I recommend this story from The Times. It'll have you, er, rolling with laughter.
 
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by Benjamin LeongUglier Than a Monkey’s Armpit falls unashamedly into the category of Books To Be Read On The Toilet, to fit behind the loo paper next to Crap Towns and Where’s Wally. Dr Robert Vanderplank has sifted through over forty languages in the hunt to find the planet’s most colourful insults, and compiled the best ones for our enjoyment. From the delightful “You’ll eat a turd before I will” of Ancient Greece to Japanese children’s favourite “Your mother’s navel is an outie!”, one is astounded at the extraordinarily diverse and expressive ways in which the various peoples of the world have found to insult one another.

Blasphemy is taken to the limit with the Catalan curse “I shit on God, on the cross, on the carpenter who made it and the son of a whore who planted the pine”, while the Igbo communties of West Africa opt for the amusingly specific “May you die of uncontrollable running stomach”. What insults and curses tell us about a culture is undoubtedly a wide ranging and fascinating question, but one which Vanderplank does not answer in sufficient depth. The most interesting bits of the book are where the author gives analysis of the culture behind a language’s insults. Who could fail to be captivated by the knowledge that in the topsy-turvy world of Italian politics, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was frequently derided as ‘Premier Pinochio’ for his lies and outsized nose? Or that in Spain, while the equivalents of ‘cunt’ and ‘fuck’ are not particularly offensive, a mere joke about someone’s mother might spark off a brawl? Unfortunately these sections are all too brief. The dictionary-style entries which make up most of the book can too often be mundane. Learning how to say ‘bastard’ and ‘fuck’ in other languages may have been fun in Year 9, but it fails to excite now. We also get the sensation of an academic uncomfortable about writing in an informal, chatty style. When Vanderplank quotes NWA’s ‘Fuck Tha Police’, for example, it is impossible not to feel a twinge of embarrassment. It’s like your tutor turning up in Converse and skinny jeans. However, despite these drawbacks, it will provide a pleasant diversion for those spare five minutes and will equip you with an arsenal for insulting your mates in new and ingenious ways.

Oxford scientists have challenged the value of studies that try to calculate the effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide on the climate.
In this week’s ‘Science’ magazine, Dr Myles Allen and Dr Dave Frame argue that placing an upper limit on climate sensitivity is difficult and less relevant to environmental policy-making than is often assumed.
“No one denies that quantifying climate system feedbacks is a crucial part of our attempts to understand the climate change problem,” said Dr Myles Allen of Oxford University's Department of Physics, “but putting an upper bound on climate sensitivity has become something of a Holy Grail for climate researchers. What we are suggesting is that this may not be possible or very helpful.”
Drs Allen and Frame suggest that the biggest mistake would be to place a fixed limit on carbon dioxide levels too early on, without leaving room for adapting to new research. Dr Allen said, “Providing our descendants have the good sense to adapt their policies to the emerging climate change signal they probably won't care about how sensitive our climate is because they will have been smart enough to limit the damage.”

 Tool-use in animals is often equated with intelligence. But Maja Choma wonders that if even pigeons can learn to use them, what does it say about our high opinion of ourselves?

 “Tool use is the external employment of an unattached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position or condition of another object, organism or the user itself when the user holds or carries the tool during or just prior to use and is responsible for the proper and effective orientation of the tool”
(p10 Animal tool behavior by B. Beck. (1980)

Imagine getting up in the morning and not using a single tool all day long. No spoon or even a bowl for your cereal. No coffee from a machine on the way to lectures, no pen and paper for your notes. No phone calls, no iPod, no internet. Just nothing. 

It’s not until you imagine a world without tools that you realise how dependent we’ve become on them in every aspect of our lives. The influence of technology can be seen everywhere in modern society, but throughout evolution, tool-use has been our characteristic skill. We like using tools; a baby will play with them from a very early age, even if it just means banging one thing against another to make a fun noise.

It’s something we take pride in, imagining it requires a lot of intelligence and understanding, as something that sets us apart from other animals, something that helped us survive and become such a dominant species.  Being an extremely self-centred species, therefore, we find animals using tools fascinating. We’ve always thought that being able to use tools is a sign of some special ability, a human-like intelligence or logic. But is it? 

A crow can make a hook out of a twig and use it to extract snacks from holes. A chimpanzee can use a box to stand on or a stick to reach a banana. Even a snail can use small stones to shift its own balance in order to turn the right way up (yes, someone made an experiment to see what happens when you put a snail up side down on its shell.) Are these instances demonstrating special cognitive abilities? Why should tool manufacture and use be a good indicator of having them? Just because humans are smart (we tell ourselves) and use tools doesn’t mean that animals who use tools are smart. In fact to say so would be very naïve – if not plain stupid.

In 1917, Wolfgang Köhler reported some interesting instances of impressive problem-solving behaviour in a number of chimpanzees; a bunch of bananas was placed in a room, high enough to be out of easy reach of the 7 chimps present, and a small wooden box was placed in a far corner. All the chimps tried to obtain the food by jumping, but when it failed, they paced for some time when suddenly one individual ran to the box, pushed it under the bunch, climbed and reached the bananas. Köhler called this behaviour insightful, causing a great controversy. The problem-solving didn’t require trial-error learning or special training, yet the chimp did it; no-one taught the animal to push objects or to get on top of them in order to reach others, yet it did so in one smooth, error free way, straight to the success of eating the banana.

Other experiments include chimps using a series of gradually longer sticks to reach for other sticks, the final one being of the correct length to reach a reward. Again, no trial or error learning was present: the chimp simply sat for a while, contemplated, and then solved the problem smoothly and with minimal error.  Insightful indeed. But surely such flashes are only present in primates? Not true. Almost 70 years latter, a group of psychologists from Harvard University decided to have a closer look at this “special ability” – with pigeons. 

Epstein and colleagues trained 11 adult pigeons; some were trained to just push a small box around their cages towards a green spot, others were trained to climb a fixed box and peck on a picture of a banana (and not fly or jump towards it), still others were taught separately both of the actions. In their experiment, they placed a picture of a bout of reach, and a box away from it, than put a bird into the cage and observed and filmed its actions.

First three birds, all of which has been trained in both actions separately, behaved very similarly: each subject was at first “confused” –looked around, gazed back and forth at banana and box, but after a while and rather suddenly each one would go to the box and start pushing it towards the banana, then on reaching the right spot, climb the box and peck the picture. The birds that were taught only one part of the solution never volunteered the whole sequence, nor did the birds that were taught both actions but weren’t trained in pushing box in one direction – they pushed the box aimlessly for 14 minutes at a time without stopping. They seemed quite happy with their lot. 

Nevertheless, viewers of the resulting video were impressed and astounded by the pigeons’ apparent problem-solving abilities.  What can we conclude then? Epstein thought his study showed how easy it was to read too much into simple algorithms of behaviour. Humans are prone to project our own emotions and thoughts onto other creatures which show a similar behaviour pattern to our own, ascribing insight, logic, and reasoning to simple actions which may be nothing of the sort. The idea of ‘insight’ and any other special abilities could no longer be reliably derived from tool-related behaviour.  

But what does that say about ourselves and our infinitely complex tools? Do we really have flashes of insight, or are we just enacting aspects of conditioned behaviour in what appears to be a complicated and sophisticated way?

Or maybe, just maybe, we aren’t as clever as we think….

by Alexandra Paynter
 

The first Vertigo this term had been dogged by misfortune; acts had backed out and new bands had to be found and sorted out at the last minute. Luckily this disaster wasn’t evident and didn’t spoil the evening.

Jack Harris, an Imsoc regular, was the first to step up with his folk tune offerings. His songs dealt with topics ranging from bears to mountains to the flowers around him. They reminded one of stories heard as a child and soon he had a small group sitting around his feet, listening intently. Realising this he offered the rest of the cellar a chance to sit down, adding “Don’t just obey me; that’s fascism!” Much of his performance was of this rather surreal, delightful nature. His style was that of a storyteller and his soulful voice was comparable to the passion in David Gray’s “Babylon.” He kept the laughs going until he was ushered off stage for the next act.

Dave House was an earnest, likeable South Londoner with the ghetto-complex of Jamie T and the lyrics of Lily Allen. He also has much in common with Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, to whose label he is signed. They both sing in American accents for no good reason – indeed, House’s voice is reminiscent more of Death Cab For Cutie‘s Ben Gibbard than Lily Allen‘s mockney gurnings. He was certainly fun, and very enjoyable, but his work is hardly groundbreaking. Many artists in London sing in exactly the same style and about the same things and House doesn’t exactly stand out from them. He certainly isn‘t bad, but he will need to step up his game if he is to be at the forefront of this new movement.

Francois and the Atlas Mountains, however, were exceptional. In the vein of Architecture in Helsinki they used a variety of different instruments to produce a very funky folk sound. Headed by the ridiculously good looking Francois, possessor of a wonderfully soft French accent, the songs instantly sounded beautiful on an almost mystical level, without bothering with silly things like lyrics. However, they held the audience’s attention best during their most energetic songs, which brought out their eccentric, fun side, whereas their slower tracks work best on record. If you get a chance to see them, this band is a must and they may just become an instant favourite in your record collection.

Photo of Francois and the Atlas Mountains by Alexandra Paynter. 

A ‘women’s magazine’ for students in Oxford is currently being developed, but the project has been met with mixed reactions. Is there a need for such a magazine? Who would read it?  What should it include? It isn’t immediately obvious.  A survey of forty-two female students found no significant agreement on whether there was a need or even a general want for such a magazine, but a significant majority of respondents felt that they would read such a magazine if available. It is difficult to know exactly what these responses can tell us, since the terms used in the questionnaire are, sadly, somewhat ambiguous. Should we take the term ‘women’s magazine’ to mean glossy copies of Eve and Cosmo or a hardline feminist journal without pictures?  

Any type of media with ‘woman’ in either the title or tagline can be scary. It creates the impression of being exclusively for a female reader or listener or viewer, and isn’t exclusivity exactly what the 21^st century hopes to leave behind? Take Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 for example.  Sally Feldman, one-time editor of the programme argues that the title is a reference to its contents and style, and not its audience. But what does this mean? How can the term ‘woman’ be applied to such things as content and style?  

Sally Feldman explained it in terms of ‘the twin peaks’. Firstly, she argued that women’s media involves encouraging a ‘female’ perspective on all issues. It isn’t hard to achieve, you simply need female editors, female reporters and female voices. Secondly, it should focus on topics that are thought to be of special interest to women. More than tampons, eyeliner and needlework, this applies to all areas of life in which women’s experiences can be seen as separate and different to those of men. The separation and difference are, of course, matters of opinion. But when has objectivity ever been a golden rule for the media? 

The areas of life that remain different for men and women are constantly changing. It would be naive to suggest that such differences don’t exist. But what if by focusing on them, we simply prolong and exaggerate them? Perhaps we should be striving for a public sphere such as that envisioned by the great philosopher and sociologist, Jurgen Habermas. He developed the idea of having a place for unified rational discussion between all individuals. A place in which one’s argument means more than one’s identity. He suggested that the modern media would be the best way for this ideal to be brought to life. 

However, isn’t Habermas’ concept of the public sphere a bit naïve? Is it possible that such a sphere could ever be equally open to all members of society? His vision of so-called ‘identityless interaction’ was, after all, based on the coffee house discussions of an eighteenth century French elite. Do we not need to realise that there are ‘informal impediments’ to participation in the public sphere which can easily persist even if everyone is formally included?  For example it is well known that research has shown that women are more likely to be interrupted in formal settings such as academic meetings, than men are.  How therefore, can a single public sphere ever allow individuals to be ‘identityless’?  

In order to remove these ‘informal impediments’, some people have therefore argued for a multiplicity of public spheres – a range of discursive arenas geared towards different groups. Ideally, these arenas would allow each group to find its ‘voice’ and the confidence required for successful interaction in the unified public sphere. This is where women’s media comes into play. A female only space gives women the opportunity to have their say on issues that matter to them, something which is more difficult in the public sphere than is always recognised. 

These conclusions suggest that research into the consequences of a women’s magazine in Oxford needs to be more imaginative. Rather than asking participants directly about the want or need for such a magazine, perhaps we need to look at the how female students in Oxford feel about their interaction within the wider student body. If most women feel that they are impeded in such involvement, then maybe a separate sphere for women’s media in Oxford is a good idea.

By Mona Sakr

One of the largest nightclubs in Oxford, Park End, is about the undergo a redesign.Over the next month, Park End will be transformed into a Lava Ignite club in a massive £500 000 redesign.The popular student venue is being taken over by Lava Ignite, who have bases across the country. Regular club nights won't be affected during the revamp, as the dance rooms will be decorated one by one. The new venue will maintain its 1200 person capacity, but organiers hope that the changes will improve the clubbing experiences of the locals.The £500 000 revamp, which will be completed by November 30th, will see a new decor for the club, as well as new flooring and exterior, and special VIP areas which will be available for hire. In addition to this, the range of music played will be widened to cater for all musical tastes.With threats from new student nights on the increase, Park End has had to take some drastic steps to capture the attention of clubbers. Manager Ken Getgood said: "The club has been known as the Park End for over 15 years and is one of Oxford's longest-running nightclubs. Once complete, however, the re-fit is certain to attract every clubber in the town."

by Hayley MirekWe live in a culture obsessed with celebrity. The sheer number of gossip magazines demonstrates this, but it is somewhat disturbing to think that the toils and hardships of Britney Spears are, in terms of column inches, far ahead of famines in Africa and that beautiful young “actresses” have a place in Heat regardless of whether or not they actually possess any talent.
Sienna Miller could be called such an actress. That is why it was odd watching her in Interview and discovering that she can indeed act. Miller plays Katya, an actress who, like her portrayer, is better known for her romances and fashion choices than her acting roles. Steve Buscemi plays Pierre Peders, a man who considers himself the polar opposite to tabloid journalism. He is a “real” journalist, a man who investigates and exposes the ills of society – yet he has been demoted to interviewing Miller’s frivolous starlet.
Interview is an adaptation of a Dutch film, originally directed by Theo van Gogh. Directed by Buscemi, it is the first in a planed series of adaptations of van Gogh’s films. It maintains much of van Gogh’s style; intense dialogue between flawed, textured and fiercely realistic characters.  
An early scene sees Pierre Peders sitting at a table waiting for Katya, fuming about the fact that he should be in Washington reporting the real news. Once Katya arrives Peders does little to hide his disdain for her. The interview is a disaster and they leave swearing at each other.  
After Katya is blamed for a car crash, Peders finds himself in her apartment and what follows is a magnificently tense scene between the two. In short, Interview is a long filmed conversation; it is certainly not a film for Bruce Willis fans who dislike films lacking in explosions and gritty action. Yet, superb performances from Miller and Buscemi combined with unpredictable plot twists make the conversation fascinating.  
It is clear from Katya and Peders’ conversation that the conflict between them is not based on genuine hate (or even dislike) but a fundamental misunderstanding of what the other represents. For Peders, Katya feeds the insipid, trashy side of journalism that keeps the public distracted from the real stories. For Katya, Peders represents the papers that print lies about her and are more concerned with her fluctuating breast size than her talent.
Buscemi and Miller were made to play this film’s principal characters. Buscemi’s famously worn, dishevilled appearance works beautifully for the decidedly creepy Peders. And Miller is pretty, thin, and charismatic enough to play a coke-snorting actress who seems to never wash her hair and yet can seduce any man with a smile.  
I didn’t like either of the characters, but then I don’t think that is the director’s aim. Despite this, I did really did enjoy Interview. It is a film that you won’t be able to forget after leaving the cinema. Funny, uncomfortable and sad, it proves that Miller is more than Jude Law’s ex-fiancée.  
Britney Spears once said “I don’t like movies that make me think.” If you share Britney’s sentiment, do not see Interview – you will hate it.  But, if you like a strong film that won’t leave you emotionally satisfied, you should see Interview.

by Mary WaireriRodolphe Marconi’s Lagerfeld Confidential is an intimate portrait of one of the most iconic figures of the fashion industry. Born in Hamburg in 1938, Lagerfeld moved to Paris at 14 and by 20 was working for established fashion houses such as Valentino. Since then, Lagerfeld has designed for Chloe and redefined Chanel. He has been so influential in the fashion world that Vogue named him “the unparalleled interpreter of the mood of the moment”. Marconi followed Lagerfeld for two years, enjoying unprecedented access both to Lagerfeld’s public and private life, producing over 200 hours of footage. Luckily, the film is only 87 minutes long, and all the better for it. The result is a dense, skillfully edited documentary that does not waste a single frame. Marconi is adamant that Lagerfeld Confidential should be taken seriously as a film; “it is not another film about fashion or ‘appearances’. Rather, it is a human portrait of an exceptional man.”
It is easy to see why Marconi chose Lagerfeld as his subject; he’s intense, compelling and witty and the film captures Lagerfeld’s many quirks and idiosyncracies perfectly. He is a man who is at once an integral contributor to the fashion industry yet strangely removed from it.
Furthermore, he is fiercely independent, living largely in physical and emotional isolation from others. In fact at one point he claims “I don’t want to be a reality in people’s life, I want to be like an apparition”. This sentiment sums up the impression the viewer is left with by the end of Lagerfeld Confidential. Lagerfeld is an intriguing character but he remains inaccessible to us in many ways. This is partly Marconi’s failing; he displays a laughable level of coyness when questioning Lagerfeld on his sexual relationships and positively skims over more awkward lines of questioning – in particular, the moment when Lagerfeld explains his mother’s hostility towards him when he was sexually abused as a child. Therefore, the most important criticism of Lagerfeld Confidential as a documentaty is that it feels somewhat superficial.
 Many of the insights into Lagerfeld’s personal relatonships and upbringing are interesting but Marconi seems reluctant to probe too deeply, which is difficult to understand considering the rapport he clearly established with his subject in the period of filming.
The fashion world is almost exclusively painted as a hollow and intellectually bankrupt environment so Lagerfeld Confidential is an achievement in showing us the humanity behind the Haute Couture. Lagerfeld Confidential is unexpectedly engaging but ultimately falls short because of its failure to give us a more complete impression of its

by Ross PhilipsIn today’s cinema the truly epic battle scene has been replaced by computer generated images. Although the capabilities of CGI to create realistic and sophisticated battle animations have grown incredibly over the last ten years, it’s just not the same as seeing real armies and actual destruction. The most truly epic and beautiful battle scene ever captured on film is not in the Lord of the Rings. It is the attack on Hidetora’s castle, in Ran, Akira Kurosawa’s samurai inspired adaptation of King Lear.
In this scene, Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, brilliantly portrayed by Tatsuya Nakadai, is betrayed by his son, Taro, to whom he has bequeathed his crown. Instead of using fast paced editing, sound effects, and handy-cams in order to immerse  us in a first person perspective of the battle, Kurosawa uses long takes with the camera watching from high above as thousands of samurai warriors storm the castle. He shows scenes of incredible carnage, piles of bodies strewn with arrows, a man holding his severed arm, another man who has been shot through the eye with an arrow; however, instead of the sounds of battle, Kurosawa plays only the dramatic orchestral score. This allows the audience to reflect on what is being shown. Kurosawa often cuts away from these images of carnage to show the sun shining through the clouds, creating a visual metaphor of the heavens above juxtaposed with hell on earth. It is as if the camera is the eye of God watching from above.
The scene ends with Hidetora sitting motionless as arrows fly around his head and his castle burns around him. All of his bodyguards and his concubines have been killed.
The troops outside wait for the castle to finish burning down expecting that Hidetora will commit suicide rather than dishonor himself in defeat, but to their amazement Hidetora emerges from the smoke. He slowly walks down the steps towards the samurai army. Instead of attacking him the soldiers move to create a path for him to walk through. Despite his now pitiful state they are unwilling to attack the man who was once their tyrannical leader. As Hidetora walks through the gates of the exterior wall, Kurosawa frames the burning castle behind him. What makes this scene truly amazing is that there is no CGI. Kurosawa built a castle solely for the purpose of burning it down in order to film this one scene. For this reason, each shot in the scene had to be filmed in one take. Kurosawa manages to pull it off flawlessly. When it was released in 1985, Ran the most expensive ever made in Japan; however, this scene set a benchmark of excellence not only for Japan, but also for cinema around the world.