Yet the dread
It was the day before the Manic Street Preachers were supposed to conquer America. Richey Edwards, of the Manics, left the Embassy Hotel at 7am on February 1st, 1995. The following day an advert was placed in a local paper asking him to make contact with his family. It ran for three days. Richey spent the year before in a nadir of anorexia, alcoholism and self-mutilation, and was hospitalised after an attempt on his own life. But this is history; part of pop culture like Kurt Cobain....
Features: The battle over battels
Margaret Hodge, recently stated that the option of charging students top-up fees is being considered by the Government. She is the minister repsonsible for Universities. The Government ordered a review of student finance after it proved the most controversial policy of the last parliament. It is due to report this summer. The threat of top-up fees is of particular concern to students at Oxford. The Russell Group universities, to which Oxford belongs, although is often ignored by, are quick to point out the funding gap they sustain at present. Many leaders of the Russell Group have called for introduction of such fees and, in some cases, a free market of higher education....
Features: It's time to get moving and get heard
Back in 1997, the Labour government introduced tuition fees and got rid of the maintenance grant. In response to this, there was a huge campaign by students across the country which pointed out that this meant levels of student debt would shoot up and that people from lower income backgrounds would be deterred from going to university. ...
Features: Necessary illusions
With the rise of anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation pressure groups in recent years, the actions of multi-national companies have been thrown into sharper focus and many companies have suffered tarnished images. Large-scale demonstrations at the actions of multi-national companies have become an everyday occurrence. A small but vocal minority of these pressure groups, however, prefers to conduct its business in an altogether different manner. Eschewing demonstrations and political petitioning, which can take weeks or months of preparation and are often fruitless, this group chooses to hit the bastards where it hurts most - in their own medium....
Features: Letter from America
In my first letter eight weeks ago, as I stood waiting to leave Britain's sensible shores, I spewed out a number of clichés and prejudices about America. Would American culture really be so vulgar, brash and unrefined, so inward-looking, ignorant and suspicious of the wider un-American world? Would my job on Capitol Hill throw me into a vicious, dollar-driven sick-body politic? Thankfully and perhaps predictably, this nightmarish straw man was just that: an insubstantial simplisme. The reality is far more interesting....