Of-fice (ICO) and their feedback to the university has restarted the request process.

Dr Chris Ince, head of secretariat at KU, said: “A number of staff have raised concerns about the data being released.

“The university is still consider-ing it’s response to the Information Commissioner’s Office.”

The university is now proposing to release around 6,300 staff email addresses to the requestor, which will be sent in a document with no other data.

Under the Freedom of Informa-tion act, the requestor is not re-quired to state why they want the information.

According to its website, Aca-demicFOI.com aims to “investigate UK universities and higher educa-tion institutions through the use of Freedom of Information requests”.

The results of its requests are ana-

lysed and published on it’s website. A Kingston University spokesman said: “We think the same request has been sent to a wide range of universities, so Kingston isn’t be-ing singled out.”

In an email sent to all Kingston staff members, Dr Ince explained that the university may withhold addresses of individuals who have expressed fear of “potential serious harassment from estranged family members or partners”.

Academic FOI, which is run by volunteers, state that they “hope that the presence of the site will en-courage a few university managers to think a little more carefully be-fore they treat their staff unfairly or spend public money in a question-able manner”.

Dr Ince is looking into KU staff

complaints and the university is still considering its response to the request.

In previous research the website found that no KU staff members formally asked for support due to harassment at work between 2007 and 2009, compared to 177 cases at University College and 90 at Ex-eter University.

A freedom of information request gives anyone the right to ask any public body - such as a university - for all of the information they have on any subject.

Without a good reason, the in-formation must be provided within four weeks of the request being made.

Kingston University received around 90 Freedom of Information requests in 2010.

Lecturers’ fears as pressure group demands entire staff email list

Student’s Top Trump game

A GREEN version of Top Trumps has been launched by Kingston University student, John Clarke.

The sustainability-themed ver-sion of the game which was devel-oped over six months as a teach-ing tool for surveying students, looks at the different qualities of construction materials such as the toxicity, durability, and ease of re-cycling.

The PhD student, whose father is a builder, hopes the game could help make construction more eco-friendly.

Kingston set for strip club

invasion KINGSTON could become home to a myriad of lap danc-ing and strip clubs according to a Kingston Councillor.

Andrea Craig believes that because Kingston was delayed in adopting new licensing laws giving councils special powers to regulate sex establishments, owners of such clubs could be at-tracted to the area.

“It’s not about the one estab-lishment we currently have, it’s about being pro-active and mak-ing sure we do not get into a situa-tion we don’t want,” she said.

OLIVIA HEATHK0816568

KU misses no smoking day

JUST four per cent of students polled knew that it was no smok-ing day in a survey conducted by a Kingston University stu-dent last week.

The survey, conducted on the same day that the Government announced plans to ban shops from displaying tobacco products, shows that the campaign remains little known, especially to the stu-dent community.

ALISTAIR CHARLTON K0805903

NEWSFriday March 18- Thursday March 31 20118 TheRiver

ONE of Kingston University’s longest standing lecturers died last week after a long battle with multiple sclerosis.

Eve Speiser, former head of French, had been a key part of the university for nearly three decades of her professional life before she succumbed to the neurological disorder that she had been battling for several years.

Dr Steve Bastow, the current director of media and communication studies at Kingston was taught by Speiser during his undergraduate course in the early 1980s, and was deeply saddened by her passing.

“I find it really sad and upsetting that such a lovely woman as Eve has passed away. I feel lucky to have had her as my teacher,” said Bastow.

“She used to hold Christmas parties at her own house every year for all the final year French students which was quite unusual for a member of staff to do.

“The atmosphere at the parties was relaxed and informal, making everyone feel welcome.”

Speiser, 69, was seen as a prominent

figure at Kingston, dedicating her time to the university and helping to create a curriculum that drew on the strengths of the Faculty of Human Sciences, and helping to produce the ground work for the future joint honours provision within the faculty.

Terry Sullivan, former lecturer in Politics at Kingston, described Eve as a very generous and caring human being with a strong personality and “a lot of affection for her students.”

“She came in as a volunteer every Friday afternoon, even though she was retired, helping the French students out with their work,” Sullivan said.

Noelle Brick, principal lecturer in French, described Eve as “an open and supportive colleague and a great teacher.

“She was highly enthusiastic about the French Society and spent a lot of her time organising events and plays, and often acting herself. She enjoyed entertaining.”

An obituary written by her former colleagues Noelle Brick and Associate Dean, Dr Clarissa Wilks said: “It was a cruel irony that a strong-spirited and fighting person should be struck down with a long and difficult degenerative illness.

“Eve was nevertheless uncomplaining and indomitable in her response to her changed circumstances and continued to work part-time and to participate in a wide range of social activities.”

“She will be sadly missed by her many friends and colleagues.”

Speiser was multilingual, speaking French, German, Italian and Russian.

Eve Speiser’s funeral service will take place at 11am on Monday 18 April, at Kingston Crematorium, Bonnerhill Road, followed by a reception at Penrhyn Road Campus at 12 noon in JG3002.

KU pays tribute to ‘dedicated’ lecturer

CECILIE SCHLICHTING OLSENK0816553

Eve Speiser passed away last week

P R O - V I C E - C H A N C E L L O R Martyn Jones has released a statement condemning abusive behaviour by students at Kingston University in the aftermath of the Kingston Exposed scandal.

The statement appeared on Studyspace as a response to the now infamous PDF, which continues to gather pace online, provoked arguments on Twitter and even a rap song on YouTube.

Jones said: “Kingston University is committed to the safety and well-being of its students.

“We therefore condemn this document as showing a total lack of respect amounting to bullying.”

The police have been informed and the university has been carrying out an investigation jointly with the Students’ Union to find out who is responsible for producing it.

Following a request from the University, the main online publisher has now removed this document from its site.”

Earlier this month The River reported how the file, which is understood to have

been downloaded over a million times by people worldwide, had generated strong repercussions on campus with tempers flaring at an Afro-Caribbean Society meeting.

One student had to be escorted home after threats were made against him.

Despite this hate crime, officers are now unlikely to take action as the document contains no physical threat to the individuals concerned.

A police spokesman said: “Although the police were aware of the file, it was not a police matter and was more of a civil case.

“There were no threats of violence or death threats from the file, so we cannot

do an investigation. “This is more of a civil dispute, which

is something that we do not deal with.”Stefan Mattison, Vice President

for Kingston University Students Union, said: “As a Students’ Union we condemn bullying online or not.

“As students we should treat each other with respect.

“What can be seen as funny by some, can be menacing and upsetting to others.”

Professor Jones has urged anyone with information to contact Clare Philp at student services in confidence via email c.philp@kingston.ac.uk or by ringing 020 8417 6111.

AUNDRE JACOBSK0825750

University condemned online bullying

The infamous document caused outrage at Kingston University

ONE of Kingston University’s own will soon start gigging around south London, after a string of successful sessions with some of Radio 1’s biggest DJ’s.

Jake Hart, a third year music student, has seen his own brand of indie-electro take off in recent months.

After winning praise from the likes of Chris Moyles and a selec-tion of other Radio 1 hosts, Jake now feels ready to start a series of live acts.

“Things have really kicked off since the Radio 1 stuff last Janu-ary,” said Jake, who writes and pro-duces everything he releases.

“The first one was with Huw Stephens, he played my most suc-cessful track to date, ‘Still Young’. From then, Chris Moyles’s people got in contact with me and said they wanted to have a feature on me.

“His show had a feature for new, emerging bands, one band every day for four days. I was one of them, it was a 15 minute slot where they played my track and talked about me for a bit. He seemed to enjoy it, even saying it was one of the most original acts, they had heard on the segment.”

Jake’s radio exposure, which also included airtime on Radio 1’s Rob Da Bank’s weekend show, has seen him thrown into situations most students can only dream of.

Things have stepped up several gears for Jake over the past year.

The hours of song writing and rehearsal are starting to pay off as he now has nearly 25,000 followers on Twitter.

“I’ve been offered a record deal, but I’m holding it at the minute,” said 20-year-old Jake. It’s impor-tant for me to get these first few out of the way first.

“It’s getting to the stage where I’m meeting with some very big names in the industry, legal repre-sentatives, A&R people etc. Walk-ing into some of their buildings, seeing gold discs up on the walls, makes you think, ‘woah, this is get-ting real.’ ”

With eight tracks already com-pleted, is an album the next thing on the horizon for Jake?

“I’m not sure if I’d start work-ing on an album just yet. I think I would wait until I got the right deal. It’s something that I don’t want to rush, I think waiting for a good one is very important.”

Despite the success in front of the microphone and away from university, there is still the small matter of the thing that bought Jake to Kingston, a town which he says has helped him develop as a musi-cian. A degree in music.

“I can see myself gigging full time, 6 months down the line.”

To listen to Jake Hart’s material yourself, visit his Youtube channel at JakeHartMusic.

NEWS 9Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

BY TONY MOGANK0809091

Radio1 triumph for KU student

www.thestudentsurve

y.comTake part in the National Student Survey

ADVERTISMENT

Chris Moyles personally praised Jake and his original music Rex

Jake Hart demonstrates his skill on guitar Aundre Jacobs

10 TheRiver

HAVE YOU ever asked an em-ployer what would most inspire them to invest time in a potential candidate? I would vouch that more often than not it would not be their degree subject, grade, experience or even key skills.

The phrase ‘first impressions count’ is never more relevant than when looking for a job, and the first impression is what will motivate an employer to review your applica-tion.

FDM is the UK’s largest IT graduate employer and we will be recruiting 1,000 graduates onto our award-wining programme this year.

Experience has shown us that the most prepared and proactive gradu-ates are usually the best fit for our business.

Not to imply that qualifications and skills are irrelevant, in fact they are becoming increasingly impor-tant, and why is this?

This is because more and more people have them: Many of the individuals we interview have the same degree type, experience level and have just completed their stud-

ies, so why and how do we choose one over another?

We look for those who have proved their dedication to their ca-reer before they are sitting across from you in an interview, those who have carried out research and really believe that they are the right per-son for your organisation, because they understand the company.

If you want to be that person then I would strongly urge you to read on and take our advice.

An employer’s first impression of a candidate will often be their CV, and it is particularly difficult to stand out this way; applicants often have the same type of degree and level of experience as everyone else applying.

Beware, it is never a good idea to try to turn your CV into a piece of art, using unusual fonts and crea-tive layouts or style, may reflect unprofessionalism.

So why not make an impression before you apply – meet the em-ployer.

There are many opportunities to get to know potential employers; at careers fairs, open evenings and

even at your university, where em-ployers are hosting workshops and attending networking events.

Due to the economic climate, employers have to ensure they are hiring the right people and so are more proactive in their approach, preferring to meet potential candi-dates face-to-face early on.

Many employers will actually run soft skills workshops includ-ing CV clinics, interview technique and mock assessment days.

These are extremely useful to at-tend, despite how strong you may think you are in making a good impression during employment screening, there is always room for improvement.

Besides, many graduates are sur-prised to find just how much more difficult the application process is for an entry-level role, as opposed to undergraduate interviews they may have attended.

Open evenings are also a fantas-tic way to find out more about a po-tential employer.

You will not only get a chance to learn about all they have to offer you and what the requirements are,

but also it is likely to be in their of-fice and so you will be able to see where you will be working and even who with.

So why is it important for you to start meeting employers now? Well not only does it give you an oppor-tunity to make an impression on the employer, but it also gives you a chance to find out more about the company in a ‘no-pressure’ situa-tion.

It is not always easy to ask those all-important questions such as sal-ary, social/work balance and what they will expect from you, during an interview.

These questions can now be asked at networking events with the company’s recruitment special-ists.

Why waste your time applying to an organisation that doesn’t meet your criteria, when you can find out much earlier on if they are the right fit for you?

In addition, there is only so much you can gauge about the company from their website, the representa-tives who attend careers fairs and come into your university, work

at the company and will be able to give you a good idea of the atmos-phere, social aspects and expecta-tions of the organisation.

As a Kingston University student you are extremely fortunate to at-tend an institution that works so closely with potential employers. You have the opportunity to gain insight into the industry sectors you are interested in, and learn about what will be expected, not just in the application process but also in the job role.

Ask your careers department about up-coming events and em-ployer presentations at your uni-versity.

So what is it then that inspires employers to invest their time in graduate applications? It is all about attitude, enthusiasm, organi-sation and a proactive approach to your future.

You have the opportunity to demonstrate all of this by attending careers fairs, open evenings and networking and workshop events on campus.

So get out there, and start paving the path to your first graduate job!

From First Impressions, To Your First JobADVERTISING FEATURE

Meet the UK’s largest IT graduate employer and find out about what it is really like to work in the IT industry. You will get the opportunity to speak to Mohammed, FDM’s student brand representative, as well as our Consultants, in a relaxed and informal environment. We will also be delivering a presentation on our IT graduate opportunities and we will have lots of giveaways and information for you.

Please contact louise.raycraft@fdmgroup.com for more information

Drop Everything • Drop-In and Discover IT!

Location: Kingston University, Penhryn Road Campus JG2012 John Galsworthy BuildingDate: Thursday 7th April 2011Time: 11.00-2.00pm and 2.00-3.30pm

Find out about a CarEEr InIT anD BusInEss@ FDM’s Drop-in session

NEWS

KINGSTON students have been rewarded for their entrepreneur-ial skills after sweeping the board in business ideas competiton.

The students beat off 290 en-trants in the Bright Ideas 2011 competiton, with ideas that includ-ed getting children into politics and setting up a website to help students

find accommodation in London.Madeleine Williams Habberjam,

21, was among the 23 winners af-ter coming up with an interactive workshop designed to get people into politics at a younger age.

She said: “Lots of my friends weren’t voting in the General Elec-tion before last

“When I asked them why, they said it was because they didn’t feel they knew enough about what they were going to be voting for.

“I thought that this should be changed.

“Obviously it would benefit young people by making them confident enough to vote, but also society as a whole by hopefully increasing voting participation - meaning that the Government will have been more fairly elected.

“It felt really good that other people thought that my idea was worth something.

“I didn’t really think too much about winning, but I definitely always thought the money would come in handy.”

The awards were presented at the University of Westmin-ster and saw the winners re-ceiving £1,000 to help further their ideas.

“I originally thought I would spend it on the busi-ness,” said Madeleine of her prize money.

Her entry into Bright Ideas was compulsory as part of one of her third year entrepre-

11Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

KU students get cash prize for their best Bright Ideas

A FORMER Kingston University student who invented a device to help protect people at risk of deep vein thrombosis is in line to win a pres-tigious nursing award.

Neomi Bennett, 39, who left school aged 16 before working her way to Kingston University after gaining various nurs-ing qualifications, has in-vented a type of sock that could prevent blood clots from forming and putting people’s lives in danger.

“Leaving school with-out qualifications meant I wasn’t very confi-dent academically, but Kingston has been re-ally supportive,” she said.

Ms Bennett is a finalist for the RCN Fellows Stu-dent Nurse Award which

is run by Nursing Standard magazine.

Her invention con-sists of an inner sock which prevents blood clots from forming in the legs, which can then spread to other areas.

“I came up with the idea while on placement and saw patients strug-gling,” Neomi said.

She is currently pending on a patent for the device under the trade name of ‘Neo-slip’, and is hoping the idea will be taken up on a commercial scale.

She said: “I’d like to inspire other people to go to university, espe-cially those that didn’t do well at school.

The winner is an-nounced on April 28 during a din-ner ceremony at The Park Plaza Hotel.

Graduate’s socks could save lives

BECKY LUCASK0808042

CHARLOTTE PRIORK0707497

Five KU students beat off 23 national rivals with top ideas for next generation

Neomi Bennett’s idea could save lives

Madeleine collecting her prize

neurship and management course. She added: “I’m sure I will if I

can manage to get it up and run-ning, but obviously it’s a busy time at the moment with finals.

“Realistically the money will probably be used to survive on for as long as it takes me to find a decent graduate job or start mak-ing some money through the busi-ness.”

Mayra Cupples, 27, who is stud-ying a PhD in business, came up with the website lastminutetrain-ing.com.

The aim of the website is to pro-vide customers with lower priced training courses to make them more

available to everyone. “The idea came from my own ex-

perience and winning is an amaz-ing feeling of achievement and re-ward,” said Mayra.

“When they shouted my name I was so excited. I know it’s only a small prize but my legs were shak-ing. It’s just an incredible feeling.”

Other Kingston University win-ners included Sarah Zaiden, who designed a software programme based on the characteristics of su-perheroes.

Jason Rees and Alex Harris, won after designing a website that is aimed at helping students to find accommodation in London.

Martha Mador, head of enterprise education at Kingston University and manager of the WestFocus En-trepreneurship Centre, is organzi-ing the competition every year.

She said: “Each year we get more entries, and the ideas become better and more diverse.

“They are often demanding and challenging ideas addressing genu-ine needs.”

The competition is now in its seventh year and is open to seven universities around London.

To register for the next Bright Ideas competition, as either an in-dividual or a team, visit www.west-focus.org.uk.

KINGSTON town centre could soon turn into a ghost town as students who fear the operation of surveillance and security devices threaten to boycott Kingston nightlife.

In a survey carried out by The River, 60 per cent of students opposed plans to introduce facial recognition CCTV, ID scanners and thumb printing equipment in a bid to keep Kingston town centre safe.

“This is not the way to protect the safety of students and residents in Kingston. It’s turning into a watchdog society,” said

21-year-old film student Lakshiya Rabendran. “I don’t want to hand over details just to get into a club for a couple of hours.”

The ID scanners will mean nightclubs and the police will have a record of who is on the premises so they can release their information if something happens.

Mark Byford, manager of McClusky’s and chairman of

Kingston Pubwatch, said: “It won’t solve every problem there is, but it’s another tool in our box to keep trouble-makers out of the town. I think the benefits outweigh the negatives. If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Many of the students surveyed felt that the new measures would be a major intrusion into their

private lives. Kingston First’s business crime reduction manager Paul Riordan said: “We are scoping a number of developing technologies and new initiatives to keep our night-time visitors safe.”

The security plans, which are in the early stages of planning, were discussed at a meeting last week with Pubwatch, police, the council and Kingston First.

Over-the-top security at Kingston nightclubsOLIVIA HEATH

AMY MCCULLOUGHK0860569K0812791

WHEN THE fi re alarms went off at school what was your fi rst re-action?

Probably to roll your eyes and hope it’s not raining outside, be-fore trundling off down to the playground and chatting with your mates about what would happen if there really was a fi re.

Of course, there never was. It was always a science experiment getting a bit smoky, or someone poking their fi nger through one of those glass-covered alarms.

From the age of three I’d make this annoyingly loud and usually cold trip to the playground, line up in register order and wait to be let back in. There was never any fear or panic because we knew that there was never a fi re.

This is probably why no one seemed to rush out of the John Galsworthy building last week when a classroom erupted into fl ames. The alarms may or may not have gone off right away, but class-rooms were individually told about the fi re, yet according to witnesses students and staff alike were slow to react.

It’s good to be calm in such situ-ations; we don’t want hundreds of students piling down six fl ights of stairs, but needing to be told twice? This worries me. We are told from primary school how to act in case of a fi re but we are not taught to ig-nore them.

And yet I’d probably react in the same way. Oh it’s just another fi re drill. We haven’t had a fi re for ages, it must be a drill. I hope it’s not raining outside. Don’t forget your bag...

We’ve probably become desen-sitised to fi re alarms, just like how no one ever investigates a house

alarm, and car alarms are just plain annoying. Because we assume there probably isn’t a fi re, we don’t panic. It’s like the assumption of ‘it’ll never happen to me,’ when we fool ourselves by thinking we won’t be in such a dangerous situa-tion. In a weird way the system sort of works.

We know the drill, we always re-main calm and last week thankfully no one was hurt while trying to es-cape. Sure, the system works, but it’s probably cried wolf too many times for us to genuinely care.

But then how safe are we when we do need to care?

COMMENT12 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

Comment & Opinion Comment & Opinion Comment & Opinion

WHEN deadlines are approach-ing fast and the library becomes a second home to most of us, the effects of university stress be-come obvious.

Sleep-deprived, aggravated and panicky are a few words that come to mind.

Not to mention the headaches, nail-biting and maybe just a little bit of hair-pulling.

I’ve suffered from it myself when desperately trying to fi nish that 2,000 word essay the night before it’s due in.

It is easy to say that the pressures of deadlines could be avoided if we just did our work in advance or re-vised for our exams every night.

But the reality is, even the most effi cient student can suffer from the anxiety of wanting to pass.

Exams and deadlines can seem like a Doomsday scenario, making some of us feel like the world will end if we fail.

Worrying over assignments can be worse than actually doing them,

so why do we put that pressure on ourselves?

Well, maybe it’s that huge debt hanging over us.

The cost of university is far from cheap and the knowledge of this could be why some of us get sick with stress.

Another reason could be due to pressure from family members.

Not wanting to let people down can make that looming exam seem even more important.

Or maybe we simply just want to do well since we all chose to come here?

Who wants to think this was a waste of time?

Whatever the reasons are, I think it’s important to remember that no matter what happens when we leave university, (with or without a degree) we can still do what we want in life.

Failing at university is not the end of the world no matter how

disappointing it might be. It cer-tainly isn’t worth making yourself ill over it.

We all knew university wouldn’t be easy, and it’s good to aim to suc-ceed, but let’s all take a deep breath, calm down for a moment and just relax. Check out the tips on page 16 and learn how to beat that stress of on-coming deadlines and please, no more fi ghting in the library over books or throwing up after drinking 10 red bulls.

KU students need to chill out to take on the heat of exams

ALISTAIR CHARLTONK0805903

NATALYA BENJAMINK0713023

What is the River? The River is edited, written and produced by journalism students at Kingston University. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily refl ect those of the university.

Our Promises:The River aims to serve the university and the local area.

Our mission statement commits us to raising and addressing issues relevant to students and local people, as well as to entertain and inform them. We see it as our task both to celebrate achievements and to highlight problems where they occur.If you have information or a story which would interest our

readers, please contact us.Since we aim to conform to the standard codes of conduct of the profession of journalism, it is The River’s policy to print timely corrections and clarifi cations when we have got something wrong.If you feel you have been misrepresented, or we have made a mistake please get in touch.

Tell us what you think in 250 words or less.

Email: therivernewspaper@gmail.comPhone:0208 547 8019Post: The River,Kingston University, Penrhyn Road Campus, Kingston Upon Thames, KT1 2EE

Kingston’s burning, Kingston’s burning

says...

Stress can cause serious health problems. Rex

Students are having a pretty tough time at the moment: we’ve been slated in the press for our behaviour in the student protests, promised unemployment rather than careers and the majority of us are facing increasing student debt just to top it all off.

Being labelled lazy, poor and badly behaved are three characteristics students are accustomed to, but we should all be dismayed that we appear to attend a University that tops the UK cheating league.

Kingston University has been overshadowed with bad press over the last week, arson in the JG followed by a full scale evacuation and a drugs raid in the SU by armed police. Being labelled as one of the worst universities for cheating feels like the cherry on top of a very sour cake.

Cheating is something that should not be tolerated at Kingston University, but what is perhaps most shocking is how easy it is.

Places at university are becoming harder and harder to obtain.

It’s a sad state of affairs that some students who are lucky enough to get a place at university are cheating their way through a degree.

Each of us should be able to look our peers in the eye and know they are here on merit and going through the same day to day pressures we are.

They say ‘cheats never prosper’ and the fact so many are caught would support that notion.

But the question is how many others go undetected?

How many students go into exams with notes written on their arm or feign illness to gain extra marks?

Thousands of people miss out on university places every year. It’s a shame those who get the chance are able to cheat their way to the top.

Whether it’s using friends or online opportunists to write assignments or, more shockingly, simply making up references, all students who commit these acts cheat not only themselves, but all of us.

Imogen Donnell was bombarded with compliments due to her striking similarity to French M&S lingerie model, Noemie Lenoir. If ex-Chelsea player Makélélé wants to rekindle his marriage, he wouldn’t need to look further than Kingston University.

For Ali Jaaback, 22, being constantly told he looked like R&B singer and international heart-throb, Drake, was the best he ever had. “To be honest I find it funny but enjoyable at the same time,” said the first-year computer science student.

FEATURES 13Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

Spot the difference - Star or student? Part 2Ever thought you saw a familiar face around Kingston. Yeah, that’s been happening to me often. Rahmo Gabdon found hosts of celebs were closer to home than she thought when she went star-spotting around University

Following Sasha Valentine’s dramatic exit from Chester, in well known soap Holly-oaks, we thought it was the last we’d seen of her. Until she was spotted in University disguised as 23-year-old media and cultural studies student Chloe-Smith Mitchell.

Roddy Cole couldn’t dance for joy and Crank Dat Soulja Boy while he was being constantly mistaken for the American rapper, Soulja boy. “I’m not too keen on it but I do get it a lot so I just go with it,” said the third-year sports science student.

It’s a football frenzy for Ansel Hadome, who regularly gets mistaken for Brazilian Chelsea player, Alex Rodrigo Dias da Costa. “I don’t mind it, hopefully it can get me into VIP clubs,” said the third-year sports science student.

As we said in the last issue the most convincing match wins a bottle of bubbly and we have stood by our word. Firstly a huge thank you to everybody who entered and it was a difficult call to make but we have decided. Huge congratulations to the winner Alex Rodrigo Dias da Costa, oops we meant Ansel Hadome !!

The similarity between 22-year-old sports science student Stuart Berry and Chan-nel U British musician DJ Ironik, was so nice it could have females across Britain falling in love. “I don’t see the resemblance myself,” said the third-year student.

From Kidulthood, to Adulthood, to Anuvahood.Exclusive with the writer from the badlands of Hackney P20-21

Winner

FEATURES14 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

How to p arty yourself petiteHannah Gale and Lauren Rellis show you how kebabs, cocktails and inappropriate mistakes could help you shed pounds

YOUR fake tan is glowing, your hair is straighter than anything Jen-nifer Aniston could ever dream of, and, after hours of practice, you’ve finally mastered how to walk in your Topshop stilettos.

The only worry you’ve got now is whether your bingo wings or extra chins will show you up in the photo-graphic evidence on Facebook tomor-row.

Hitting the town with the sole pur-pose of showing Oceana our best alcohol-induced moves is a weekly highlight for most of us.

Although dancing burns up to 105

calories an hour, the kebabs drowned in mayonnaise, the chips blanketed in cheese and the greasy morning fry-ups counteract this. Instead they all add inches to our waists and help clog up our arteries with an undesirable level of fat.

We all know about the dangers we’re doing to our liver and our brains, but we all too often forget about all the calories a night out involves.

So this guide will help you towards that Rihanna body you’ve been hop-ing for without missing out on those nights on the town that make our de-grees so memorable.

EVER woken up and needed a camera to fill the large void in your memory and a large dose of para-cetamol to even attempt to crawl out of bed? The chances are you have. You don’t have to wake up with a hangover, you didn’t invite one back with you from the club, so it’s almost quite rude of it to be lurking around in the morning. Lining your stomach before you start drinking is key to waking up hango-ver free and this can be done while losing weight. It’s always nice to bring people to-gether before a night out, so try some-thing that you can have fun with.At a very reasonable 450 calories, chicken fajitas served with salad will certainly do the job and help you stick to your diet. A stir fry with vegetables and chick-en, or pasta and a low fat sauce, are easy to make and will give your stomach a helping hand without of-fending your scales.Even pizza isn’t off the menu as long

as you stick to thin-crust topped with lean meats and veg, like a Hawaiian.Putting anything into your stomach prior to assaulting your liver will help prevent you from feeling vile in the morning. “Fatty foods in particu-lar stick to the stomach lining longer and therefore slow down the absorp-tion of alcohol into the bloodstream,” according to Lacy Perry, from nutri-tion website Discovery Health. Eating fatty foods doesn’t have to jeopardise a diet, as long as you don’t get over excited about it. Eating high protein foods like cheese helps slow down the effects of alcohol, prevent-ing hangovers.

Lining your stomach

Employability Co-ordinators? Never heard of them.

Student Support and Liaisonfeedback@kingston.ac.uk

You said...“ How can Kingston help me get a job?”

“ The Uni careers service should come to my campus, not just Penrhyn Road.”

“ I’d like to meet employers on campus.”

“ How do I contact my Employability Co-ordinator?”

So we...Expanded the online JobShop to offer more jobs.

Ensured each faculty has a dedicated, on-site Employability Co-ordinator to support your job search.

Devised a new careers training programme, with CV labs, job seeker ‘boot camps’ and speed interviewing events.

Set up ‘Bright Ideas’ sessions for students wanting to start their own business.

Introduced drop-in careers sessions on every campus.

Brought employers, including Unilever, HSBC, QinetiQ, Cisco, GSK, the Civil Service and the BBC to the Uni for talks and networking events.

Set up our employability Facebook pages so that you have all the information you need.

Kingston should support their students more with their studies.

Student Support and Liaisonfeedback@kingston.ac.uk

You said...“ What is PAL? I did not know about the PAL until seeing this on the questionnaire.”

“ I thought the PAL scheme at level four was brilliant, and my PAL leader continued to offer support when I asked her about module choices for level six.”

“ What are Academic Skills Centres?”

“ Final-year students should have more support for leaving study and going into the real world.”

“ International students need more support.”

So we...Established Academic Skills Centres at all campuses offering one-to-one advice on assignments and workshops on essay writing, exam techniques, referencing and time management.

Created a Maths Cafe at Roehampton Vale.

Introduced more Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) schemes, providing help from experienced students.

Introduced four information points in LRCs.

Subscribed to London Nightline, a confidential listening and information service for students, available all night during term-time.

Created a one-stop shop providing information to international students at Swan House.

Piloted an Outduction event for final-year students offering support for leaving University.

Appointed Employability Co-ordinators in every faculty.

ADVERTISEMENT

FEATURES 15Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

How to p arty yourself petiteHannah Gale and Lauren Rellis show you how kebabs, cocktails and inappropriate mistakes could help you shed pounds

De-tagging photos, deleting sent items off your phone and trying not to spend the morning with your face down the toilet are all far too familiar signs of the night before.

Ease yourself back to recovery (without the aid of a pyjama-clad trip to McDonalds) with a combination of healthy fats, carbs and protein which will increase your energy levels.

Lacy Perry, from nutrition website Discovery Health, suggests eating eggs as “they provide a substance that breaks down the toxins in the liver, and increases the rate the body gets rid of them”.

Scrambled, poached or boiled, teamed with toast will be low in un-saturated fat, and make you feel full-er for longer than your usual greasy sausage sandwich.

Other options include low fat cream cheese and a multi-seed bagel, a chicken salad sandwich or even a bowl of cereal. All these will help provide your nutrient-starved body with some much needed fuel.

If you’re lucky enough to be blender-equipped, treat your body to a banana milkshake sweetened with honey. It’ll calm your stomach, raise your blood sugar levels and help re-place magnesium and potassium.

Stick to water and fresh fruit juice and avoid coffee and tea as the caf-feine will dehydrate you further; ex

aggerating your hangover symptoms and the effects of alcohol withdraw-al.

If by 3pm you’re marginally more alive, a brisk walk will help pump oxygen to your brain, leaving you feeling refreshed and energised.

Unless you are particularly into taking risks, treadmills and vodka shouldn’t generally be mixed. To ditch the weight you usually need to ditch the drink, but let’s not be too hasty.

You can have a night out while calorie counting and still knock a few back, as long as you do some plan-ning.

Pre-drinking is somewhat of a ritual that takes place before most nights out and is a good opportunity to cut down calories.

Choosing to drink lighter brand beer is one of the easiest ways to

cut back on the calories. However, if spirits are more up your street, mix-ing up your own cocktails is a fun and easy option.

Vodka, ginger ale, bitters and a squeeze of lime make up the Mos-cow Mule, a tasty way to make sure you aren’t the calorific queen before you’ve even left the house.

If this doesn’t tickle your fancy, go for a Bloody Mary or Highball as both are only around 160 calories. On average, a fluid ounce of vodka, whiskey or brandy will have 82 calo-ries each.

Mixed with diet coke and the occa-sional fruit juice (to keep your sugar levels up), they are key to conquer-ing the low-fat night out experience.

Fooling yourself into thinking

wine is one of your five a day for its grape origins is fine, but be care-ful when it comes to drinking it on a diet.

White zinfandel will set you back around 80 calories for an average small glass, which isn’t too soul de-stroying considering some reds have up to 110.

Hangover

If you’re drunkenly refusing to leave the kebab house without more than just your shoes in your hands, NHS Choices suggest choosing a leaner meat and avoiding chips and fatty sauces altogether.

They also advise that “the best choice is chicken shish with pitta bread and salad, or grilled burgers made from lean fish or meat, without cheese and mayo.”

And those doner kebabs you’ve so often favoured at 3am cost 35p for the entire swivelling block. The NHS declare they are made up of “cheap meat blasted off a stripped carcass and glued together with loads of fat”.

For those of you that are already slumped on the night bus upon real-ising your stomach is in a worse state than your judgement, raid your cup-boards for something carbolicious to help absorb whatever horrors are still ravaging your digestive track.

Wholegrain pittas and sandwiches will release energy slowly as you sleep, whereas white foods are likely to store as fat.

If you can handle it, high protein foods such as tuna and cottage cheese are ideal fillers because they too will release energy slowly and are low in both calories and sugar.

Even a sports drink will do the job as it’s high in electrolytes which means it will replenish your slightly battered kidneys, and replace every-thing you lost during your constant alcohol-fuelled toilet trips.

Finally, remember to drink plenty of water as it will help you escape the vice-like grip of a hangover headache in the morning.

The drinks

3am snacks

Curvy and toned party-girl Rihanna Rex

Curvy Rihanna: Working hard and

playing harderRex

FEATURES16 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

Putting exam st ress to the testMost students aren’t strangers to long hours in the library. We hang out with friends, neck a few Red Bulls, stalk the football team on Facebook and occasionally

add a few sentences to the essay that’s due in the next day.

But with deadlines looming we desperately need to stay focused.

We decided to test and rate

seven drinks out of five and af-ter arriving at the library at 8pm completely caffeine-free, we were ready to give our most honest opinions on what really works.

After braving a library all-nighter we know what drinks will keep you awake

I’ll usually pick up a Red Bull or two (or its cheap, 35p counter-part when money’s tight) when a deadline is looming and God has overlooked my prayers to close uni for the week, so I was confi-dent I’d manage all night with the wing-giving energy drink.

It has a more stimulating effect than other drinks, and if you are dead-set on pulling an almighty

all-nighter, then it’s the best thing to go for. It kept my concentra-tion levels high and I managed to get a respectable amount of work done.

The only downside is that it will keep you wired, even when you’ve finally finished. When I got home, despite feeling physi-cally and mentally shattered, I couldn’t shut off, and instead sat

up until the early hours watch-ing crap stand-up shows until I finally crashed

Red Bull tested by Tony Mogan

After drawing what appeared to be the short straw in the competition to stay awake, I grabbed my bot-tles of Buxton mineral water and headed to the library.

Water is supposed to help keep you alert and it’s a far healthier alternative than the other vari-ous strange-coloured fizzy drinks

around the table.Half-way through the night and

two bottles later I still felt like I could concentrate on another good few essays.

However, only an hour after that my eyes were heavier than Charlie Sheen’s after one of his infamous parties.

I decided that although I felt hy-drated to a ridiculous degree, water was definitely not the one to keep you going for that marathon essay sesh.

Water tested by Charlotte Prior

Powerade is billed as an “isotonic sports drink” with an “optimum combination of fast acting carbo-hydrates and electrolytes.”

Just what that means however, is a bit of a mystery to me.

Isotonic sounds like it should be drunk with gin. Carbohy-drates should be brought to a boil, drained, then covered in bo-lognaise.

And electrolytes are Pokemon

with a weakness to water.As the hours ticked by and the

Powerade was drunk, I didn’t feel any more awake, any more alert, or any more up for playing sport.

However, it did give me a tooth-ache, the pain of which certainly helped me stay awake.

It also made me need to take frequent trips to the toilet, though I guess that’s an occupational

hazard of sitting around drink-ing stuff.

So Powerade, you can keep your isotonic electronic carbo-tronics, because even with all your fancy-pancy words, you’re just a bit crap.

Powerade tested by Oliver Pelling

Lucozade tested by Katie HolmesTAKING my first few gulps out of the huge bottle of orange Lu-cozade nestled beside me, I could feel it causing havoc with my tongue – there would definitely be a toothbrush-worthy layer of fur come the early hours.

The bottom of my first bottle came around too quickly. It seemed I’d barely written my essay title

when an unwelcome wave of nau-sea, sweat and shakes took hold of me.

Although the drink definitely kept me awake for the night, it also had the pesky side-effect of keeping me awake when I wanted to be asleep in bed.

The next day my body was crav-ing more of the sickly glucose drink

and forced me into an unwanted sugar come down. Diet Coke tested by Hannah Gale

I’ll happily admit to having been a Diet Coke addict since the day I realised it doubled up as an appetite suppressant and an incredible assignment distraction.

Testing its ability to keep me awake was more of a treat than a test and I hastily rammed my bag full of mulitpack cans from my home reserves before heading to the library.

Although it notably makes me burp more than Barney from The Simpsons, I’m will-ing to fight its corner.

It doesn’t leave you with cof-fee breath, sugar coated teeth or make you believe you’re so re-energised you could sprint up the library wall Matrix-style.

However it will serve you as a

trusty companion into the ear-ly hours with a healthy burst of caffeine, as long as you’re not expecting any miracles.

After staring at my Mac for the best part of ten hours, I was more than willing to crawl into bed with my cuddly toys and a cup of caffeine-free herbal tea.

Diet Coke may not be your automatic nightime go-to, but it’ll certainly go some way in keeping you awake.

Best

Worst

FEATURES 17Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

It’s that time of year when your calendar is filled with exams and dead-lines, and you have no time for yourself. You want to do what’s best for a good grade, but take a moment to read what’s best for you.

Eat and sleep wellIt is very important to eat a diet full of fresh fruit and vegetables and a source of protein such as beans, nuts, meat or fish. Healthy eating can reduce your stress levels and help you to sleep better.

Take time outSpend at least an hour a day doing something you enjoy, whether it is listening to music, lying in the bath or reading a book. Jogging is benefi-cial because exercise reduces feelings of anxiety and depression.Try meditating for a few minutes. According to Dr Mark Stibich, who has a PHD in health behaviour, meditation can “help you live more mindfully and deliberately,”

Believe in yourselfSome students face anxiety and begin to doubt their ability to achieve a good grade. Alexandra Levit, author of New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career, says: “Knowledge and recognition of your past successes will bolster your courage regarding what you can achieve in the future.”Levit suggests that you keep an event journal to record all the things that you accomplish. She also recommends writing a doubtful thought in one column, and in the opposite column, writing facts that dispute that doubtful thought. “Taking the time to cement positive emotions in your mind will hopefully make the doubt disappear more quickly next time,” she adds.Mike Chapman, FASS Pastoral says: “Everyone gets anxious about exams. It is a bit like stage fright. Often students don’t realise that they can receive a lot of help.”

Still need more advice? Please contact the Health and Counselling cen-tre at healthandcounselling@kingston.ac.uk or call them on 0208 417 2172. They offer support for students with mental health difficulties and any other issues of concern.

Stop the worry of exams and assigments with Chantelle Wallace’s simple advice

I really don’t see the appeal of cof-fee. It doesn’t taste good unless there’s more sugar than coffee in the cup, and it leaves you looking and smelling like a twitchy worka-holic who sees the office walls more than his kids.

However, for the sake of science I volunteered to see if coffee would

keep me awake during those long painful nights in the library.

I have to say, unsurprisingly , it did give me an extra boost of en-ergy, but at the same time made me notice every word uttered and sound made, which made it diffi-cult to get on with university work.

Finding myself talking more and

having the urge to go for a ten mile jog around Penryhn Road didn’t make for a productive night.

Maybe it’s the coffee, or maybe all-nighters just aren’t for me. I blame the coffee.

Coffee tested by Andreas Tziallis

Putting exam st ress to the test

Tea tested by Mary HickeyDespite being in a long term rela-tionship with tea, I’ve never en-trusted a brew to keep me going long into the night.

But with a mountain of work resting on my shoulders and friends around me downing ener-gy drinks I hoped good ole’ York-shire Tea wouldn’t let me down.

It’s been a long night, tea has kept me awake but I don’t feel ‘buzzing’ and I’m craving bed rather than Oceana.

I’ve had the tea sweats most of the night and I won’t be gasping for a brew in the morning but overall tea hasn’t let me down.

I would use it again and our

relationship is still going strong, I think it’s the Yorkshire heritage we have in common.

Top tips to beat the stress blues

Overloading ourselves can lead to stress Chantelle Wallace

WHEN KU student Amarpreet Dhanjal was having lunch on the streets of Luang Prabang, Laos, he saw a girl he couldn’t take his eyes off.

“I’ll never see her again but she changed my life, and hopefully I changed hers,” he says.

The 21-year-old law student proudly shows his gifts from when he volunteered in Laos and Kenya - colourful bracelets, necklaces and an orange scarf with patterns.

Each piece has a story, and the most nos-talgic one was given to him by the little girl called Lile.

“She was so beautiful,” he says.“When I was having lunch one day I saw

her selling bracelets and necklaces on the street, and she’s only about nine years old.

“It was something so special about her, so I let her join me for lunch and I told her she could eat whatever she wanted.”

After eating, Amarpreet hopped on the lo-cal tuk tuk to return to the Buddhist temple where he was volunteering.

Lile, determined to show her gratitude, chased Amarpreet and gave him one of her bracelets made of colourful beads, exclaim-ing: “Buddha loves you!”

Then Amarpreet’s tuk tuk started to move, and he turned back to look at her.

“She stood there looking at me. I was turned around until I couldn’t see her anymore. It was like a movie scene,” he says.

Back at the Buddhist temple, Amarpreet taught English.

“At first I thought ‘whoa, there’s monks everywhere’. I couldn’t separate them, they all looked the same to me, you know, shaved head, orange clothes...”

But as the day passed he got to know many of them, the oldest an 89-year-old monk called Man Peng.

“He is very, very wise, and he learned fast,” he says.

Amarpreet joined spiritual meditations and traditional food-givings with 900 monks, and realised that “there’s more to it than standing on knives and martial arts that people don’t know about”.

In his room full of textbooks and football posters, sits a quite unusual souvenir.

A 5ft wooden Buddha made from a tree that Amarpreet chose himself in a jungle of Laos.

A citizenship survey published last year shows that almost 90 per cent of employers think that volunteering can have a generally positive effect on career progression for peo-ple aged 16-25.

Amarpreet has also volunteered at a Ken-

yan orphanage. At the orphanage, Amarpreet got to encounter the brutal unfairness between the rich and poor.

He found many of the richer people to be greedy and unwilling to help.

“They were wealthy and wore designer clothes, and the children lived on a diet of dry rice.”

This motivated Amarpreet to take action. Being a Sikh, he regularly visited a Gurd-

wara in Kenya where he had seen food going to waste.

He showed the low quality of the orphans’ food to the head of the temple.

Since then the temple has provided them with additional food every day.

“I had a shiver in my body when this hap-pened, just because I spoke my mind.”

Amarpreet went to Kenya with GVN, Glo-bal Volunteering Network, and paid £1800, which included the flight and accomodation with a host family.

The volunteering in Laos was organized through GVI, Global Vision International, and his costs were £3000.

Amarpreet says that the price was nothing in comparison to what he got out of the ex-perience.

He aspires to work for the United Nations, and is confident that volunteering will give him an extra edge among applicants.

FEATURES18 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011TheRiver

Want to travel the world, broaden your mind and do something positive to help others?

Apply for a Philip Russell Travel Scholarship

X(11

.002

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Closing date 31 March 2011For more information and how to apply, go to:http://link.kingston.ac.uk/philip-russell

You could be aiding ethical development in Colombia, studying sharks in South Africa, or volunteering at an orphanage for disabled children in Cambodia.

The scholarship was established in memory of Philip, a Kingston Business Studies graduate and keen traveller, who died in the terrorist bombings in London on 7 July 2005. It funds travel and living expenses up to £5,000.

‘I’ll never see her again but she changed my life’

Amarpreet teaching Buddhist monks English

KU student tells Elza Holmstedt-Pell about his volunteering experiences in Laos and Kenya

ADVERTISEMENT

Want to know more about volunteering? Contact: GVN: www.globalvolunteernetwork.orgPhone: 0800 032 5035GVI: www.gvi.co.ukPhone: 01727 250250

Amarpreet shows Lile one of his photos

ENTERTAINMENT - MUSIC 19Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

KNOWN for her miming, divorc-ing, mothering and head shaving antics Britney Spears is undoubt-edly a cultural phenomenon and a pop icon of the noughties.

Femme Fatale, her seventh al-bum, proves that she is as musically unhinged and unpredictable as the press would lead you to believe.

Yes, it’s autotuned, but it’s a Brit-ney album and she’s never been known for her vocal range. How-ever, that hasn’t stopped her from releasing a fresh, daring and down right brilliant pop record.

Lead single Hold It Against Me flirts with dubstep and 90s’ House with an initially jarring breakdown that gets better with every spin and the Ke$ha penned Till The World Ends, is the best single she’s re-leased since Toxic.

With the excellent and carefree refrain of: “See the sunrise, we ain’t stoppin’, keep on dancin’ till the world ends.”

The album is produced by Baby One More Time… collaborator Max Martin as well as Bloodshy & Avant, who are responsible for the best Britney tracks of the last decade. Other contributors are Dr Luke (Kelly Clarkson, Sugababes) and Fraser T Smith (Adele, Pixie Lott).

Femme Fatale is programmed and manipulated to within an inch of its life, but with Spears’ unmis-

takable breathy delivery it’s a joy from start to finish.

Other highlights are the hyp-notically grimy baseline of Trouble For Me and the juddering stop-start synth rhythm on Inside Out, which has the satisfyingly filthy demand of: “Shut your mouth and turn me inside out.” You’d be stupid not to refuse.

Elsewhere there’s VK strawpedo-ing, tequila shots and dancing until the lights come on with club tracks I Wanna Go, Seal It With A Kiss and Big Fat Bass which features an excellent cameo from Black Eyed Peas button pusher Will.I.Am.

The old Britney makes an appear-ance on the album closers Gasoline and Criminal, sounding brilliantly 2002, the latter speaks of falling for a bad boy which seems to be a run-ning theme on the record.

This album represents everything brilliant about modern pop music which is a welcome surprise from an artist who seemed so out of con-trol only a few short years ago.

Femme Fatale proves that in a chart dominated by semi-nude, sex obsessed songstresses, when push comes to shove, it’s still Britney. Bitch.

By Tony Bannister - K0803663

Femme Fatale is out March 28

IT IS Hard to believe 10 years have passed since the release of The Strokes’ classic debut al-bum, and while the anticipation hasn’t been quite the same, their fourth record Angles doesn’t dis-appoint. Following the sub-standard First Impressions of Earth in 2006, The Strokes went on somewhat of a hiatus. However, the band now re-turn five years later as a quintet of 30-somethings and the result is an album with a mixture of sounds, from 70s rock to current electro-pop.

Angles is the first time the group has shared the song writing demo-cratically, instead of taking Julius Casablancas’ lead.

This gives their music a sense of adventure and gives them a long-needed fresh sound, there are also a few unexpected surprises.

Opening track Macchu Picchu has a 80s reggae-disco feel to it, with a typically catchy Strokes hook and the resul is pleasingly en-ergetic.

Casablancas’ voice, while as screechy as ever in places, eases us nicely into the next nine tracks.

Despite the band rightly explor-ing new ideas with this album, lead single Under Cover of Darkness is The Strokes at their old and very best.

The track has a similar upbeat bounce to the unforgettable first single Last Nite with wave after wave of sharp interlocking guitars and constant tempo changes, all tied together by another impressive Casablancas chorus.

Other highlights to listen out for include the dance synth sound of Games and the brief stab at harder, punchier rock and electro-proc-

essed vocals on You’re So Right.Elsewhere, Life Is Simple In The

Moonlight has a delicate guitar line, with gentle words from Casa-blancas, making it an appropriatly soothing conclusion to the album.

Angles reminds us exactly what made this band so loveable in the first place but also shows what they

have to offer in the future. They make a spirited effort to

experiment but thankfully for the most part The Strokes stick to what they do best.

By Andreas Tziallis - K0718712

Angles is out March 21

FOR THE last few years, Blink 182 drummer, Travis Barker, has been releasing videos of him-self drumming over some of the best hip hop songs around.

Whether he’s drummed over tracks by Lil Wayne, The Game or Eminem, Barker has kept his ear firmly in the streets, building re-lationships with some of hip hop’s best.

His debut album, Give The Drummer Some, has him creating original songs with rap legends such as Cypress Hill, Ludacris and Snoop Dogg.

The style of Barker’s drumming and the way he creates the beats for each song makes any of the MC’s on the album seem even greater than they are.

It’s almost as if every track is tai-lor made for each artist, so that the listener gets the best out of Barker and the best out of his guests

Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and E-40 exude coolness on Knockin’, flow-ing effortlessly across the synth laden beat, while Beanie Siegel, Bun B and Kobe lament the life of growing up on the streets on Just Chill.

Each rapper creates a vivid pic-ture of a life of crime and violence in a completely non-glamorising way.

Barker doesn’t forget the other side of his love for music as he manages to create a hybrid of hip hop and punk rock.

With the likes of Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, Slipknot’s Corey Tay-lor and Slash also on the album, it seems that Give the Drummer Some is less of an album, but an ode to the artists that he enjoys lis-tening too, whatever the genre.

As good as this album is, there’s a few glaring mistakes.

It feels as if Barker wanted to get all of his friends in there, because the album really goes on for too long.

Cool Head feels as if Kid Cudi and Barker tried too hard to create something unique, shying away from their talents as artists.

Give The Drummer Some is an album that meshes hip hop and rock together effortlessly.

It may not be one of the best al-bums ever made, but it gives every Travis Barker fan what they ex-pected, and a little bit more.

By Aundre Jacobs - K0807114

Give the Drummer Some is out March 21

It’s Britney, bitch TravisBarker

A Stroke of genius

Casablancas is as good as ever Rex

Britney is back and apparently she’s relevant again Rex

The old Britney’s back as Femme Fatale in her seventh ‘unhinged’ pop album REVIEW

ENTERTAINMENT - FILM20 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

From Kidult hood to AnuvahoodAdam Deacon, writer, director and star of Anuvahood gives Oliver Pelling a lesson in hard work, focus and motivationEVERYONE loves a rags-to-riches story and even though he admits he doesn’t think he’s “made it” yet, hoodrat turned film star Adam Deacon is the personification of hard work and determination.

Adam grew up in Hackney, North London, and knew from a very young age that he wanted to be an actor. Despite his success, Adam is humble about how far he’s come.

“I don’t even think I’ve got there yet,” he says. “It might look all glossy from the outside but there’s a lot of politics involved in it. I’m always trying to prove myself to other people and prove that I can do the job.”

Adamant that you need to focus and persevere to get somewhere, Adam described how having a thick skin helped him cope with life’s little set backs.

“You’ve got to be able to stick to your goals no matter what,” he says. “People are very quick to give up at the first sign of rejection. With act-ing, for example, you can’t do that. You might go for 10 auditions and get nothing from it. You’ve got to go through the hard times and per-severe to get something out of it.”

The idea for Anuvahood came from Adam’s desire to show people that he could do much more than just act.

“I wanted to prove that I could actually come up with the ideas and direct as well,” he says with a confidence similar to that of Kay, his character in Anuvahood, albeit more sincere.

“That’s really what Anuvahood was, it was just about elevating myself and my career and opening doors I guess.”

After joining the Anna Scher Theatre School in Angel, Isling-ton, at the age of 12, Adam bagged his first role in a film called Face alongside Robert Carlisle and Ray Winstone.

“I got very lucky, I was at the

right place at the right time,” he says.

With so much in the newspapers about graduate unemployment, job cuts and the rises in tuition fees, it seems like hope for young people is slowly slipping away. Adam’s career and success has spawned many fans, who respect him for his DIY attitude and his intensive work ethic.

As a self-made man, what does Adam think young people can do to help themselves reach their po-tential?

“I think young people need focus and I think they need to make more opportunities for themselves,” he says after a moment’s thought. “Op-portunity isn’t something that will come knocking for you. You’ve got to get out there and prove yourself to people.”

Now 27 (though his slight fig-ure wouldn’t have you believe it), Adam would jump at the chance to play a more commercial role in a more mainstream genre.

“I’m all for changing it up. My thing is that I’ve felt like I haven’t been given that chance yet, so that’s why I wanted to write my own work,” he says. “If I’m given a chance I will put in 100 percent. I don’t just want to be playing estate kids for the rest of my life.”

So just how can young people hope to emulate Adam’s success?

“Young people need to be crea-tive,” says Adam. “The inter-net can help you keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on.”

Adam cast YouTube sensation Jazzie Zonzolo as TJ in Anuvahood, after becoming a fan of his show on Channel AKA “He’s the perfect exam-ple of some-one that took the initiative. He started on YouTube, went to Chan-nel AKA, made his own

show and now he’s making mov-ies.”

Much like Kay, the character he plays in Anuvahood, Adam has big aspirations for himself and doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’ll stop until he’s achieved them.

“You can do whatever you want. There are opportunities out there if

you’ve got the talent and are will-ing to put in the hard work,” he says. “If you put yourself out there, you’ll be surprised who’s watching you. Talent does get noticed, if you focus on your passion and continue to work towards something then doors will begin to open.”

There might just be a lesson to be learned here about how far hard work and perseverance can get you, and as far as Adam Deacon is concerned, there’s always some grafting to be done.

Chalet Girlsnow fun

SNOW, sun and snuggles are just about what you can expect - and little else - from this predictable British romcom this spring.

Light-hearted and lacking in pre-tension, the latest offering in British romcom fails to hit the heights of genre-predecessors Love Actually or Notting Hill, yet has enough in the light-folly department to remain watchable.

The story follows 19-year-old Kim (Felicity Jones), a former child skateboarding prodigy, who has given up her skating ambitions to support her father (Bill Bailey) after her mother’s death.

The somewhat clichéd backstory serves as a vehicle for Jones’s char-acter to take steps towards mending her shattered confidence, becom-ing a hostess for a wealthy family in their luxury ski chalet, entering a pro snowboard competition and romantic involvement with Gossip Girl hearthrob Ed Westwick.

Kim soon gets to grips with snob-bish colleauge Georgie (Tamsin Eggerton) and takes to the snow

with affable snowboarder Mikki (Ken Duken) in a bid to win much needed prize money for her father.

With a healthy dose of romantic complication, a smattering of Cin-derella and an against-all-odds con-clusion, you might be forgiven for thinking this is simply your stand-ard romcom. And it is to an extent.

However, shot on location in the Austrian Alps, the well-paced snowboarding footage coupled with some beautiful vistas, provide a real breath of fresh alpine air, to a usually predictable genre.

Despite its efforts to put Cin-derella on snow it is still very obvi-ous, unashamadley cheesy and just too predictable.

Not quite worth a trip to the cin-ema, but if you did, I’m sure you wouldn’t leave piste-off.

By Matthew McEvoy

‘If you focus on your passion then doors will begin to open’

‘Young people need to be creative, they need to keep their

finger on the pulse’

RexFelicity Jones and Ed Westwick get cosy on the set of Chalet Girl

Chalet Girl is out now

EVEN though Anuvahood is set in a West London council estate, it’s far from being just anuva gloomy urban drama.

Adam Deacon, of Kidulthood, Adulthood and Shank fame, wrote and directed Anuvahood with the sole intention of showing the fun-nier side of life on a council estate.

The result is 88 minutes of face-melting hilarity that will leave even the toughest mandem crying with laughter.

The storyline itself isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but the pace and energy displayed by the cast is enough to keep you engaged (and giggling like a child) the whole way through.

The film follows Kenneth (Dea-con), on his quest to gain the cash and respect he so badly craves.

With his parents nagging him to get a job and friends telling him to stop being such a wasteman, Ken-

neth (known as Kay to his mates) embarks on an adventure to en-sure he achieves the “big tings” he dreams about.

Suffice to say things don’t go ex-actly to plan and Kay and his mates Bookie (think Carlton Banks), TJ, Lesoi and Enrique end up in big trouble with bad people - namely Tyrone, the local badman with more brawn than brains.

It’s not all laughs in Anuvahood though. There’s a brutal fight scene, a bit of knife crime, some question-able antics with tomato ketchup and some drug dealing, though Deacon and the rest of the cast do a stel-lar job of keeping it convincing and comical from start to finish.

Anuvahood has been dubbed as the first-ever UK urban comedy and draws heavily from American hits such as Friday, How High and House Party, but manages to put enough of a British spin on things

to maintain it’s originality. The film features a stand-out cast

of well known and up and com-ing UK talent, including Richard Blackwood, Linda Robinson (Birds of a Feather), Jaime Winstone (Kid-ulthood), Ashley Walters, Jazzie Zonolo (of Channel U and Channel AKA fame), Femi Oyeniran (Kid-ulthood/Adulthood) and Ollie Bar-bieri (JJ Jones from Skins).

As highly entertaining as Anuva-hood is, there are some more seri-ous messages to be taken from the film - mainly about being yourself, not following the crowd and stand-ing up for what’s right.

Again, not exactly groundbreak-ing, but put across in a way that the audience will be able to relate with.

Anuvahood is what it is. It’s funny, fast-paced and engaging, though it probably won’t change your life. A couple of the charac-

ters seem pretty pointless (Enrique is more two-dimensional than Daffy Duck) and there are a few questionable scenes, but as long as you don’t take it all too seriously, you’re bound to see the funny side.

The UK urban cinema circuit has been filled with gritty, dramatic films about the hardship of grow-ing up in the inner-city slums and Anuvahood has come along at the perfect time to give the genre a fresh lick of paint.

Whether you’re from the hood or from the Cotswolds, you’ve no rea-son to be scared of venturing into Anuvahood this spring.

By Oliver Pelling

Anuvahood is out now

ENTERTAINMENT - FILM 21Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

From Kidult hood to Anuvahood

Giving the ghetto a sense of humour

Left to right - Bookie, Enrique, Kay, TJ and Lesoi relax in AnuvahoodRevolver Entertainment

Tyrone’s questionable taste in boxers

YOUR typical Rockstar game is usually littered with relentless gun fights usually instigated by you, the likeable but ultimately psychotic criminal with little concern for the law.

Cult-classics Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption both took the side of the outlaw.

LA Noire deviates from the stand-ard Rockstar escapade by placing you in the position of the justice-seeking LA detective, Cole Phelps.

Phelps makes it his goal to see past the serenity of late 1940s LA and expose its sordid underbelly.

As the name suggests, LA Noire draws its plot, atmosphere and pres-entation from stylistic elements of film noir, which makes the game an entirely experience to Rockstar’s usual efforts.

Mad Men’s Aaron Stanton takes the lead role as aspiring young detective Phelps, and his in-game reincarnation is boosted immeasur-ably by the Motionscan facial tech-nology that looks to be lifting the game to insane levels of realism.

The usual all-guns-blazing tech-nique that we’re so used to in the GTA franchise certainly isn’t the key to success here. To progress in the game, playing the subtle detec-tive will have to become second nature.

Throughout the story, interroga-tion and investigation are your most

powerful weapons, rather than the rocket launcher and the M16. The exhilarating shoot outs that became the norm of Rockstar’s most suc-cessful hits are still there, but the focus point has shifted.

Perhaps the most innovative el-ement is the interrogation system, where we see Phelps transformed into a human lie detector.

Once you’ve cornered a suspect, you are presented with various lines of inquiry that are set in motion by the push of a button. While the suspect talks, the player must pay close attention to the facial expres-sion and tone of voice of the inter-viewee.The gamer then has several

options - accepting what they have told you as the truth, throw doubt over their story or accuse them of lying.

This is where the game’s revolu-tionary Motionscan feature really earns its keep. The slighest smirk or twitch of an eye may be the only clue you get, so this certainly isn’t a game for those who are easily dis-tracted.

Backed by a stunning graphic set up, a compellingly complex mis-sion structure and excellent voice acting, LA Noire looks to offer something indisputably fresh to the market. Roll on 20th May, when LA Noire hits the shelves.

Detective Cole Phelps tries to make sense of an untoward piece of paper

ENTERTAINMENT - GAMES22 Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

Sahaja Yoga Meditation

Wednesdays, 1-2pm. JG5014.

Penrhyn Road

D.A.N.C.E for Comic Re-lief @ The Hippodrome Saturday March 19, 10pm £4 before 11, £6 afterGo and D.A.N.C.E for Comic Relief! £1 of your entry fee will go towards the worthy cause

Anison @ The Fighting Cocks

Saturday 26 March

Wretch 32 @ Oceana

Friday March 25, 9pm

Entry £8 on door, £6 online

Unique opportunity to see

one of the UK’s finest up and

coming urban acts

British Red Cross Japan Tsunami

Fundraiser @ The Hippodrome

Thursday March 31, 9pm, £4 entry

100% of door money to go to victims

Cage the Elephant @ Banquet Records

Monday March 21, 6pmFree all ages show

The Kentucky boys will be playing a short acoustic set to promote their new album

Does it Offend You Yeah @ the Hippodrome

Thursday March 24, 9pm£5 entry

Back after a two-year hiatus, DIOYY play New Slang to promote their new album.

Devlin at D.A.N.C.E @ The Hippodrome

Saturday March 26, 10pm£4 before 11, £6 after

Dagenham’s favourite grime MC set to tear up the Hip-podrome. Expect hits like Brainwashed and Runaway

Outside The Box

comedy club @ the

Fighting Cocks

Catch the best comedy acts

every Monday from 7.45pm

’

GTA meets FBI in LA NoireThe River’s gamer, Tony Mogan, takes a look at the detective game every console-freak is getting their knickers in a twist over

Despite the intense investigative storyline, you still get to blow stuff up

THE relegated Kingston 1st XV rugby team failed to record a mo-rale boosting win against Royal Holloway losing 46-5 despite a brave display.

Kingston battled hard but the Hol-loway pack were too strong for a side that were resigned to relegation two weeks ago and lost 13 first team players in the summer.

After the game, captain Xavi Bot-tino paid tribute to his players after what has been a difficult season with one game still to play against Buck-inghamshire.

“We already knew that we were relegated before the match so team morale was definitely low and in-juries were a real problem too,” he said.

“The dedication was there and heads were lifted after the break - it was certainly a tale of two halves.

“We can take some positives into our final game because the lads have great passion and are more than will-ing to put their bodies constantly on

the line for their teammates.”Kingston started the game badly,

conceding a try early on after a good line-out resulted in a powerful Hol-loway maul rolling over the try line. The Kingston pack was dominated at set plays throughout the game, frustrating what was a talented back line with wayward line-out throws and ineffective scrummaging.

Holloway added a second from another well-organised line-out with some good handling leading to a try in the corner. The first 25 minutes were bad enough but Kingston’s chance of a win was dealt a further blow when the inspirational open-side flanker and captain, Bottino was injured.

The lack of leadership was high-lighted soon after when tidy foot-work from Holloway’s number eight at the scrum ended in his team scor-ing their third try of the match.

Another wide of the mark throw from KU hooker Timothy Staunton helped the impressive Holloway number eight bundle over for what appeared to be their fourth try but Kingston were let off after the ref-eree inexplicably brought play back for a Holloway penalty.

Holloway added one more try be-fore the half time whistle and King-

ston were lucky to go into the break only 22-0 down.

Injuries and needless stoppages gave the first half a disjointed feel but after a rousing team talk from scrum half Kimmy Marques, Kingston came out strong in the second half.

Kingston made early inroads but sloppy work at the breakdown meant territory for Kingston wasn’t converted into points.

Despite the decent start, King-ston couldn’t find the killer pass and were punished when KU fly half Oliver Forest was turned over in his own 22 and Holloway scored another try.

Holloway added one more be-fore Kingston got the try they deserved midway through the second half. After Holloway han-dled in the ruck, Kingston were awarded a penalty five metres out and KU’s powerful outside centre Oscar Elochim crashed over the try line to give his side a glimmer of hope.

Two more tries from Hollo-way put paid to any chances of a Kingston comeback but the score did not tell the full story of what was a plucky performance from a weakened Kingston side.

SPORT 23Friday March 18 - Thursday March 31 2011

GREG NEWCOMBEK0705616

Plucky Kingston lose out again

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R. HOLLOWAY 46 KINGSTON 5

Kingston’s woes at set plays continue Amy Mowlam-Tett

TheRiver

Not Obi-One...but four

Kingston 7Buckinghamshire 1KINGSTON’S second football team thoroughly outclassed a dismal Bucks thirds, courtesy of four goals from Phil Obi in a 7-1 thrashing.

After going a goal down after 30 seconds, Kingston responded in ruthless fashion, scoring two in quick succession. The home side then went on a rampage, humiliat-ing the visitors with what captain Jordan Gibbens described as their performance of the season.

“Phil (Obi) was in great form, that’s the most goals he’s ever scored in a game,” Gibbens said af-ter the game. “It was a great overall performance, if we played like that every other week we would be top of the league, easily.”

Kingston got off to a sluggish start, when a Bucks forward found himself unmarked in the box to nod in the game’s opener. Not put off

by the early blow, Kingston reacted positively, grabbing the equaliser when Gibbens played Phil Obi through on goal, who drilled the ball low into the bottom corner.

To continue a hectic start to the encounter, Obi put Kingston ahead with a sensational solo effort, the first of many on the afternoon. Picking up the ball on the edge of the penalty area, Kingston’s lone forward skinned a defender by nut-megging him with a deft back heel. Now open, Obi was free to smash the ball into the net.

Kingston were now in full con-trol, linking up with incisive pass-ing all over the pitch, with Obi proving to be unstoppable, and it wasn’t long before he completed his hat trick. Terry Mireku swung in a corner that Bucks couldn’t deal with, leaving the man of the moment Obi to slide in his third to make it 3-1 at half time.

Bucks looked shell-shocked as they walked out for the second half, and Kingston were in no mood for sympathy. Vincent Lwanga picked up the ball from the left wing, cut inside to beat two Bucks defenders with ease, before placing the ball into the bottom right corner.

The fifth soon followed after Sam Gordon’s persistence in mid-field paid off, allowing Obi through once again. Following his hat trick, it was a foregone conclusion, as he jinked past two defenders to drive the ball home for his fourth.

To add to Bucks woes their cen-tre back had to leave the field after suffering from spells of dizziness, forcing them to use their one and only substitute.

Bucks now looked drained and the game became a mere training game for the exceptional home side. Lwanga claimed his second of the game, played through by Gibbens once again, finishing with poise to make it six for Kingston.

To add insult to injury, King-ston’s seventh goal came directly from a corner. Terry Mireku, who was a constant threat down the left wing sent in a cross, which the Bucks ‘keeper could only stare at as the ball sailed over his head into the top corner of the net.

In a game where Kingston ex-hibited all their pánache and com-posure in front of goal, they were due one stroke of luck. However, Mireku would perhaps argue other-wise and claim intention.

Head and shoulders above the rest Aundre Jacobs

ANDREAS TZIALLIS &TONY MOGANK0718712K0809091

Phil Obi on target as Kingston crush Bucks

SCOREBOARDFOOTBALL

Bucks 3rdsBucks 4thsChichester 5thsKingston 5thsHavering 1sts

RUGBYRoyal H 1stsKingston 2nds

NETBALLR’hampton 4ths

Kingston second’s will travel to Portsmouth for their final game of the season next week. “After this result, we will be going in with a lot of confidence,” Gibbens said.

“We’ve always known we were capable of this sort of performance so it’s great to see it finally come

off after so much hard work in training.”

After next week’s final league games, Kingston’s teams can look forward to the annual varsity tour-nament against Guilford Univer-sity, on Wednesday 30 March to draw the curtain on the season.

South Bank

Kingston 2nds 7 - 1Kingston 3rds 2 - 1Kingston 4ths 1 - 1Surrey 3rds 0 - 1Kingston 7ths 3 - 0

Kingston 1sts 5 - 46R’hampton 1sts 46 - 5

Kingston 3rds 31 - 5Kingston 4ths 54 - 5