You are beautiful – it's time to start believing it!

This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness week and Mind Your Health society has put together a series of events across the week to promote positive body image. Here, Olivia Luder decides it’s time for everyone to start feeling as beautiful as they are…

What do you talk about with your friends?

Here are a few of my favourite conversation topics: my favourite TV shows, food, how much sleep I got last night and, oh, how much I hate my face, body and basically everything about myself.

Sadly, I bet that last one doesn’t make me such a special snowflake: I can’t remember the last time I had a DMC (deep meaningful conversation for all you not-so-clued-up individuals) with a female friend without mentioning something about how ugly we both feel.

Feeling ugly isn’t just something every girl seems to experience from time to time, it’s almost like a badge we display to the world to let everyone know that – yes, we know we’re not good enough. Dare to express any joy over your appearance and the monster of low self-esteem is sure to raise its head when you’re most vulnerable, punishing you for being so bold as to try and not hate yourself.

Obviously there are degrees here and I sincerely hope that there are girls, women out there who are completely happy with themselves. But if there are, I don’t think I’ve ever met one.

Image credit: Charlotte Astrid, CC license

Body Gossip, a campaign group that promotes positive body image, released statistics in 2013 stating that 30% of boys and 70% of girls aged 11-19 cite their relationship with their body their number one worry. One in ten will develop an eating disorder before the age of 25.

On a purely anecdotal level, it is rare that I’ve come across a female friend who has not struggled with some level of disordered eating as a result of negative body image.

Now, more than ever, we need to talk about these issues. But it is time to rework the conversation.

It’s time to stop letting each other insult ourselves. It’s time to stop your friends from grabbing a handful of their thigh and declaring it to be ‘disgusting’. It’s time we all stopped talking about how ugly we are and started talking about how we can change the way we think about ourselves.

As with all deeply ingrained thought patterns, it’s easier said than done. If I’m honest, I can’t really imagine being happy with myself – frustratingly, you can’t flip a switch and suddenly love your body Gok Wan style.

But that’s all the more reason to give this a try.

One of the most helpful ways I’ve found to approach this is to focus on how I feel when I listen to a friend, a beautiful, talented, funny, intelligent, wonderful friend who has everything going for her, confess how utterly, hopelessly ugly she thinks, no – knows she is.

I think about how sad it is that she can’t see how incredible she is and I think about how I wish I could say something to change her mind, even though I know I can’t. And then I remember that she’s just spent the past half hour listening to me go on about how miserably disgusting I  feel.

For all of you struggling to get past how monstrous you feel you look, have you ever once thought the same about your friends? Of course not.

Forgive me for being trite here but I can say with complete certainty that all my friends – male and female, young and old – are beautiful.

Granted this does ring a little false – not everyone is Bar Rafaeli – so, as with most things in life, I’m going to turn to Doctor Who for a little assistance. Amy Pond said it best when she explained what made Rory beautiful to her:

You know when, sometimes you meet someone so beautiful, and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later, they’re as dull as a brick?

Then there’s other people, and you meet them and you think, ‘Not bad; they’re okay.’ And then you get to know them, and their face sort of becomes them, like their personality is written all over it.

And they just turn into something so beautiful.

Four for you Amy Pond! You go Amy Pond!

You are beautiful every time you laugh really, really hard because your housemate did a spot-on impression of Grumpy Cat. You are beautiful every time you make someone a cup of tea because they look a bit tired.

You’re even beautiful when you’ve pulled an all-nighter and you probably haven’t washed in three days but still manage to break out into hysterical giggles when you see someone you know (I’m talking about you, Jon Jones).

So be your own friend, be your own cheerleader. Listen to the kind words you tell everyone but yourself. And most of all, when a random article on the internet tells you that you’re beautiful, believe it!

Olivia Luder, Online Editor

Do you struggle with negative body image? What can people do to help tackle it? Let us know on Facebook, twitter or in the comments below…

Can Alien: Isolation redeem 2014?

Due for release on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC in late 2014 Alien: Isolation puts players into the shoes of Ellen Ripley’s daughter Amanda, searching the Nostromo 15 years after the event of the first Alien movie.

According to the small amounts of information that have been given in the press releases, Isolation will be a more survival-horror based game, set around one Xenomorph stalking the player, rather than the FPS that Colonial Marines was.

Now while this may have people desperate to give their money over to Sega, we’ve got to keep in the backs of our minds the cesspit that Colonial Marines created when it was released – using video footage rather than in-game footage, the terrible AI of the Xenomorphs that makes them look more like can-can dancers than anything that could be at all threating to someone holding the barrel of a gun to their double-mouths, and the concept of a demo being better than the full game in order to get player’s money before any content is released.

The two lines of text before the trailer fill me with dread as a prospective buyer. While survival horror is the new golden boy in the video game world, with Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs and Outlast being contenders for various “Game Of The Year” awards, there are too many times when that gets pushed to one side in favour of making money. See Dead Space 3.

“The trailer footage shown uses the in-game engine, and represents a work in progress”, says the trailer. Well, that’s a nice get-out clause, says I. Does that mean that the trailer footage is someone demonstrating the engine, or making a film using the engine? And what do you mean by a work in progress? Is this some sort of loophole you can point at in case it all goes wrong and say “We told you so?”

Hopefully, my fears will go unrewarded. The change from Gearbox to Creative Assembly making the game might herald a change in tone (and from the PR responses to other interviews given, they are being incredibly conscious of that fact, and definitely trying to publicise it). Isolation has been under development for three years, so we will all wait with baited breath to see if it turns out to be a world apart – preferably a planet apart – from the reanimated corpse that was Colonial Marines. 

 

Adam Smith (@webnym)

The Fault In Our Stars – John Green

After reluctantly reading John Green’s novel, Emma Holifield shares her thoughts…

Having avoided this book for a while, I finally succumbed to my sister’s appeals to read it when I received it as a Christmas gift. I had previously avoided this ‘cancer book’, assuming that it was just another of the supposedly poignant but ultimately sappy tales of illness that are unyieldingly popular.

Inspired by Green’s work with young cancer patients, The Fault in Our Stars follows the life of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a fifteen year old girl whose terminal cancer has left her reliant on an oxygen tank to breathe. However, despite its subject matter, Green’s bestselling novel is very different to the host of malady-driven books that reside on the quick-read shelves in bookshops (the ones that share the same afflicted children staring out from their covers, headed by a comic sans title and reviews promising that said book is ‘moving’ and ‘heartwarming’).

First a warning. Should you begin to read Green’s tale of the life of Hazel and her inordinately eloquent friend Augustus Waters, be prepared for them to initially annoy the hell out of you! For the first fifty pages or so, you will find yourself perpetually distracted by their exceedingly articulate way of speaking. Having experienced more hardship than many twice their age, the characters can be expected to be a little wiser than their ‘ordinary’ peers. Nonetheless, their sharp-witted quips and astute attempts to philosophise great truths of humanity seem precocious in the mouths of teenagers. This, coupled with Augustus’ habit of wielding an unlit cigarette as a ‘metaphor’ means that, at the novel’s outset, the characters veer towards pretentious rather than clever.

Despite this, as the story becomes more established, it is possible to look past their awkward turns of phrase. Before too long, Augustus’ quick witticisms and Hazel’s shrewd observations become little more quirks of their personality. Grounded by the more realistic secondary characters, such as the wonderfully juvenile Isaac, the pair’s journey offers an insight into both the harsh realities of living with cancer and the funny side of being an awkward teenager.

Most importantly, although Hazel’s illness permeates every aspect of her life (from walking to sleeping), unlike her oxygen tank, her illness doesn’t drag behind every aspect of the book. Green succeeds in finding lightness and even humour in Hazel’s condition, mocking the overly-attentive interactions that she, and the other children at her support group, encounter due to their illnesses. This refreshing take on Hazel’s disease highlights that, although terminal, her cancer does not define her. In fact, her day-to-day life, spent reading books for her English degree and watching reruns of America’s Next Top Model, is a little too familiar…

Would I have liked The Fault in Our Stars more if it had been around five years ago? Probably. It’s portrayal of oh-so misunderstood teens certainly cries out to an adolescent audience. Nonetheless, despite the protagonists’ awkward turns of phrase, Green’s book is an intelligent and, dare I say it, a genuinely heartwarming tale.

Emma Holifield, Books Editor

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A Possible Life – Sebastian Faulks

Emma Lock examines Sebastian Faulks’ depiction of the human condition in A Possible Life…

A Possible Life is not your average novel. Rather than being one long story, it is separated into five parts, each telling the story of a character over their lifetime. The stories and their characters are very different, ranging from a peasant in 19th-century France to an ambitious near-future neuroscientist, but each tells a fascinating tale of the changes that take place over a lifetime and the forces that shape who we become.

The five parts of A Possible Life can be read as stand-alone short stories, but they are better appreciated when read as a whole. There are hints of a connection between the stories – such as a lawyer called Cheeseman who appears briefly in both the first and fifth stories – but the real bond lies in their deeper themes and accounts of the human condition. Indeed, although the stories are excellently crafted, the most important and lasting impression is the commentary on existence that the book as a whole provides.

It’s refreshing to find a book with a different structure to the usual single linear narrative. While it is widely acknowledged within the publishing world that short stories tend to be unpopular with readers, even short-story sceptics could probably be persuaded by A Possible Life – or would at least have to appreciate the way in which this structure provides an interesting and effective way of communicating the book’s themes. The pace of each story leaves no room for ornate descriptive passages, preventing thematic comments from being lost beneath the noise of excessive description, and allowing them to have a more powerful effect on the reader. The fact that all five characters are seemingly so different, and yet share so many emotions, helps emphasise the statements about the universal nature of the human condition in a way that would be difficult or impossible for a novel with a traditional narrative structure to achieve.

One of the most important themes throughout the book is the importance of the past and its effects on consciousness and character. Our memories and experiences are what make us who we are, and the book’s characters find themselves affected by their early experiences throughout their lives. A Possible Life is emotionally moving without being sentimental or melodramatic, and the characters are realistic – they are flawed but not unlikeable. They are all troubled, usually as a result of their experiences, and the tone of the narrative doesn’t moralise; it simply observes the characters’ actions and development throughout their lives. This book deals with big subjects – the human condition, the soul and the nature of existence. The fact that Faulks addresses these themes without being pretentious or self-indulgent is testament to his skill as a writer.

The description on the cover promises the opportunity ‘to feel your heart beat in someone else’s life’, and the book does exactly that. It offers insight into the lives of five completely different characters, spanning countries and centuries, together with the realisation that despite all these apparent divides, the human condition really is universal.

Emma Lock, Books Team

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Things You Should Probably Have An Opinion On: Esther McVey

In her first column of the new term, Fran Lowe discusses Empl0yment Minister Esther McVey.

Hers is a name that you may well have heard being bandied about on social media over the last few days. Here’s why: Esther McVey is Employment Minister, and in a recent interview with The Daily Mail she spoke out and said that the unemployed youth of today should be prepared to take entry level jobs. Apparently, we should all stop moaning and “get a job in Costa”.

To a certain, very small extent, I can almost see where she is coming from. She is right in that it is highly unlikely that when we graduate we will walk straight into our dream job the following Monday. There is always going to be that awkward time of interning, finding work experience, and thrashing out job application after job application, and that time will need funding. Personally, I have no doubts that when the time comes, I will fund it by working in a coffee shop.

However, this is much easier said than done. Clearly, McVey has never tried to get a job in a coffee shop. I can smugly admit that it will be easier for me than for others: the version of my CV that I use for part-time jobs has the words “2011-2014: Caffè Nero” in big letters at the top. If and when I am an unemployed graduate, I know that this will make it significantly easier for me to do exactly what McVey wants me to do, and get a job in Costa. They’ve been trying to poach me for years.

Esther McVey
Image Credit- REX

However, there is something crucial that McVey seems to have forgotten: that kind of job is very highly sought-after. In the Mail’s article, they mention that one Costa shop in Nottingham received over 1,700 applications for 8 jobs. My own experience in recruiting staff has been similar: I would say I take at least 15 CVs a week, and if there’s no relevant experience, I hate to say it, but that CV goes straight in the shredder. There are just too many applications to even read them all properly. McVey seems to think it is the easiest thing in the world to walk into a job in a coffee shop. The reality is that even that kind of job, the job that no one even really wants to do, is still hard to lay your hands on.

McVey appears to have the common misunderstanding that all unemployed people are lazy- a view not at all aided by a lot of what we have been seeing on Channel 4’s Benefits Street. It looks like the argument about whether or not benefits claimants are really just scroungers is really coming to the fore, and with her comments about unemployed youth, McVey has put herself right in there. Whether or not she is just playing politics and has done this deliberately to try and raise her profile remains to be seen, but what is instantly evident is that McVey has no comprehension of what it is like to be unemployed, and to repeatedly have your applications rejected and your CV ignored.

But, not only is McVey’s view unrealistic, it is also unfair. When we graduate, after three or more years of hard work and stress all in pursuit of a good job at the end of it, we apparently should not be disappointed if we end up working in Costa. We should be satisfied to be going in at entry level so we can work our way up- one day, we could be managers! Because making coffee is exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life! McVey would argue that is just me being a “job snob”, aiming too high and being too ambitious.

All this is really very disheartening. It hearkens back to a few months ago, when someone very close to me was struggling to find graduate work and was told, by someone very close to them, to accept that they would just work in a coffee shop for the rest of their lives, because it was all they would ever achieve, despite their top degree from a top university. Many tears had to be mopped up, and much encouragement given. A few months later when that elusive grad job was landed, many words had to be eaten. But essentially Esther McVey is saying exactly the same thing. Is there anything more soul-destroying?

Image Credit- Alamy

It’s as though all those years of being told by your parents, your school, and now the university, to be as ambitious as you can be, and that we can be anything we want, have been snatched away from us. McVey even goes so far as to state that “[we] are dealt the cards [we] are dealt, and [we] have to make the best of that. That is life”. I may be reading too much into this, but is it not implied that there are some of us lucky enough to be born to go to Oxford and become a Tory Prime Minister, and there are some of us who might aspire to managing a branch of Costa? Apparently, being over ambitious is not the way forward, and instead we should be realistic. I’d like to see the faces on a classroom full of small children if she goes in there and tells the ones that want to be doctors that they might one day drive past a hospital, or the ones that want to be actresses that they will almost certainly wait on tables for the rest of their days. Our heady days of aspiration are over.

What’s more, I can firmly remember being told when tuition fees were raised to £9,000 a year that doing a degree was still worth it, because of the better job prospects at the end. The government spouted figures at us about how much more we were going to earn with a degree; how much further on we would be by the age of 30 than those without degrees; how £27,000 wasn’t extortionate. All of that seems to have been forgotten: we may as well have just got a job in Costa all along. Two years in, I might have been an assistant manager by now.

All my life I have been told that going to university and getting a good degree would give me so many more job prospects, and that I could therefore afford to be more ambitious. I consider ambition a good thing, but it seems Esther McVey disagrees. Maybe I should just make the most of the cards I was dealt when I was born, and accept the fact that because I went to a state school in a town with the wrong kind of reputation, I will never get that dream job. The £27,000 that my degree is costing me might well turn out to be a complete waste of money.

As utterly demoralising as McVey’s words are, I am aware that there are plenty of people who will agree with her, and that my view is only so outspoken because I am an unapologetic leftie. It’s probably true that there are some unemployed young people out there who could be trying harder, and maybe they should try and get a job in Costa. A lot of this also comes down to the immigration argument: perhaps things might be easier if there were less migrants getting these jobs, freeing up vacancies for our home-grown unemployed. But the reality is, Costa is going to employ the best staff it can find, and I honestly don’t mind if my cappuccino is made by someone from Portsmouth or Poland, as long as it’s a decent cappuccino. It comes down to qualifications and experience, not what it says on your passport.

I think the best response to people like McVey is to fight back. If we let her words discourage us, believing that after years spent in the library slaving over essays and revision, we will still just end up working in Costa, that’s likely to be what will happen. Myself, I would quite like to be able to say in five years’ time “Look, Esther McVey, look how wrong you were.” Ambition is healthy, and McVey isn’t going to make me lose mine.

Fran Lowe, Features Columnist

The good, the bad, and the shitty slogan

Catchy, witty slogans have always been an apparently crucial part of any budding sabbatical officer’s election campaign. However, concerted efforts to scale new heights of wit from some of Exeter’s finest would-be politicos have often fallen disastrously short. In the name of rigorous investigative journalism, I trawled the archives for the most misplaced slogans in recent years, in an attempt to provide this year’s candidates with some entirely serious advice about how not to make me cringe.

As they near the end of their terms in office, last year’s Sabbs can rest easy in the knowledge that, on the whole, the slogans they thrust upon an unwitting student population were not that bad. VP Participation and Campuses Jak Curtis-Rendall kept things simple, urging students to vote “Jak 4 Pac”, while Chris Rootkin implored us all to “Root for Rootkin”, while dressed up as a potato, a foodstuff infamous for not actually being a root vegetable.

Despite these minor potato-based inaccuracies, 2013’s cohort faded in comparison to the montage-worthy brilliance of the cringeworthiness offered by the election hopefuls from the 2012/13 academic year. Ben Jones, who eventually lost the Guild President race to Nicholas ‘Welshy’ Davies (who dressed as a sheep all week to win, obvs), harrowingly implored voters to “Give the Guild a BJ”. Quite how this slogan would have played out during the post-SSB fallout remains thankfully unknown. Meanwhile, Jenny Mayhew invoked the might of the “J Team” in her election campaign, with the less said about this method of campaigning the better.

However, the best (and by best I obviously mean worst) of that year’s horrible, horrible slogans came in the race for VP Welfare. Ian “Flash” Gordon enticed voters with “Fancy a flash?”, but voting statistics from that year indicate that while many voters were irrevocably scarred by Ian’s insinuation, few actually listed him as their preferred candidate.

While the flaws in Gordon’s mildly unsettling strategy were laid bare (sorry) for all to see, the other Welfare candidates were obviously unwilling to give creepy Ian centre stage in the inevitable denouement of this paragraph. Sam Hollis-Pack ran with HP Sauce, evoking the well-known Welfare device of brown savoury syrup, while Samuel Longden went all Michael Bay montage scene with “Together we can, we will”. Unfortunately for Samuel, we couldn’t, and we didn’t.

Eventual election winner Imogen Sanders won with “Imagine Imogen”, as well as, one would imagine, some insightful and intelligent policies. Not that your policies would matter when you’re running against a flasher, a sauce obsessive, and a wannabe Jed Bartlet tragically mired in the backwaters of the West Country.

These diabolical attempts were topped only by Josh Cleall, who contrived to not become 2012 Guild President with the slogan “Cleall or No Cleall”. Despite invoking the laboured stereotype that students just watch daytime TV, as well as unnecessarily reminding everyone of Noel Edmonds (who has always personally made me think of a really sad lion), Cleall was unable to open the red box marked “President”. Devastation.

Good slogans are simple, right?

Another personal favourite came in the 2011 race for Guild President, where seemingly atemporal leaflet-freak Damien Jeffries (he also ran in 2012) ran on a policy of “Compensation, Crackdown, and No Nonsense”. To contextualise this, Jeffries’ manifesto included a ban on suggesting that he looked like England footballer James Milner, and plans for a ski-lift up Stocker Road. Weird.

To end this article on the bleak note it’s all been building to, I’d like to quote the manifesto of Giovanni Sforza, an unsuccessful candidate for VP Participation and Campuses in 2011. Sforza told students to “make the best of it”, and this, readers, is my advice to you, too. If you’re running, then please, please, PLEASE think about how cynical, jaded, and potentially hungover students like me are going to receive your slogan. If you’re not running, then move beyond this article’s questionable sass (after sharing it with all your friends, obviously), and engage with the manifestos offered by your candidates. They will shape your university experience in any number of ways, and they deserve your attention, despite the terrible slogans. Make the best of a chaotic week, and make your mark on student democracy.

Owen Keating, News Editor

Do you have a favourite so-bad-it’s-good election slogan? Do the awful puns actually brighten your day? Or are they just a nuisance and a distraction from the real issues at stake? Leave a comment below or write to the Comment team at the Exeposé Comment Facebook Group or on Twitter @CommentExepose.

The three most interesting games of 2014

Transistor

What’s it about? A woman known only as Red who finds an intelligent sword called the Transistor, which looks like part of a motherboard. A malevolent organisation called ‘The Program’ are looking for her; Red must fight, action-RPG style, to save herself

Why should I care? Five words: “From the creators of Bastion”. Supergiant Games created one of the most interesting action-RPGs of 2011 from an independent background.

The aesthetic design is brilliant, Darren Korb’s soundtrack is breathtaking and the plot had Braid-level substance with a kickass left turn at the end.

As Bastion was on all platforms, Transistor will hopefully bring some needed style directly to iDevice/Android gaming, something unfortunately rare in the kingdom of Freemium games and carbon copy RPGs aimed at only aged 7 and under.

 

Thief 

What’s it about? Thief is set in a dark fantasy world inspired by Victorian and steampunk aesthetics. Garrett, a master thief who has been away from his hometown for a long time, returns to ‘The City’, and finds it ruled over by a tyrant called ‘The Baron’. While The City is infested by a plague, the rich continue to live in good fortune, and Garrett intends to exploit the situation to his favour.

Why should I care? Stealth. If Dishonoured is, right now, the king of the stealth genre, then Thief is the Arthurian legend that inspired it to seek the throne. The original game, Thief: The Dark Project was met with critical praise for breaking free from all the games about guns.

With Dead Space 3 and the disappointing continuation of the Resident Evil franchise sapping quite a lot of the stealth out of the survival-horror genre, leaving the player with the boring task of just shooting anything that isn’t human-shaped, Thief will definitely set a change of pace – unless they give him a gun. In which case I’ll need to find a hat to eat.

 

South Park: The Stick of Truth

What’s it about? We have absolutely no idea. The Stick of Truth’s release date has been pushed further back than a Back to the Future/Doctor Who crossover special featuring Futurama. From the box art, the game seems to be an RPG based on the South Park episode “The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers”.

The costumes and class names also appear in the three-episode story arc formed by “Black Friday”, “A Song of Ass and Fire”, and “Titties and Dragons”, a trilogy based on parodying the Console Wars between PlayStation and Xbox and George R.R. Martin’s book series Game of Thrones.

Why should I care? Because it could set a trend. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have the sense of humour that could make this sort of crude satire work in a way that the recent Deadpool game tried really hard to, but just missed the mark. Funny games are few and far between, but if Stick of Truth makes money (and it will) we may see more of them.

Secondly, it’ll mean that good games can be made from television/film spinoffs to a generation that never played Goldeneye, setting a standard that might – if you’re a bright-eyed idealist like me – stop the slurry of mediocre video game tie-ins to every children’s film since 1994. And if not, at least it will be kewl.

 

Adam Smith (@webnym)

None for the road?

Emily-Rose Rolfe, Lifestyle Editor, has never touched a drop of alcohol. Well, that’s not true, but she is at least mostly dry for January.

Image credits: brosner

The topic of drinking at University is documented time and time again in student media. It barely needs to be said that the most frequently noted stereotype of students is our hedonistic drinking culture. Do we drink too much? Is it necessary to drink at University to have fun? What will everyone think about my relationship with alcohol? Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether you drink or don’t drink. It’s whether or not you are enjoying your time at university: plenty of people get lashed under the weight of expectation, whilst many drink for the pleasure of being intoxicated. It’s not for anyone else to make a judgement on how much you should be drinking: the only person who should be ordering the shots is you. I am merely writing to give an account of my experiences of being a sober student.

Sobriety is not what students are notorious for, our reputation is intrinsically linked to the amount of alcohol we consume on an almost daily basis and how many scrapes we get into because of this. Binging is what students gear themselves up for in the summer leading up to Freshers’ Week, and we stampede through all succeeding nights out terrified that we will never see a drop of alcohol again when the sun sets on our university days. Excessive consumption of booze is what almost every anecdote arises from and what every student signs up for when they press ‘send’ on their UCAS application. However, there are students who stay sober throughout their university days. This is not to say being sober is being teetotal, Jesus was sober whilst still enjoying a nice glass of wine.

In first year I was stone cold sober throughout: I can count on one hand the amount of alcoholic beverages I drank. Your instant assumption after reading that sentence is that I spent every night sitting in my room watching Friends, eating lots of McVities, and fulfilling every sweet-as-sugar girly stereotype in the book. Whilst I freely admit I did spend evenings enjoying the comforts of a cup of tea, I was not a prude, and neither were the friends around me who lived the same lifestyle. Just because you don’t drink when you go out, doesn’t mean you don’t have fun. Monday Mosaic was teeming with acquaintances and awkward encounters;  I didn’t notice Arena’s cheesy Tuesday stench; Timepiece was absolutely mental; Rococos was raving; and I immersed myself in the disco vibes of the Lemmy. Just because I didn’t drink doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy fresher.

In third year, I have started drinking. I don’t know what happened over summer, but all of a sudden I seem to have caught the craze. I had a better time when I didn’t drink. I bounced off everyone surrounding me rather than being incredibly selfish. I never annoyed people when I was sober, whereas now I have accounts of taking up too much space on the dancefloor and saying incredibly stupid things. I was there to have DDMCs (Drunk Deep Meaningful Chats) with as well as to energetically run around with. I remembered my nights, and other people’s. I spent less money when I drank water not wine. And, being narcissistic, it was nice to not be a member of the pack and to stand out from the crowd. It was a stimulus for engaging conversations, something to define you amidst the furor of fresher confusion and identity crises. Personally I prefer drinking a maximum of three drinks a night, it keeps a buzz without stinging the night to death, and it also keeps your dignity and your liver healthy.

Is there peer pressure to drink at university? Of course there is. But if you don’t want to drink at initiations AU societies won’t make you, they’ll give you nasty concoctions of ketchup, peanut butter, egg yolk, milk, and brown sauce, but as long as you aren’t a bad sport and refuse to down it they won’t penalise you. I know a few prominent members of AU clubs who don’t drink but are not seen as any less macho or more boring because of this difference in lifestyle. Most people simply ask ‘why don’t you drink?’ in the same tone of voice as ‘I didn’t realise that pigs flew’, and they respectfully listened to my response. You might be called a shlad in Arena when you ask for tap water, but if anyone was judging whether or not they were having more fun than me, it didn’t impact on my hype. It’s easier said than downed, but if your place within your friendship group is based on the frequency of your chunders then I would swiftly either put them in their place or find more interesting friends.

The primary reason for me not getting trashed is because I’m a Christian. Specifically looking at the topic of drinking, probably the most relevant characteristic of the Christian life is balance: on not living excessively in any area of life. It is following the life of Jesus, who as we all know from Sunday school enjoyed a glass of wine, without downing it. He didn’t abstain, but neither did he encourage intoxication. Christians at Exeter University, despite occasional typecasting, do not live as monks do. They enjoy sobriety whilst sitting in a pub, party with and without drinking, have a huge variety of friends and are active members of many societies on campus. Christianity is not about abstention, but equilibrium. It’s also not being judgemental: I don’t walk into a club and sneer at the amount of antics and affection. I wouldn’t rebuke someone for stumbling home, it may not be my way of life but neither is it my place to reprimand.

You may think you’re a better person when you’re inebriated, but I have never met someone who is better drunk than sober. Ever. I just find that drinking doesn’t improve you: it can result in feelings of regret, embarrassment and irritation that you’ve wasted the rest of the day, and guilt if you’ve drunkenly confronted a good friend about a non-problem. Past the point of no return I can’t understand most of what you’re saying or where you’re going. You’re still great, and I don’t really care, but you’re objectively better company over a coffee or a casual pint.

Despite our frequent moaning that we are all incredibly poor, lavish amounts of money are spent in bars and clubs across Exeter. Financially, drinking just doesn’t make logical sense: we live on a budget yet knock back pounds like they’re pennies. It is also bad for your body: there are seven calories per gram of wine, almost as much as pure fat. The health-freak mindset of gym bunny Exeter is completely at odds with the spoonfuls of indigestible sugar mindlessly devoured each night. Nonetheless, you are paying £3,000 / £9,000 for tuition fees, and we all applied to Exeter for the student experience; not just to join the Library Society. Any pounds that leave your purse or go on your hips on a night out will probably not be regretted by future you. It is still something to bear in mind though.

Choosing the sober student life isn’t inferior to boozy days and nights, and vice versa. University is about enjoying yourself to your full capacity, and finding what you’re made of before entering the scary realms of ‘the rest of your life’. Whether you choose Dry January or a liquid lunch, your pint glass is always half full at uni.

Emily-Rose Rolfe, Lifestyle Editor

I Remember Daffodils – Creative Fridays

With a wonderful poem depicting the beauty of nature, Sophie Harrison provides this weeks Creative Friday…

 

I Remember Daffodils

I recall the light

That reflected from

Pools of the rainfall.

I watched how the sun

Would keep dancing, as

If the blue sky was

Her saviour.

And we were just rays.

Inconsequential petals

Floating in and out

of consciousness.

Pure yellow.

We were the yellow

Of childhood,

Shielding life

with dappled blanket clouds.

Yet still it lost our

Hushed daisy-chain dreams;

They drift here

Now, in memories,

Where bluebirds sing and

Flowers still breathe life.

 

Sophie Harrison

 

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Best of the rest

In our quest to give you the best, not every interview makes the cut. Here’s some of the unlucky few who didn’t make it to Exeposé Features in 2013.

#1 – Alan Johnson

Alan Johnson
Image credits: catch21productions

We met with Johnson in his plush Parliamentary office, with the shadow of Big Ben pouring in through the window. A former postman that made it to the top table of government, Johnson is a first-class champion for social mobility. “It’s really worrying that there’s a treadmill into modern politics,” he sighs, “do PPE at Oxford, then spend a little time poncing around in communications or journalism.” Johnson has worked hard to crack down on unpaid internships in MPs offices, much to the annoyance of a steady stream of Exeter graduates. Since starting his own political career, his straight-talking conviction has provided a rare relief compared to his spin-talking colleagues, including when we ask him about the government’s welfare policies. He doesn’t pull his punches: “Labour has to fight this ‘shirkers versus workers’ image that Osborne is peddling. Saying that people are claiming benefits while lying on the sofa in a string-vest watching TV, but most claimants in London are cleaners going to work in the morning on low wages”. Without a doubt, the former postman wants many coalition policies returned to sender. After resigning from the Shadow Cabinet in 2011, Johnson’s tell-it-like-it-is style landed him a spot as a regular guest on the cult political show This Week. “It’s amazing that it gets 1 ½ million viewers at 11.30pm at night,” he chuckles, “the guests get a surprise sometimes though – Andrew Neil [the presenter] has taken up the mantle of Paxman, but they often aren’t expecting to be verbally assaulted by Andrew at midnight on a Thursday night”. Nonetheless, he has thrived on the show and is now poised to return to the top. Indeed, Alan Johnson is the postman-turned politician who always delivers.

 

#2 – Jacob Rees-Mogg

A self-described Vox Populi, Rees-Mogg is the man of a very different group of people. The son of a Lord and eminent Old Etonian, and nicknamed the ‘MP for the Early 20th Century’, he asked to meet us for tea in Parliament. “Jolly nice to see you,” he exclaims as we arrive, with a jovial handshake, “I do hope you haven’t come too far.” Since becoming an MP in 2010, Rees-Mogg has made quite an impact, having already secured his political legacy by using the longest word in parliamentary history. “You’ll always have people saying oratory isn’t what it was, though ‘Floccinaucinihilipilification’ is all I have to say to that.” Beyond his rhetorical revivalism, Rees-Mogg has proven extremely independently minded, often unafraid of lavishing praise on his political opponents. Peering over his glasses, he explains: “Oh indeed, I take UKIP very seriously. They produce a very attractive manifesto.” He’s equally quick to pay homage to his Labour colleagues. “Ed Miliband was very dignified when he made his tribute to Lady Thatcher,” he notes solemnly. His father had known Margaret Thatcher since university, and Jacob is clearly affected when conversation turns to her death. “There’s a special place in history for her,” he laments, “becoming the first female Prime Minister was an achievement of singular power.” Nonetheless, his own involvement with women in politics has been quite different; he famously brought his childhood nanny to campaign with him in 1997. Despite his eccentricity, Jacob Rees-Mogg is respected for his honesty, integrity and charm. Perhaps, with people crying out for a better class of politician, Rees-Mogg may become the type of MP we need for the 21st Century.

 

#3 – The Hamiltons

The disgraced MP and TV regular Neil and Christine Hamilton have been slowly reinventing themselves as UKIP’s showbiz couple. After Neil was forced out of Parliament in 1997, the pair began their media spree, appearing on Have I Got News For You immediately following his defeat. “Very few politicians can do HIGNFY as they take themselves too seriously,” Christine explains, with Neil dryly adding, “they’re all far too boring”.Admittedly, the thick-skinned pair survived notably well on the hit satirical show. “Unless you’re bonkers, you know you’re there for them to bounce jokes off you,” she jests, “you can’t outwit Merton and Hislop, so all you can do is keep your head up.” Christine followed this up by appearing on the first series of I’m A Celebrity, which cemented her reputation as a larger than life, middle-class battle-axe. “My basic rule is if it’s legal, fun and faintly decent I’m up for it,” she exclaims loudly, “actually if it’s fun I’m doubly up for it!” Neil seems less thrilled: “we’ve had a lot of fun,” he murmurs. When Neil re-entered politics in 2011, the duo cut back on their TV work and jumped into politicking, with the personal backing of Nigel Farage. “Nigel is head and shoulders above everybody else, including me,” Neil exclaims, with the same excitement as Christine moments earlier. Indeed, it’s clear that politics is to him what TV is to her. Without a doubt, they are quite different people, but their joint status as a plucky personality double-act has kept them safely afloat. And, with UKIP’s ongoing rise, we can expect to see much more of the king and queen of political comebacks.

 

#4 – Lord Howe

We interviewed Lord Howe, Tory grandee, following a scholarly and rather profound article for The Independent, decrying the Conservative scepticism on Europe and the unruliness of their backbenchers. Grandee is certainly an accurate term; Lord Howe was a key figure in the Thatcher administration, and clearly had, as we discovered, a sharp political mind, despite being nearly five times as old as his interviewers. After breezing into the House of Lords with surprising ease (apparently all you need is a name and an appointment time), we ended up cloistered in a strange little room on the upper floors, facing a man who had held nearly every position worth having in the British government. And while in person he was less tightly focused than in print (aren’t we all), his analysis showed the same sharp political acumen. In the hour he kindly gave us, we discussed British foreign policy, the House of Lords itself, the EU and his extensive work with the UK Metric Association, as well as an amusing diversion about ties.

Speaking only a month after the death of Lady Thatcher, we were initially quite keen to press the man some would say instigated her downfall on his opinion of her legacy. His reluctance to speak about the topic, however, was clear. Whether unwilling to speak again about a woman with whom he is forever linked, or out of genuine respect for a towering political colleague, we moved quite quickly on to other topics. Perhaps it was for the best; Lord Howe clearly has more to offer than simple reminiscences, and his advice on politics today is still important enough to come out of the shadow of the past.

James Roberts and Alex Carden, Features Editors

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