What do you think about the proposed fees? If you could write this article, what would you write?  Use the comment feature on this article to share your views about your University’s future and see what other students think.

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So when I finally began to fill out the form, under the helpful gaze of my housemate (if you’re reading this please don’t hit me), I’d answered 15 questions before I realised what I was doing. I was filling out a pointless form. I was reading a question and ticking a box. Most of it wasn’t even very interesting; the majority of questions felt like the most tedious part of a job application form. The problem I have with the census is this: it doesn’t really tell us anything about our society. Okay, you could argue that it tells us how many married couples there are, how diverse our country is in terms of ethnic background, how old or young our population has become. But the statistics are shaped by the questions that are asked. This means that the picture of society taken from the census is likely to be influenced more by the social prejudices of the question writers than the question answerers.

A key difference between the 2011 and 2001 census is that in 2011, for the first time, a same sex couple could register their existence to the government. In 2001 this option was not available. Does that mean that in 2001 there were no same sex couples? Somehow I doubt it. The census, as with all forms, often assumes there can be no other possible answers than the ones they offer us. ‘What is your country of birth? Better be one of the five we’ve offered you, or you don’t exist’. Admittedly the 2011 census does offer the option on some questions to pick ‘other’. I took this option on one particular question. None of the stated answers to ‘How would you describe your national identity?’ seemed to fit me. In the end I declared to the UK government that my nationality was the World, seeming the only honest answer I could give.

The census is supposed to tell us about the major trends shaping our society. What has changed? How has it changed? How important is it? By shaping the questions the way it does the census assumes it has the answers before anything has been asked. If the government really wants to know what its society looks like it should ask us what the questions should be first.

As for me, I don’t think I will be nearly as excited in 2021.

Chris Hansell
Photo by: Cencus.gov.org

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By: Sam Hargreaves

The Union’s Response:

I am quite appalled at the level of journalism contributed to this article. There was no need to dig around on facebook, we are very open and proud of our training of sabbatical officers. We are proud of it because compared to our comparable unions it is a programme that is very cost effective at producing officers who within two weeks are capable to offer leadership of a multi-million pound charity when they have had little or no experience of the sector and management of budgets, staff and volunteers. It is even more impressive as a programme now we have got rid of an expensive staff house dinner with university management (the money for that is now part of the elections budget to give candidates running for full time positions £30 worth of credit with marketing so they can run effectively for election with minimal cost to themselves) and because we have also got rid of a day where all managers of the union go away together in mid August to save further money for our student facing services. This information is not in the article because you failed to get comment from myself or anyone from Hull University Union, which is either down to rushed journalism or due to the angle of trying to make this an expose style article.
 I take greater offence to you saying that “This is a team who’s dynamic has not changed since last year. [referring to Ash Lord and Suzie Morris as the only leavers] The new members of the team were involved within the union prior to their election so they are not entering an alien environment”. I take offence because this is incredibly insulting to the two incumbents who are leaving and the two Vice Presidents elect. The two elects have their own personalities and plans for their year in office and by not giving them adequate training we are limiting their ability to achieve their goals and serve students. Also they are not Suzie or Ash, they are very different personalities who I look forward to getting to know and to say the team dynamic “has not” (which should read will not) change is insulting. You are right to say that the more fractured a sabbatical team is the less effective they are, we owe it to our students, our members to do the best we can in our time in office and I will do that the only way I know how and that is as a team. To do this everybody needs to be away from their comfortable environment in order to create a new team that is effective rather than forcing new officers to conform to be like who was there before. We are and want to continue to be an outstanding student union, this means that in everything we do we do it right and taking students and turning them into effective officers in the space of weeks is a tall order and I would rather do it well than allow them to make mistakes later that will cost us the ability to provide some of the services you imply we are ignoring.

 Ps there is no “average” student.

 Aidan Mersh

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The internet has seen a boom in websites offering money-saving tips and ways to make our salaries go further, but what about those who don’t yet have a secure income, and further still, aren’t looking at gaining one in the near future? This year will see yet another high number of students graduating with fantastic results, but what use are hard-earned degrees if the country has no jobs to offer? Or does it? The question in focus here is just how bad is the graduate jobs market? Obviously this is widely varied depending on the field you’re graduating into, but it may not be all doom and gloom. Failure and a lack of prospects for us all is what sells newspapers, but here at Hullfire we like to venture a little further into reality. We’re not about what sells (obviously, being a free publication), but about uncovering the lesser known facts that could give students a small bit of hope. So here it is: Companies still need employees.

There, I said it; our degrees aren’t pointless after all. I must reiterate I cannot speak for every industry out there, but in the grand scheme of things there are still jobs to be done and seeing as we haven’t quite caught up with our space-age predictions prior to the 21st century of robots taking over every human function, there are still jobs for us to do. What I believe we are seeing is not a slow down in recruitment figures as harsh as the media reports, but that companies are indeed looking to save money, they’re just saving it by spending less on advertising rather than halting recruitment altogether. I’ll use myself as an example. Scouring the Guardian’s website for jobs does seem to lead to the assumption that if I don’t want to work in sales and marketing then I may as well give up now. However, an alternative job search via contacts on Twitter tells me differently. By cutting out the middle man of searching for jobs specifically being advertised to the general public I have found myself with two interviews tucked under my belt. Both of these came from an ‘I’ll pass your CV on’ scenario, costing the company absolutely zilch in advertising.

The downfall for companies here of course is that they may not receive a wider scope of applications as in typical job advertising, but it costs them nothing and if they don’t find the applicant they’re looking for then a quick tweet or notice on their website will soon alter that. I believe it’s not only due to the recession, but also a sign of where the times are heading. Being a media student I haven’t had much of an outsider’s view on this, but taking a close look at trends in PR and social media has told me this is generally the way things are going, spending cuts or not.

So now we can look at applications in a different way, the problem is not recession barriers, but the competition. Many students in the last few years have opted to study what I like to think of as ‘open degrees’; degrees which don’t specifically lead into only one career. This is great for those students but not for those of us who are interested in one specific area. And this isn’t all, not only do we have to fight off other students, but other graduates who are still scouring the market from last year.

On a lighter note, professionals are all offering the same advice to students hoping to begin a career during these financially unstable times; promote yourself. By blogging, Tweeting and constantly networking you are more likely to succeed if companies recognise your name, no matter how unstable the economy is.

Laura Smith
Photo by: The telegraphc

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The campus itself has an on-site student bar, a multisport court and is home to over 200 students taking up residence in Cayley Halls. However at the beginning of the year the student bar often failed to attract many of those students, as in the past it has failed to provide the type of entertainment students want due to lack of funding. Recently though, through researching how best to attract students to the bar, it has had a lot of success with the implementation of regular new themed nights every other week. These include pirate, cowboy and geeks and freaks nights.

Scarborough, being the satellite campus of Hull University, is quite different in terms of the courses that are available. Among other things Hull offers popular politics courses so is home to many students who have an active passion for politics. The union over in Hull is run with those students in mind and is really moulded to what those students want as every student union should be. In Scarborough however the courses that are offered are quite different. Scarborough offers Web Design, Marine Biology, English, Music Tech, Theatre and Performance, Primary Teaching, Design for Digital Media and more. The mindset of the students that are studying these courses is quite different to the students studying the type of courses that are offered over in Hull.

To provide a general viewpoint of the Scarborough students, research has been conducted through questionnaires and other means. This resulted in a general opinion that students in Scarborough believe the link between the two campuses is not very strong at all and think that more of an effort needs to be made by both unions to strengthen it in all areas. A mini bus service between the campuses has been a rumour for a while now, but students would only want this if there was something to travel to Hull for. Even then opportunities to travel to and from Scarborough or Hull for both sets of students would have to be made clear. Students want to know what is happening in both campuses, not just at the one they are studying in. This will ensur that both sets of students know what is available to them elsewhere. Students would also like to see possible opportunities arise where skills from courses on one campus are utilized on the other campus as well.

From a personal point of view opportunities to strengthen the link between the two campuses are starting to drift through. For instance a company called FirstFan made up of Hull graduates came here last semester with an opportunity for both Digital Media and Web Design students. They were looking for students of these particular skills to help them with the production of a music video. This was a great opportunity for Scarborough students studying those courses to use the skills they were learning to produce something for professional clients while also gaining valuable experience from it.

The links between the two campuses are evident but there needs to be more action taken to strengthen it and more promotional material to provide students with relevant information of events taking place on both campuses. This will hopefully lead to a more solid link in the future providing a lot more opportunities for all students on both campuses.

Stephen Hansell

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It’s very easy to lump all of the Middle East revolutions into the basket of ‘things going on’; but every revolution – every citizen revolting – has their own story which is different to the next revolution, and the citizen next door. That said, unless we simplify the situation somewhat then we might not have any chance of understanding.

Broadly speaking, there are five reasons why governments get overthrown. The first reason is ‘bread and circuses’. A Roman satirist, Juvenal once wrote that to prevent revolution, dictators need only bread (food) and circuses (something to keep the masses busy). This isn’t always true, but often it is. In some of the countries – Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and Oman to name a few – this is what’s going on. The people are sick to death of their corrupt and inefficient governments, and thanks to rises in global food prices, it has hit boiling point. The key point is that, by and large, the people just want an efficient government – they’d probably prefer a democracy – but if a dictator can get them jobs, and thus fed and housed, then they’ll settle for that as the next best alternative.

It’s a different dynamic that overthrew the governments of Egypt and Tunisia. On the streets of Cairo protesters cried ‘illegitimate’. The Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions had, as a far greater proportion of their membership, unemployed university graduates. With more middle class citizens than jobs, with more people seeking middle class lifestyles than resources available to provide, and a complete lack of liberal democracy, there’s just two viable outcomes: revolution or bloody rebellion.

Bordering Tunisia and Egypt is Libya, which demonstrates the third and fourth ways that a government might fall. Dictators rarely rule alone, more often they rule as an oligarchy: a collective band of authoritarian leaders. Libya is just like that. As a moderately tribal country, Gadaffi has relied on the support of regional leaders for all of his reign.

However, he is corrupt and inefficient, and many in the east (and some in the west) of the country want him out. Hence we see something more like a civil war dynamic; it’s not clear that the Revolutionary Council, who are directing the revolution are really pro-democracy, or if they’ll just say anything to get Gadaffi out and them in. Of course, nothing is ever quite a simple as that; there is also a significant grassroots element to the Libyan rebel army, so ultimately it’s not entirely clear if the Revolutionary Council can call the shots.

The rebels in Libya have not been alone. Outside powers topple governments, and it may well be that Gadaffi falls as a result of a combination of extra- and intra-Libyan factors. What’s interesting about the external actors is how selective they are. For example, ‘friendly’ countries that sell a lot of shiny black liquids to America are a lot less likely to find shiny black bombs falling on them from American planes. Take Bahrain; stable exports of 37,000,000 litres of oil per day buys you a lot of silence from Western leaders when it comes to shooting peaceful protesters with sniper rifles.

The final reason that dictators fall from power is because they rule ‘unfairly’. It seems perverse to rank rulers who shoot on how ‘fairly’ they rule. Most dictators will direct resources towards their own family, religious group, ethnic group, or a clique of close advisers. Those who do so too much can put themselves in the firing line. In Bahrain, the Sunni King rules over a largely Shi’ite population, but under the royal family’s rule, Sunnis have tended to get a majority of the top jobs and high pay packets.

Martin Luther King said that the arc of history bends towards justice. Fewer people live in less democratic regimes than their great-grandparents did a century ago. Dictatorships fall more rapidly than they rise. However, the arc of history does not bend towards justice because of some form of liberal democratic gravity. It bends towards justice because people make it do so. If we are to pressure our government into assisting the arc of history in its ineluctable curve, we must first understand why people are risking their lives to fight against their governments.

David Bender
Photo by: Alaa Isam

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The morning began with a leap right into the deep end of what, for the burglary unit, was a relatively unremarkable outing. For me however, it was an eye opening experience, which was rather helpful at half seven in the morning. After meeting the perceptive Detective Sergeant John Fuller, in charge of the burglary unit and my mentor for the day, I was offered the chance for a ride-along on the arrest of a pair of women, who were suspected of a crime against an elderly woman.

The people who committed the crime, having conned their way into her flat, proceeded to rob her of several possessions. The individual whose arrest I witnessed predictably protested her innocence, and made rather a fuss about the charges, but otherwise hardly resisted. I hovered in the corner of her living room, feeling about as out of my depth as an orang-utan in a submarine.

Upon returning to the station, I went straight back out again with my chaperon for the day, Steve Dines, a former policeman who retired from the force and re-joined as a civilian Investigating Officer. I went out with him on the follow-up calls from reported property burglaries.

The first residence we visited was a student property, in which over a thousand pounds of un-insured property was stolen in minutes. The student in question left his first floor bedroom window open, which was of course the entry point for the thief. Being in this immaculate house (it was student digs, I promise!) and entering a   bedroom which had clearly been rummaged through was rather a shock. When the individual in question told Steve all of the things which had been taken, it was very distressing. It wasn’t just the value of the property lost that upset me, but the idea that a stranger had been into the room and rummaged through someone else’s property as if it was perfectly acceptable. The CSI arrived while we were still there, and despite considerable dusting for prints, nothing useful was found.

After this harrowing experience, Steve and I went on to investigate a number of other reported burglaries, including a derelict council flat which had been broken into and stripped of its valuable copper piping, a lady whose grandson had been arrested for stealing from the leading from her windows, and a suspected false report made by a man wanted by another section of the police department, who were in fact observing his property when we went to investigate the burglary claims. The breadth of the investigations made it constantly exciting for me, and towards the end of the day, I found myself getting into the swing of things.

One of the most interesting cases for me was a complaint made by a man who claimed that his girlfriend had accessed his property and stolen various items. He and a friend were waiting outside the property for us, and my first reaction upon entering the building was horror. The rooms downstairs were filthy, and the rank smell of wet dog hit us like walking into a patio door. I had to pull my scarves up over my nose and mouth to breathe comfortably. Quite how reliable the claims were is highly questionable. The house was in such a state that it was impossible to tell whether the mess was a result of someone rummaging through the property.

All in all, the experience was truly eye-opening, and thoroughly enjoyable, despite some of the more upsetting aspects. Upon my return home, I received a phone call from my Mum to inform me that my house back home in Nottingham had been broken into. The irony is still sinking in.

The Police have the following advice for burglary prevention:

To be aware of security when searching for a new property, such as secure door and window locks. Don’t be complacent and leave first floor windows open as this can be used to gain entry too.

Lock your door, even if you’re just popping down the corridor or someone else is in the flat.

Don’t be complacent and leave windows open in empty rooms, even on the first floor as this can be used to gain entry too.

If you have a car, always keep it locked, even if you’re only leaving it for a few seconds.

Do no buzz anyone into your building if you don’t know who they are.

Make sure all your equipment is covered by insurance.

Take the time to property mark your post code on valuables with a UV pen and register them on www.immobilise.com to help police return recovered property.

Take all of your expensive belongings home with you during holidays.

If you are unlucky enough to have your property broken into, do not touch or move anything, and call the Police immediately on 0845 60 60 222.

Holly Millar

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Next up was Sally Hunt from UCU (University and College Union), she gave an
amazing speech in which she told delegates “you’ve been there for us right the way through.” She asked delegates to put their hands up if they had attended the tuition fee demo, at which point seemingly every hand in the room was raised. She said the demo laid the path for the march on the 26th. Her speech was only rivalled in its passion by those of the hard-left, Michael Chessum in particular gave some outstanding speeches and Mark Bergfield never seemed to leave the podium!

The central lobby of the Sage was a constant hive of activity as all the organisations associated with the NUS set up stall (literally) as well as the main food outlet in the conference centre being there. As if it couldn’t get any busier there was a veritable kaleidoscope of campaign t-shirts with the occasional Gruffalo or tiger wandering around and at lunch time on the third day a ‘Glee’ style flash-mob! The fringe events provided the NUS with an opportunity to showcase its campaigns to delegates such as ourselves; I know that between us we are bringing back a range of ideas for HUU such as Olympic themed events next year and zero tolerance to sexual harassment in particular.

For many of us I think the two main highlights of the week were Joe Oliver’s Block of Fifteen campaign speech which really did have us all in pleats (if it’s anywhere online then you have to watch it!) but also the speeches of the outgoing officers. Despite not knowing either of them personally Ben Whittaker and Shane Chowen’s speeches were both completely heart-breaking and hilarious at the same time. We all thank you so much for supporting us and voting for us to go to conference, you provided us with an amazing experience and we all hope that we represented you to the fullest. Feel free to get in touch with any of us if you have any questions about how we voted on motions or in elections as we all kept records of who and what we voted for.

We all have more extensive blogs on the HUU website if you would like more
information about our times at conference.

Victoria Winterton and Joshua Atkins
Image by: Google images

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If this sounds familiar to you, then welcome to the world of corporate responsibility and endless government legislation. For the other 99.9 per cent of the population (of whom aren’t deficient in their capacity to not kill themselves with obscene amounts of stupidity) where has it all gone wrong? Gone are the days where we could blissfully hurl vinegar soaked, natural knuckle breakers, building up a sense of competition and pride that is now so scornfully diminished in the playgrounds. Gone are the days of running around a gravel section of land, trying to tag someone while also trying not to slice open your knees, or chip a tooth, thus giving you some experience and sense of the pain which will accompany you in various latex gloved guises for most of your adult life.

It  seems we as students manage to at least salvage some of this past, recreating it in endless playground games of ‘who can damage their liver the quickest’, ‘ten across and starts with sexually’ and my personal favourite ‘where did my day go, why is the kitchen growing its own ecosystem, and where’s my bottle of wine.’ We managed to find a sanctuary in which we are allowed to actually make mistakes to learn from, thus allowing us to carry out the task that the evolution of humans as a species has carried out over millions of years. Yes, I know, sometimes the mistakes we make aren’t always ones we can learn from, and yes, that first item you melted after you decided Jeremy Kyle was more interesting than watching your burgers cook isn’t going to magically heal itself. But they are our mistakes to make, and when we leave this sanctuary of ‘whoops-a-daisy’ and ‘please god someone phone an ambulance’, we will sorely miss the cheap furniture, the rubbish utensils and the lack of that Mercedes that bastard next door owns, which you happened to accidentally key after he smiled patronizingly at you in the morning as you opened the door to your 1994 1.0L Ford Escort.

Savour it while it lasts, for I know it shall be a sterile and cold place in the adult world, where downing pints of snakebite can get you a one way ticket to a prostate exam, and allowing your kids to play conkers on their un-stabilised bikes, without the necessary fancy helmets and knee pads with self-regulating temperature coolers, and electronic gizmos that warn you of potential predators within 20 miles, will earn you the disapproving looks of the parents over the road, and a look in from the understaffed and overworked child minders of the government. Now, back to that nice relaxing bath.

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We’ve seen it all before, after all; the outrageous claims, the public humiliations, the godlike professions. This behaviour is not unusual in the celeb world. Every so often some celebrity will gallantly leap to our attention to provide us this amusement. Let us pause for a moment to remember past entertainers: Christian Bale for going berserk while filming, Britney Spears for those bald capers, and who can forget the Michael Jackson child molestation adventures. Oh how we eagerly gossip about these celebrities and their antics.

How terrible, how sensational, but how funny. And once Sheen has bored us, once his “tiger blood” runs out of comedy potential, he will shrink once more into obscurity. After all, he was breaking down over a decade before this media explosion, overdosing and making outrageous claims as far back as 1998. And let’s not forget all that woman beating… oh wait. That’s the one thing that’s barely ever commented on.  Because despite abusing women for years (his attacks include shooting his ex fiancée, striking girlfriends, and threatening to kill ex-wives) this is almost never addressed in the countless interviews with Sheen.

But I digress. Back to the question: why do we care? Shouldn’t we recognise these outbursts for what they are: attention seeking cries from a severely mentally afflicted man? Of course not.  Because they’re hilarious. Sheen’s potential for entertainment has increased a hundredfold since his signature sitcom (Two and a Half Men) shut down. You need go no further than YouTube to discover the extent of his amusement power, with his interviews hitting six figure views, complete with musical remixes and viral spoofs. Of course it wasn’t long before someone started leeching money from this media goldmine.

The Comedy Central adverts for Sheen’s final Two and a Half Men episodes use his infamy to catapult their viewership into the millions of millions. Starting with an ominous montage of Sheen’s appearances in public, with reporters proclaiming his importance, the ads soon pump up the feel good music, flashing statistics such as his Twitter following, cutting in with clips from the show. The message is clear: this man is IMPORTANT, this show is IMPORTANT – watch now before it’s TOO LATE!

It is not only the networks that are reaping the benefits of this frenzy. Sheen, obviously believing himself to be some kind of rebel messiah, has taken his show on the road. His Violent Torpedo of Truth kicked off at the start of April, the theatre packed full.  Here, however, was when the tide started to turn against him.  Expecting far more entertainment than weakly rambling stories of “winning” (now boring), the crowd soon turned on Sheen, booing him and chanting for a “refund”. The show closed prematurely, leaving the audience disappointed, and the hardcore fans somewhat disillusioned.

Even beyond the drug abuse and partying, the terrible thing is how predictable this was. Sheen grew up in this invasive, rose coloured world of celebrity culture. All his life he’s been surrounded by adoration, unaware that he was just being used for others’ amusement. This kind of environment is a breeding ground for mental illness. For, if you’ve been told all your life that you’re amazing, how can you not start to believe this delusion?

The worst part of it all is our own reaction. Sure, the guy’s funny, but do we really care that he’s ill? That he’s dangerous? Like the Romans baying for blood in the Colosseum, we lust after the spectacle of it all. Who can resist the stories of those naughty celebrities, trapped in their crazy world of mirrors? But once they’ve got better or got boring we move on, ignoring the fact that underneath the vain rebellion there are serious issues. You only have to watch one of the countless videos of Sheen to recognise the trouble he’s in; he shakes, acts erratically, and, let’s face it, his exclamations make little sense. But no, we ignore all this, the reality of the situation. For who wants reality when we have TV?

Photo by: Google

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