Aurora Galore is a stage name, but it’s the only name I’m getting. “Nooo,” Galore tells me coquettishly when, as my first question, I ask for her real name. “Nobody knows it.” Galore is a burlesque dancer, one of the best in the business, so it seems natural that she remains as enigmatic as the […]
Mandatory heels are the last hurdle in workplace gender inequality
Several months ago I was rifling through my wardrobe, sourcing outfits for a string of MA and graduate job interviews. Was this dress too tight, this one too short? One thing was a certainty, however: the black suede heels, wrapped up in paper like old-fashioned sweets. Finding them restrictive, I rarely wear heels; I reserve […]
Tackling the taboo on the sex trade
There are few topics that university students won’t weigh in on. David Cameron is both a Bullingdon boy and a political juggernaut. Sports initiations, depending on your point of view, are either orgies of misogyny and dangerous drinking, or harmless fun. Political correctness has been taken too far or not far enough. And yet there […]
Library confessions
Confession: I don’t like being in the University library. If anything, I hate it. And I find that fact somehow shameful. Perhaps it’s because I’m an English Literature student; I’m supposed to be cosied up in a well-lit corner, surrounded by books, with a latte in one hand and my Shakespearean quotes tote bag in […]
The Royal Connection – An interview with Channel 5’s Simon Vigar
I‘m sitting next to Channel 5’s Royal Correspondent, Simon Vigar, and we’re watching the Queen try on her crown. ‘It’s not as easy as it looks,’ she says in clipped tones, walking forwards slowly with the crown balanced on her head. Vigar grins. Although he tells me that his dream interviewee would be the Queen, […]
“Islamism is a vast killing machine” – An interview with Maryam Namazie
When I first sit down to interview Maryam Namazie, I notice how calm she seems. It’s her bodyguards who seem nervous; they barrel back and forth through the building’s doors. When Namazie goes to the bathroom, one bodyguard waits five minutes before rushing after her, his colleague pacing across the lobby. Iranian-born Namazie is, after […]
Exeter professor sees behind the scenes in government
A professor from the University of Exeter had the chance to see the science behind the politics last week, when she left the lab coat behind to visit the House of Commons. Professor of Ecotoxicology in Biosciences, Tamara Galloway, shadowed Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw as part of a pairing scheme run by the UK’s national […]
Christmas time, advertisements and wine
Having a parent working in retail has had one definite effect: up until recently, TV advertisements held little allure for me. No matter how many big-name celebs were wheeled out, or how many numbers flashed across the screen; I was always left distinctly unmoved. I was around nine or ten when the lid was lifted […]
From page to picture
Until recently, I didn’t have a clue as to what to write my dissertation on. I made several panicked trips down the English Department corridor in Queens, scrawling my name on sign-up sheets as I went. I then received a valuable piece of advice: “pick a text you’re so passionate about, you’ll still be willing to […]
A tour of London: fifty years out of date…
Ever wondered what would happen if you took one politically incorrect travel guide from the sixties, one tourist, and then put them together in central London? I’m a visitor in the capital, still struggling with the Underground’s use of zones. I’ve brought one travel guide with me to London; the date of its publication is […]