Faking, foolery andtricking tabloidsDocumentary-maker ChrisAtkins talks about hoaxing

A different typeof street music Busking on the streets ofLincoln

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Is it over £9,000?Tuition fee dilemmas...

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To AV or not AV –why we need an

alternative

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Pay before theyplay anything with

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A student’s worstnightmare – onemonth, no booze

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April 2011 Year 4, Issue 3

Exclusive: The self styled ‘Fresh Prince’ ofLincoln, Andreas Zacharia, was originally disqualified from this year’s SU elections - butstill went on to win after a university officialdecided to keep him in the running.

The Linc reveals the decisions that were keptconfidential from voters and how this year’s SUelections contained the most serious challengesto the rules in an election yet.

Continued on page 5

• Disqualified,• Appealed, • Won the election

THE LINC2

Editor’s Letter

News in Brief

EditorCharlotte Reid

Deputy EditorJonathan Cresswell

News EditorVacant

Sports EditorBradley King

Deputy Sports EditorCalum Fuller

Culture EditorLuke Morton

Deputy Culture EditorSamantha Viner

Style EditorNatalie Littlewood

Lifestyle EditorStephanie Bolton

Dep. Lifestyle EditorSophie Card

Pictures EditorAnneka James

Readers’ EditorSamantha Pidoux

Contributors Rebecca CarolineShane CroucherMaken EetupTom FarmeryOli GibbonsMarcell GrantLauren GreyEmma GreatorexEmma KayTim LongCarly Norton Max PettiferRyan PetersJack TeagueScott WheelerDavid Wriglesworth

Special ThanksProfessor Richard KeebleProfessor John TullochBarry TurnerRichard Orange

The Linc was printed byMortons Print Limited,Hornastle, Lincolnshirewww.mortonsprint.com

The views and opin-ions expressed in thispaper are not neces-sarily the views of theUniversity of Lincoln,the University of Lin-coln Students' Unionor the Lincoln Schoolof Journalism.

All rights in the design,text, graphics and other ma-terial in this paper and the se-lection or arrangementthereof is copyright of TheLinc or other third party, un-less otherwise stated. Anyunauthorised use of materi-als is prohibited, if you re-quire permission pleasecontact editor@thelinc.co.uk

We appreciate when read-ers or people quoted in arti-cles point out any errors offact or emphasis, and we willinvestigate all cases. Theseshould be sent via email tocorrections@thelinc.co.uk.

The Linc tries to abide tothe NUJ’s code of conductand the PCC.

With the summer fast ap-proaching it is tempting toforget about university andbask in the sunshine. How-ever, it is a worrying timefor higher education as uni-versities have started re-vealing what they want tocharge for their courses, tu-tors are striking over theirpensions and there are nomore Banned University ofLincoln adverts. Shame.

In this final edition of theyear we scrutinise the SUelections, speak to “compul-sive liar” and film-makerChris Atkins and look at

what really worries you themost – why there’s notmuch at the Engine Shed.

Meanwhile, it is time forThe Linc to go through achange as most of the writ-ers go into hibernation tocomplete three years of uni-versity work in about amonth. Also as the enddraws eerily close we mustknuckle down before theystart charging us £9k for it.

But The Linc will be leftwith a team who are accus-tomed to the paper and Iam sure will enjoy the re-sponsibility of being in

charge of a publication andthe sleepless nights before aprint edition.

It will be an exciting timeas most of the establishedteam leave and I hope thefresh staff will have newplans, ideas and go in anydirection they want.

The new editor is, unsur-prisingly, the currentdeputy editor, JonathanCresswell. After beginningas a staff reporter in his firstyear, and as a second yearhis next job title at The Lincwas Assistant Deputy Edi-tor. That giant promotion

proves that it was alwaysclear that he was a keen andvaluable part of the team.

He is also responsible fora number of our recenttechnological developments– coincidentally for those ofyou asking The Linc’siPhone App should be com-ing soon.

So as my two years of TheLinc come to an end I justhave one small plea: if youare interested in writingand want to get yourmoney’s worth from theuniversity then start writingfor us.

Whoops.I'm not particularly sure

how this happened. Nor-mally the person who writesin this box is the one tellingme things like "No, youcan't write that,” and “Is itreally appropriate to com-pare playing Farmville withsmoking-induced cancer?"

But now the job of exer-cising restraint comes tome, as I become the fifth ed-itor and gain the responsi-bility of taking The Linc into its fifth year. It's quiteyoung for a publication, but

hopefully you see it as a re-liable source of the impor-tant news, culture, lifestyle,style and sport that matterto you. But don’t considerme personally a reliablesource on all that, as I stillthink that corduroy is cool.

And with many of thefrankly brilliant team whoI’ve worked with over thelast year move on to dis-cover what a “real world” is,there’s many free spaces onthe team for anyone whowants to be part of it.

Whether you fancy writ-

ing, photography, advertis-ing or even the technicalside of things (and trust me,there's more than just post-ing things to the internet)then please get in touch –just email me.

I've had absolutely themost fun while working onThe Linc. It’s a great bit ofexperience and I've metsome absolutely fantasticpeople though it. Don’t beworried about getting in-volved. I started by writingabout video games once aweek and I'm about to be-

come the one in charge.Maybe that's something tomake you slightly worried,but either way, the workpays off.

And best of all, there’s thesatisfaction that when youprint that article findingwhere the university has gotit wrong – it’s their moneyyou're spending to do it.

So I hope you enjoy thisissue of The Linc – and ifyou do, stick with us on thewebsite for daily updatesand we'll see you on paperagain in September.

The Linc on your phone

You can now get the latest updates from The Linc straightto your phone with our new mobile app.

AndroidRight now the app is supported on most phones runningthe Android operating system.

You’ll be able to get the new stories delivered to yourmobile with automatic updates and share stories on Twit-ter and Facebook from within the app.

To download the app, just searchfor “The Linc” on the AndroidMarket or scan this QR code witha barcode scanner app or usingGoogle Goggles.

Charlotte ReidEditorcharlotte.reid@thelinc.co.uk

Jonathan CresswellDeputy Editorjonathan.cresswell@thelinc.co.uk

The delays before working doorsThe University of Lincoln has passed on theblame about ongoing problems with door ac-cess to various university buildings.

The newly-opened Business and Law build-ing will have its current disabled entrance up-graded to have power assisted doors after theDisabled Students Group called for better ac-cess – but it won’t happen until the summer.

The university said that delays were due to“road improvement works due to be under-taken by an external third party” and it was“beyond the university’s control”.

In March, it took a month for the doors forthe MHT building to be fixed as the universitywaited for new parts to be delivered.

Death at Brayford Court student accommodationA 37-year-old man was found dead at theBrayford Court student accommodation onCarholme Road.

Police were called at 5pm on Tuesday,March 15th and there were a number of policecars and ambulances present at the residentialsite.

There were no suspicious circumstancesand the man was not a University of Lincolnstudent.

Raising money with a red nose rideThe Glasshouse in Lincoln raised over £600for Red Nose Day after cycling the distance of177 miles as part of a staff challenge.

Twelve of The Glasshouse staff took part inthe challenge, cycling the distance from Lin-coln to London.

The Glasshouse company chose to supportComic Relief as their main charity this year,as Red Nose Day is a “large national event thatbrings many companies together and changescountless live within the UK and Africa” saidthe Glasshouse’s Laura Goodliffe.

Leaftet littering discussed at StudentCouncilThe issue of the number of leaflets floodingthe campus during the SU elections wasraised at Student Council in March.

Over 14,000 were printed and candidatescommented they hadn’t put them all into usebecause they didn’t want to “wallpaper” theatrium.

Dan Derricott, vice-president for academicaffairs said that feedback would be generatedafter the elections on what worked and whatwas unsuccessful.

Students were also informed that theleaflets used were all recycled afterwards.

Familiar sight? MHT, Architecture and Businessand Law buildings all had door issues recently.

iPhoneThe Linc app is almost here on iPhone - check our websitefor updates over the next few weeks.

You’ll be able to watch our videos and listen to ourweekly podcast as broadcast on Siren 107.3FM.

For more details, visit www.thelinc.co.uk/mobileapps

3www.TheLinc.co.uk

News

An attempt to “restate the meaning and pur-pose of higher education”, or a clever way torebrand the university experience to accom-modate for upcoming budget cuts?

The university’s new Student as Producerscheme intends to bridge the gap between thetwo core processes of a university – teachingand research. Some may argue, however, thatthe two should remain mutually exclusive andthat research is what the university owes stu-dents as consumers.

The Student as Producer festival, whichtook place on March 31st, displayed severalexamples of how students can, and already do,engage directly with their own education. Itincluded events such as “become a scientist

day” and culminated in a keynote addressfrom Monica McLean entitled “Pedagogy andthe University”.

McLean said that the Student as Producerscheme could help to conciliate the differencebetween lecturers’ academic principles andthe students’ need to discover how learningrelates to their own lives. She added “being in-tellectual should be seen as ordinary”, sayingthat Student as Producer could help studentsto perform better in life after university, andimprove employability.

The Higher Education Academy awardedthe scheme £200,000 for the period 2010-13,during which it will be slowly phased into ac-ademic life at the University of Lincoln, whichhas itself contributed roughly £140k.

The university will join several other insti-

tutions that are implementing similarschemes including Warwick, Reading,Sheffield, Maastricht and others.

The project director is the university’s deanof teaching and learning Professor MikeNeary, he commented on the overall projectand its aims saying: “The idea is that studentsbecome more of a part of the academic projectat the university… we’re thinking about waysin which we can get students more involved inthe design and delivery of their own learning.”

He discussed how much of an effect theproject will have on everyday academic life:“It’s not meant to be a huge shift, there’s al-ready a lot of this going at the university...what we are going to do is make this activitymainstream, so students learn by doing andby discovery.”

When discussing the quality of existing de-grees in the climate of budget cuts he said: “Ican’t speak for what all students want, I knowfrom research that it’s [Student as Producer]a very good way of helping students to learn…we do think students are consumers, they paymoney for the experience, but we also thinkstudents are much more than that.

“Universities are not schools, universitiesare not about telling people things, they areabout producing knowledge… so when thestudents leave university they haven’t just gota degree but they are able to show employersthe work they have produced.

“We know what wonderful places universi-ties are, and when we can get that relationshipbetween teaching and research right, and thenwe can really make things happen.”

The end of students as consumers

The university’s Raise and Give (RAG) soci-ety held their annual fundraising week re-cently and raised approximately £1,900.

The week, which ran from March 20th toMarch 27th, included a range of events.There was RAG in a box, which involvedmembers of the society spending 12 hoursoutside the media building in cardboardboxes, a dodgeball tournament and a rubberduck race down the Brayford.

Jessie Bode, organiser of RAG week, washappy about the week’s success: "I'm reallypleased about how much we've managed toraise."

All events were welcomed by students fromacross the university, according to Bode. Shesaid: "Students who weren't part of RAG sup-ported the week, we sold 89 ducks for theduck race and we had over 100 people par-ticipate in the dodgeball tournament."

Some members of the team also undertooka charity sky dive, on March 20th, at Hibald-stow Airfield in Brigg, North Lincolnshire.Each skydiver was raising money for their in-dividually chosen charities.

The money raised will be going towardstheir chosen charities The RNLI, MultipleSclorsis Society and Leukemia and Lym-phoma research by holding a number ofevents across campus.

Phil Krstic, community action andfundraising officer for the Students’ Unionalso commented about the efforts made byRAG: "I'm very proud of everyone’s involve-ment. It's a unique event and I'm very proudof the whole of RAG."

After the success of the event there aremany plans for the future of RAG to raisemore money for more charities who needpeople’s support.

In light of the recent devastation in Japanthe group plan to raise money to help therestoration of the country, as well as eventsfor the upcoming World Aids Day.

For more information about RAG’s up-coming events visit their Facebook page bysearching "Lincoln RAG".

RAG weekraises £1,900for charityby Emma Greatorex

RAG spend 12 hours in boxes outsidethe MHT building. Photo: Jessica Bode

The charity dodgeball teams.Photo: Jessica Bode

Rubber ducks floating down the Brayfordin the duck race. Photo: Jessica Bode

by Marcell Grant

THE LINC4

Students are often quick to complain aboutthe standard of accomodation in the city, butwith so many complaints, who is responsiblefor poor quality places still being recom-mended?

The University of Lincoln is part of the Lin-coln City Student Accommodation Accredita-tion Scheme, which aims to provide studentsin Lincoln with accommodation that meetsstandards set out in its code of practice.

The scheme involves numerous partners,including the University of Lincoln andBishop Grosseteste, Lincolnshire CountyCouncil, Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue andLincolnshire Police Authority.

The code of practice for the scheme statesthat “the main aim of the code of practice is to

provide safe, clean and well-managed accom-modation for students living in Lincoln”. Stu-dent accommodation companies such as ClubEasy and Lighthouse are part of the schemetoo.

It is down to the University of Lincoln andBishop Grosseteste to decide if a housingcompany provides adequate accommodationto be accredited in the scheme. Paul Ranshaw,the Housing Standards Officer at City of Lin-coln council said that “the scheme applicationprocess is administered by the two universi-ties”.

The University of Lincoln’s accommodationservices webpage states that “the scheme isled by Lincoln City Council” with a number ofpartner bodies contributing. Michael Ball, theresidential services manager at the Universityof Lincoln, said that the accommodation ac-

creditation scheme was “a partnershipscheme and it would not be seen as any oneorganisation 'leading' the scheme”.

Ball also said that the the university tries toensure that “compliance is achieved from reg-istered landlords and that new initiativeswhich involve compliance or good practice arepassed down to the sector”.

Last year, the University of Lincoln’s Stu-dents Union (SU) ran an accommodation sur-vey on student housing, including bothuniversity owned accommodation and hous-ing accredited by the scheme.

The survey was entirely based on studentopinion, and gave accommodation providersa score out of four for various areas of service,including value for money and problem reso-lution.

In the SU opinion survey, Lighthouse fared

particularly poorly, receiving only one staroverall. Michael Ball said that “no provencomplaints have been received by the Accred-itation Scheme regarding this company”.

Kayleigh Taylor, welfare and diversity offi-cer for the SU, said that the student accom-modation accreditation scheme has a“minimum set of standards [centred] largelyaround safety and doesn't look at service orvalue for money issues”.

Taylor, who has been re-elected for the po-sition of vice-president welfare and diversity,stated in her manifesto that she intends to setup an SU–run accommodation service. Shesaid: “The union services are still working onvarious aspects of this [SU led accommoda-tion scheme] with partners and working upsome feasibility plans, however, this will be along term project.”

Unhappy with Lighthouse? Sorry, unisays there’s “no proven complaints”

When we’ll know if Lincoln wants you to pay £9k

As the guessing game for what uni-versities will be charging for tuitionfees in 2012 continues it is interest-ing to speculate what the Universityof Lincoln will be charging.

So far, there has been no indica-tion of figures for Lincoln or whenthey will announce it. However,Bishop Grosseteste, the other uni-versity in Lincoln, revealed onMarch 23rd that they will charge£7,500 with Principal Muriel Robin-son saying: "We have decided to playthis straight with students andcharge them the real cost to us ofproviding their courses”.

Originally, when the proposals toraise tuition fees were put throughparliament in late 2010 it was ex-pected that the average cost of tu-ition fees would be £6,000 a year orless.

Whereas, Dan Derricott, the cur-rent vice-president academic affairsat Lincoln Students’ Union, has saidpreviously that the University of Lin-coln needs to charge £7,500 to breakeven.

However, as some of the worstuniversities in the country or onesthat are not recognisable namesplan to charge from £7,500 to£9,000, despite David Cameron say-ing at the time that universitieswould only be able to charge the fullamount in “exceptional circum-stances”.

The Independent revealed in earlyApril that every university in Eng-land and Wales “has expressed aninterest in charging more” than£6,000 with at least 60 universitiesintending to charge £9,000.

Some of the big chargers so farhave been obvious from the start likeOxford and Cambridge, but the Uni-

versity of Leeds and LoughboroughUniversity were not expected tocharge £9,000, but intend to.

The Times Higher Educationwrote in March that universities areopting for higher fees to make up foreducation cuts and that not even thethreat of the government withdraw-ing funding if they set fees too highwill stop them as “senior sector fig-ures have warned that universitiesare calculating their fee levels tomake up for possible punitive with-drawals of funding in the future,rendering the pressure from the gov-ernment counterproductive.”

While universities had untilMarch 31st to indicate privately tothe government what they intend tocharge, by April 19th all universitieswill have to publically announcewhat they shall be charging. Thismeans the guessing game shall fi-nally be over soon.

by Carly Norton

by Charlotte Reid Fees announed so far..

£9,000Aston University,

University of Bath, University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge,

Durham University, University of Exeter, University of Essex,

Imperial College London, Lancaster Univesity, University of Leeds,

Liverpool John Moores, Loughborough University, University of Manchester,

University of Oxford, University of Reading,

Royal Agricultural College, University of Surrey, University of Sussex,

University College London, University of Warwick

£8,500Leeds Metropolitan University

£8,000St Mary’s University College,University Campus Suffolk

£7,500Bishop Grosseteste Lincoln

VariableCoventry University

(between £7,500 and £9,000)

London Metropolitan University(between £6,000 and £7,000)

Lighthouse is one of several accommodationproviders that students have had issues

with. Photo: Jonathan Cresswell

5www.TheLinc.co.uk

SU Elections: the complaintsand controversy

This year’s elections were the first time in theUniversity of Lincoln’s Students’ Union his-tory that a count was suspended and a com-plaint was appealed against.

The count for the role of vice-president ac-tivities was suspended on March 21st, the dayof the election but no reason was given as towhy.

The complaint made that was eventually ap-pealed against, but it was never revealed whythe count was suspended.

In the campaigning week period The Linchighlighted that Andreas Zacharia, the cur-rent vice-president of activities, had made useof union resources to encourage people to votefor him. People who were friends with theULSU Activitiez account received a request tojoin the group “Fresh – Andreas – vote”.

Regulation 8(v) of the Students’ Unionrules on how to run the elections restricts theuse of unauthorised publicity materials whichare then “detailed in the information pack andat the candidate’s briefing”, which lists SU re-sources as one of those banned.

The Linc also highlighted that two of thecandidates, Ary Sharif, who went on to winthe election for president as well as Zacharia,received the official backing from a sports andsocieties club.

The Lincoln Lakers, the basketball team,gave Sharif and Zacharias their support whilstthe Lincoln Jets, the cheerleading team, gavetheir support to Zacharia. This was donethrough their Facebook group pages, bychanging the profile pictures and adopted sta-tuses that gave them their support.

Mark Crowhurst, the general manager ofthe Students’ Union, says that if an issue withhow the regulations have been implementedor if they have been broken then a formalcomplaint must be made in writing to the re-turning officer.

However, even if the SU knew a candidatehas broken a rule, a formal complaint has tobe made for any action to be taken, asCrowhurst explains: “If a rule was broken butno complaint received there is therefore nocomplaint so therefore no ruling could bemade.”

Once the complaint had been highlightedwith the returning officer, Al Powell, the mes-

sages and the pictures were removed fromFacebook as it was in breach of regulation 10(ii) which says that no candidate should havethe official backing of any sports of societies.

Since then it has come to light that as wellas The Linc’s complaint one candidate run-ning for the position also complained aboutZacharia’s campaigning. The returning officerbelieved Zacharia should be disqualifiedunder the regulation 8(v) because of his useof union materials. However, the complainanthad written down the regulation 10(ii) on thecomplaint form. When this was taken to anappeal it was then overturned because of thelisted regulation on March 24th.

The complainant attempted to make a fur-ther complaint where he would quote theright regulation but was told he could not andthe count went ahead.

Paul Walsh, the clerk to the Board of Gov-ernors, is the person with the final say in anappeal against the decision of the returningofficer. Walsh explains his small role in the SUelections: “The returning officer is empoweredto adjudicate complaints about the conduct ofthe elections and if the complainants are notsatisfied with the adjudication of the return-ing officer they can complain to me.”

He said that a lot of the job was dealing withinterpretation, and the appeals process was acase of “is the complainant’s interpretation ofwhat the regulation calls for correct”.

One of the appeals that were made to Walshcame down to interpretation and he com-mented: “The complainant’s interpretation ofthe regulations was different from the return-ing officer’s and I judged that the returning of-ficer was correct and that he had the power tomake that interpretation.”

Nothing was said about the process whenthe count was suspended because it “may havebeen detrimental to the process itself,” saysCrowhurst. The SU has still not officially an-nounced anything regarding Zacharia’s previ-ous suspension.

Eventually, the count for vice-president ac-tivities went ahead on March 27th with allthree candidates, Andreas Zacharia, JohnConway and Michael Stewart, all still in therunning for the position. Zacharia won with946 votes, Conway with 399 votes andMichael Stewart with 132 votes, meaning An-dreas continues with his role as a full-time of-ficer in the Students’ Union.

All change at the top with new SU team

Although the winner of activities was not an-nounced on the night every other positionmanaged to avoid being steeped in contro-versy and were allocated as per usual.

The number of students voting was 1,921,which was a considerably higher turnout thanin previous years and exceeded the SU’s aimof achieving 15% student turnout.

The newly created part-time positions ofnon-portfolio officers went to two candidates;Kelly Nicholls and Gemma Cobby. The role ofliberation officer went to Maryim Saghir whohad no opposition, while Samuel Whewall willbecome the new RAG officer.

Jennine Fox unexpectedly won vice-presi-dent academic affairs after five stages of elim-ination under the single-transferrable-votesystem, which potentially served to her bene-fit.

When asked about the elections being akinto a popularity contest, she said: “Hopefullythey liked my manifesto in terms of represen-tation…some people do say it’s a popularitycontest, but ours went to the fifth round andwas very close.”

Fox’s attitude towards lecturers strikingmay foreshadow the involvement she has withthem during her tenure: “Lecturers and stu-dents should be building their own relation-ships, I can understand why the lecturers areon strike…but I don’t really agree with it.”

Her attitude towards cuts in universityfunding will also be important in the nextyear: “These cuts aren’t going to make a mas-sive effect…what I plan to do is listen to whatthe students want.”

Kayleigh Taylor was re-elected as vice-pres-ident welfare with roughly a thousand votes.When asked about her lack of competition shesaid: “My worst fear was going up against

RON [re-open nominations]”.One of her main manifesto points is to im-

prove representation for students who areparents, however, it appears she knows verylittle about the demographics of student par-ents, and hasn’t actually conducted any offi-cial surveys into what they want, relyinginstead on hearsay.

“We need to know how many we have…be-cause we don’t…we’re not basing it on anyconcrete feedback, but we have heard thatsome student parents feel that lecturers aren’tavailable after hours for them,” she said.

Ary Sharif managed to trump the currentvice-president academic affairs Dan Derricottto presidental position with a difference of702 votes. He quipped that the week of cam-paigning was like “living in a bubble”.

Sharif has worked as a photographer inlocal night clubs and knows a large percentageof the student body, but commenting on the

“popularity contest” claim said: “I have moreexperience than most candidates, I’ve beenhere over the past four years… If you think it’sa popularity contest, fair enough but I feel Iknow what needs working on.”

His manifesto states that he wants to focuson events, workshops, networking, and “notnecessarily social events”. This could provedifficult as sports and societies are a huge partof the Students’ Union experience, and areoften underfunded. Sharif, however, claimsthat he will not “shift focus”.

Another key manifesto point of Sharif’s is toimprove the library; he voiced his disapprovalof the cutting of the E-brary system, and saidthat more physical copies should be availabletoo.

When the new officers take their roles in thesummer, it looks as though it will be a verydifferent year as the presidency of ChrisCharnley comes to an end.

by Marcell Grant

by Charlotte Reid and Jonathan Cresswell

VP Activities - Andreas ZachariaPhoto: Sam Cox

President - Ary SharifPhoto: Leila Fitt

VP Academic Affairs- Jennine Fox

Photo: Leila Fitt

VP Welfare -Kayleigh TaylorPhoto: Leila Fitt

THE LINC6

Atkin’s best bluffs

1. Urban fox-huntingIn summer 2010, Atkins made a film pretend-

ing to document a fictional sport called “UrbanFoxhunting”, which appeared to show a groupof people in London killing foxes at night forfun. The story caused uproar and featuredacross the press. It sought to satirise the media’scoverage and demonisation of foxes after a foxattack on a child.

2. Larry the catA Facebook group was created telling the

story of “Tim Sutcliffe”, who claimed the newDowning Street cat Larry belonged to his auntMargaret. But this was, in fact, cooked up byAtkins. The story then appeared in the DailyMail and on BBC Norfolk.

3. Amy Winehouse’s bonfirebarnet

This is the story that Atkins says he will be re-membered for “as the guy who made up AmyWinehouse's hair being on fire". It began whenhis team planted the story in the Mirror aboutWinehouse’s beehive catching fire. A few dayslater the story reappeared in other nationalnewspapers, gossip columns and eventually theTimes of India.

4. Sarah Harding and MENSAThe Girls Aloud star was “revealed” as a secret

astronomer who read books about quantumphysics and even owned a telescope. But it cameto light that the singer did not have a skylight todo a spot of star gazing and the story was justanother catch for the documentary.

Chris Atkins is a liar – a very good one –and the media knows this only too well.Over the past few years the BAFTA-nomi-nated documentary-maker has made aname for himself fooling the British mediainto covering a range of false stories. Mostrecently he fooled the Daily Mail, BBCNews, and others into believing that thePrime Minister's new cat, Larry, was stolenfrom his aunt.

His work aims to expose the amount ofoutright nonsense that appears in themedia. Journalists, desperate to fill spacein news print or flesh out a television bul-letin, will often publish unverified informa-tion.

In his 2009 documentary “Starsuckers”,Atkins fooled assorted tabloids into pub-lishing made-up stories about celebrities.One of these included Girls Aloud singerSarah Harding having a book collection onquantum physics and a telescope.

“They don’t care. That's the most de-pressing thing. You do something like ‘Star-suckers’ that shows this stuff ... and theyliterally do not care and keep on going.They're oblivious to it,” Atkins says.

“The only time they think ‘hang on, we’reprinting all this shit that isn't true’ is if peo-ple stop buying their papers. Perversely, theopposite is the case. The truth is often quitedull. So lies sell better. The public are morereceptive to lies than they are to the truth,because the truth's boring.”

"Starsuckers" also exposed journalists al-legedly willing to use illegal methods of ob-taining information – like takingcelebrities’ medical records. As well as MaxClifford, the notorious publicist, talkingcandidly about all of the information hemanages to keep out of the media on behalf

of his clients.The backlash came thick and fast: “Lots

of people tried to sue us. The News of theWorld, Max Clifford, and Bob Geldof wereall queueing up at one point to try and takeus to court if we said the things that wewere going to say about them.”

“We said ‘We'll see you in court’. Then wescreened the film, and we were right. Butthat did take up a lot of time and energy,and unfortunately, money fighting off thesevarious legal challenges. The News of theWorld's one in particular was extremely vi-cious,” Atkins says.

“But similarly [we had] lots of plauditslots of pats on the back, lots of people com-ing up to [us] saying thank you for doingthis, thanks for doing the thing televisiondocumentaries weren't doing.”

He said: “Now people are banging onabout phone hacking like it's new news. Ac-tually, phone hacking is five years old, and‘Panorama’ has just got around to doing adocumentary on it. That's what I call beingcurrent affairs on the BBC.

“At the time, we were the only people re-ally saying ‘Come on, our tabloid press areout of control. They’re printing things thataren't true and they’re breaking the law’.”

He claims no representatives of thetabloids will defend themselves publiclyagainst him: “They've just refused to debatewith me, which I sort of think speaks vol-umes.”

His earlier documentary “Taking Liber-ties” (2007) was about the erosion of civilliberties under Tony Blair’s New Labourgovernment, which flirted with authoritar-ianism.

He gained a BAFTA nomination for thefilm. “Starsuckers” also received wide-spread acclaim, though not in the tabloidsof course.

Both films were made for the big screenand shown in cinemas before making itonto television. They're made in the bigAmerican style of documentary associatedwith the likes of Michael Moore. The reasonAtkins has adopted this style – he’s seem-ingly the only British documentary makerto have done so – is because he “can't standmost British documentaries”.

Atkins says: “All my favourite documen-taries are American. When I was seeingthings like Michael Moore, Morgan Spur-lock, Werner Herzog – even things like‘Murderball’. There were amazing polemi-cal docs and great story-based docs. ‘Spell-bound’, ‘Catching the Friedmans’ – all thisstuff was coming out of America. I'm a bigciné buff and I was watching all of thesedocs going ‘This is what I want to be doing’.These things have a point, rather than ourfilms that didn't seem to have much of apoint.”

He lays the blame at the top-down ap-proach of the TV sector, which most Britishdocumentaries are made for, as they stampout original and creative work.

“You go in, say ‘I've got a great idea. It'sabout the erosion of civil liberties’ and theygo ‘Ah, we've had a civil liberties season,we've had a Blair season, why don't you dosomething about food?’ ... If you have anOscar-winning idea and you go to a TVcommissioner they'll tell you it's crap andsay ‘Why don't you make something aboutfood?’ … because that's what they've de-cided in a planning meeting they need tohave a season on.

“That's why our documentaries on televi-sion – and as a whole a lot of our television– is just unwatchable in Great Britain, be-cause it's made by top-down decisions fromadvertisers, not by people with a creativebone in their body.”

The man who fooled the mediaby Shane Croucher

Chris Atkins, director of the film ‘Starsuckers’,puts the media to the test with fake stories.

Photo: Borderlines Film Festival

7www.TheLinc.co.uk

Opinion

It’s time to vote for a better voteAlmost a year after Britons went tothe polls it’s almost time to voteagain as May 5th marks one of thebiggest days in recent British his-tory. The referendum on whetherwe want to ditch Britain’s First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) in preferencefor Alternative Vote (AV) will takeplace.

So what is the AV? AV is whereyou rank candidates in order ofpreference. If a candidate fails towin 50%+ one of the vote the firsttime around, we then go to the sec-ond preferences. The candidate withthe least amount of votes is knockedout and their voters’ second prefer-ences are then given.

This process then continues untila candidate achieves the necessarypercentage of the vote. This there-fore results in second and thirdpreferences being crucial in manyelections.

So why change the “winner takesall” system? Simply, because it isnot representative of the voters. InLincoln, Tory MP Karl McCartneygot elected with 37% of the vote.

This isn’t unusual. In two-thirdsof constituencies across the country,MPs are elected with less than 50%of the vote. Other examples includeNorwich and Lib Dem MP SimonWright who got elected with 29% ofthe vote. Moreover, these cases arebecoming increasingly common be-cause, like it or not, Britain is nolonger a two party system.

In 1945, 98% of the country votedeither Labour or Conservative. Now,that figure is 65%. However, eventhat figure is artificial. It is clear themajority of the country is not inter-ested in two party politics. In the

European elections of 2009, whereproportional representation is used,the combined Labour and Tory votewas just 45%.

So why would AV change this?After all, it is not proportional rep-resentation (PR). But we shouldn’tlet good become the enemy of per-fect. But the good thing about AV isthat it should be supported by bothsupporters and opponents of PR.AV will also encourage MPs to work

harder for your vote. Under FPTPvoters are coerced into tacticallyvoting – that is voting with yourhead and not your heart. Under AV,you will be able to vote with both,without wasting your vote.

But some people have argued thatAV will mean some get multiplevotes but to quote IPSOS Mori:“This system does not involve somepeople getting more votes than oth-ers. Every voter gets just one vote,

which is counted several times. Yoursecond preference is not a secondvote, it is an instruction about howyou want your (only) vote to be usedif it would to be wasted because yourfirst choice candidate can’t win.”

It might be dismissed as a “LibDem thing” but AV is supported byLabour leader Ed Miliband andmuch of his shadow cabinet. UKIP,the Green Party, and the EnglishDemocrats also support it. David

Cameron might not be a fan, how-ever, the BBC recently reported thatsome Conservative MPs were “re-laxed” with the alternative vote.

Don’t fear AV. It’s not an inferiorsystem or as confusing as someclaim. It will make MPs work harderfor your vote, reduce tactical votingand the adversarial nature of poli-tics. If you’re not happy with poli-tics, take the chance to make achange.

Compare the BA (Hons) Marketing

Across the country, universities are turning into a game of “Play Your Cards Right” as risingfees are announced with cries of “Shall we gohigher? HIGHER!”

Sadly, when most places are going to charge£9,000 it’s not very fun game to play as youalready know the answer.

It’s essentially an inevitability that peoplewill be choosing based on cost – so it’s only solong before the GoCompare man vomits onthe screen with another advert singing: “GoCompare, Go Compare! It’s just loony, goingto uni, with the costs there...”

There are a few people who may find com-fort in a cost-based system of choice. In par-ticular the members of the Conservative party,who consider class a form of natural selection.

The advertising of fees is actually an im-provement at some institutions like Oxfordand Cambridge. One parent, Reynolds Hunt-ington-Smyth told me: “It’s much easier than

bribing now they make the amount clear. Nor-mally you’re coincidentally donating well over£9,000 and ending up with a place!”

There’ll be difficulties attracting students toLincoln with a high cost, as it’s a universitywhere the entrance requirements have previ-ously been just checking that your IQ is higherthan your number of fingers. It’s why so fewpeople from Norwich apply here.

But if they do set fees higher than eightgrand the university is getting ready to pro-mote the city as “the best second rate educa-tion you’ll ever get”.

Hopefully they won’t quote further from“The Inbetweeners” with how they describethe city.

Sources within the university have hintedthat they will either charge £9k or 90p de-pending on whether they can figure out howto work Microsoft Excel.

The rise in fees is necessary for universitiesto continue as like anything else in the countrythat has a social benefit, most of the funding

has been taken away – so it’s likely there’ll stillbe cuts elsewhere.

The university has claimed that it has manyoptions open for funding. However, applyingto Wonga.com for some quick cash might notbe the best backup.

Various cost saving measures have alreadybeen tested including a recent experimentwhere no money was spent on maintenance,leaving doors around the university brokenand closed.

The idea was that if people couldn’t go tolectures, there would be no need wastingmoney on secondary services like “teaching”– freeing up the budget to be spent on morestaff parties.

After discussions with consultancy firmOcean Finance, another option is to consoli-date all of the existing lectures in to one af-fordable monthly lecture.

“Most of the time people don’t bother goingto lectures anyway,” explained universityspokesperson Lotta Cutts, “so if we combine

each of the lectures of about seven or eightpeople we’d only need one of the three the-atres.”

“We could probably rent the other two tosome business enterprise that nobody under-stands. A bit like the EMMTEC building,” sheadded, “nobody knows what that’s for anyway.Who cares? We’ve paid for it now.”

The University of Lincoln has already an-nounced that it will shut the Hull campus dueto the funding cuts as it would cost two mil-lion pound to bring it up to the standards ofthe Brayford campus – though the mostshocking bit was that they think the Brayfordcampus has “standards”.

But if they’re closing campuses due to cost,don’t be surprised when they realise theyspend the most money and the Brayford cam-pus closes and we’ll all have to move to Rise-holme to learn equine sciences.

So let’s have a practice and join me insinging... “I love horses, best of all the ani-mals, I love horses, they’re my friends...”

by Scott Wheeler

by Maken Eetup

The Lincoln “Yes to AV” campaignkicks off at Lincoln Cathedral.Photo: Marcell Grant

THE LINC8

Lifestyle

‘Sober’ and ‘student’ are two words that rarelygo together. However, third year student CarliSmith spent March alcohol-free in aid of Lin-colnshire Police’s Operation Nova.

The initiative started in 2009 with threemain aims to tackle domestic abuse, alcoholrelated anti-social behaviour and violence inthe night-time economy.

Carli got involved in the campaign bychance as a friend was telling her about thecampaign needing a slogan “so being a Mar-keting and PR student I jumped at thechance,” she said.

After coming up with the “sober student”slogan, Carli is not only the face of the cam-paign but is in charge of the social media sur-rounding it, including the Facebook page,Twitter account and writing the blog.

She updated the Operation Nova blog afterevery (sober) night out, with guest posts fromfriends who joined in having an alcohol-freenight out.

Before her challenge began, Carli experi-enced a Friday night in Lincoln with Lin-colnshire Police as part of the “Safe in theCity” programme to see the effects of alcoholabuse first hand: “I was actually in the prisonvan itself, so I was responsible for taking peo-ple who had been arrested to and from thestreets and putting them into the cells for thenight,” she says.

“There was a young lady dressed in not verymany clothes and her boyfriend had beenhandcuffed on what was quite a serious alle-gation, and she was linking arms with himand just joyfully eating pizza whilst herboyfriend was arrested.”

Before she began her alcohol-free month,Carli hoped that it would make students re-alise that you don’t need alcohol to have agood night out: “I think I’m trying to make thepoint [that] people put themselves at riskwhen they’ve had too much to drink and prob-ably do things, say things and just act like gen-eral idiots when they have had too much todrink, so hopefully it will make me moreaware as well.”

"I was slightly apprehensive [at the start]. Idon't think it was the fact I couldn't drink, butmore the freedom of being able to do it wastaken away. I had my last 'drinking' night outon Saturday with friends and family and haveto admit I don't think I will miss how I felt onSunday morning,” she says.

Sperm donating was once a hugepart of the student lifestyle. Anyonebetween the ages of 18-40 could do-nate.

Depending on the male and cir-cumstance, one donation would seethe “goods turn to gold” as theyearned around a £15 payout. Withany tight student budget, this wouldallow a half decent round at the barand a bucket load of tinned beans!

Payments, however, have now

been abolished for sperm donatingas it was deemed unethical and wasbanned by the government, al-though any expenses up to £250 ac-cumulated in the process of thedonation can be reimbursed.

But should the cash really be themain incentive to do such a noblejob? "No it shouldn’t, because noamount of money should put a priceon life," says student Ryan James.

According to the National GameteTrust (NGT), there’s a currentshortage of donors and people are

waiting around a year on average fora sufficient donor: “Only 384 peopleare donating and 500 are needed.”

Although a child born throughsperm donation still has no legal, fi-nancial, social or moral rights overthe donor, some people blame thedecrease in donor numbers on thenew right that children born fromdonations after 2009 can legallyfind the identity of their donor.

However, Joe Coleman doesn'tthink that this should matter: “MyDad's adopted and doesn’t want to

know who his real parents are. It’sthe people that are there for you,and act as the family figure whenyou grow up. These are the peoplewho the child should be loyal too.And I think most of people bornfrom donations may feel the sameway," he says.

Ryan says that knowing a childcould trace him would stop himfrom donating: “I don’t like the ideaof being psychologically and morallyresponsible. Although the law statesthe child has no moral right over the

donor. It doesn’t change how youfeel. Allowing the child to find youridentity, allows them to possiblyfind you,’ explains Ryan.

There are many clinics across theUK that carry out sperm donation.NGT's website, www.ngtd.co.uk,gives clear and practical informa-tion to those considering becominga sperm or egg donor.

To help with further understand-ing involved in donating, contactthe confidential helpline on 0845226 9193.

Would you become a sperm donor?

No alcohol? No problem.by Stephanie Bolton

by Max Pettifer

Fancy swapping a pint of beer for a pint of water?Carly Smith spent a month alcohol-free for Lincolnshire Police. Photo: Adrian Sampson.

Carli’s Diary - Final day, March 19thhttp://operationnova.blogspot.com/

Pre-drinks were relatively easy, I sat sippingLucozade from a cup and despite the pile ofpeer pressure that I was subjected to – “Wewon't tell anyone” “No-one will see” – I did-n't give in! Was I tempted? Yes! Of course Iwas, the girls were giggling and dancingaround in the lounge and kitchen and I wasplonked on a chair.

I didn't take much persuading into thedancing though and I was strangely moresteady on my feet than I would have beenhad I had a drink. I certainly felt the coldmore than I would have if I’d been drinking

and kept yawning - not something thatwould happen if I had a double vodka andred bull! However, I broke through thetiredness and got to the Engine Shed.

One of the perks of not drinking meant Ididn't have to queue for a drink and when Ifancied a drink of water I pushed throughand asked someone to order one for me –due to it being free they didn't mind and saidit was their “good deed for the day”.

But it’s the end of the challenge, onewhole month without alcohol… When em-barking on this adventure I was extremelyapprehensive, nervous I wouldn’t fit in withfriends and scared that I wouldn’t enjoynights out as much, but to be honest the only

effects have been positive. I can hear my liver thanking me for giving

it a break, my stock of paracetamols is at anall time high as I have not had to use anyand my bank balance has drastically im-proved!

Do I think I will stay alcohol free? In aword: no.

It has been an interesting month andhopefully I will have dispelled the myth thatyou have to be drunk to have a good nightout…I certainly have proved it to myself.

Before the challenge I used to shudderwith dread at the prospect of going out with-out drinking but now I don’t think I wouldgive it a second thought.

9www.TheLinc.co.uk

When love goes bad: the mentalharm of domestic abuseOne in eight people will suffer from domestic abuse in theirlifetime. This is one woman’s story.

Imagine feeling helpless, like nothing you do is good enough.Constantly scared that the littlest thing may cause a situationwhich soon spirals out of control and you’re the one that endsup hurt. Made to feel like you are nothing, fear and dominatesyour life.

This is the reality of living with domestic violence, and withone in four women experiencing violence at the hands ofsomeone they love, the chances are that someone you knowwill become a victim.

The organisation Woman’s Aid deal with all type of domesticviolence. A report released in 2004 showed that 45% womenand 26% of men have experienced at least one incident ofinter-personal violence in their lifetime.

Women are more likely than men to be victims of multipleincidents of abuse and sexual violence, with 32% of womenwho have experienced domestic violence doing so more thanfour separate times.

The escalation of physical violence has risen so much thaton average two women a week are killed by a male partner orformer lover. Take the recent story of mother-of-two, JoySmall, who was abused multiple times by her husband AramAziz. Reports from friends say how she was so scared she kepta hammer under her pillow.

Her husband later killed both Joy and their two children be-fore taking his own life. This is just one story that highlightsthe dangers victims of abusive relationships face everyday.

The term “domestic violence” is often perceived as meaning

solely physical violence however the term encapsulates emo-tional abuse, psychological, sexual or financial violence; anysituation where the main aim of one person is to gain controland an upper hand against their partner or spouse.

This is something Linda knows all too well after she thoughtshe’d married the man of her dreams: “I was 23-years-oldwhen I married David. We met when I was just 18-years-old.

“When I look back now I feel I was too young to get married.We bought our first house together when I was 19, so from thatyoung age I already had a 25-year debt of a mortgage,” shesays.

Linda knows firsthand the terror that victims of domesticviolence experience everyday. Having married at such a youngage, she began to realise that her husband’s short temperwould cause him to snap.

“At first he was always ok towards me, but soon he woulduse verbal abuse, like name calling and putting me down. I feltlike I could do nothing right in his eyes. The emotional abusecan be just as bad as the physical, if not worse, as it leaves novisible scars, but it’s something that stays with you forever,”Linda recalls.

As the abuse continued, the strain on Linda was destructive,a repetitive system which ended in further abuse. What startedas emotional abuse slowly escalated into physical violence.

“He never needed an excuse to hit me; I would just be thereto lash out at. Whenever he used physical abuse, I would lie topeople about where my bruises or black eye had come from.

I can only guess that he knew I wouldn't tell anyone that itwas him. He knew I was too weak and too scared of him. I justkept quiet, that way I was avoiding yet another beating,” shesays.

Linda knows how hard it can be to contemplate leaving anabusive relationship. Having tried to leave once, but she wasturned away by an emergency housing scheme, who told herthat she would be making herself and children voluntarilyhomeless, she decided to follow her own path: “I stayed withhim for 25 years, and the abuse never ended. After years of re-alizing things were never going to get any better and most ofall realizing that I am worth better, I decided to file for divorce.

“I knew I had spent the last 25 years of my life weak andscared, but now I had to be strong for once, and do this. Ofcourse he threatened to kill me if I went through with it, butfor some reason his threats were now making me stronger; Iwas determined to get him out of my life.”

With no other means of escape and her abusive ex-husbandsending her death threats, Linda was forced to flee the country.However, regardless of everything she went through, she re-mains positive, stronger and has found a partner who doesn’tuse violence.

“After the divorce I spent the next four years single, andloved it. I have now met someone who I must say is the com-plete opposite to my ex. He would never dream of hitting awoman. He has never so much as raised his voice to me nevermind his fist.”

Linda made it away from her abusive partner, however,there are thousands that still face violence everyday at thehands of a “loved one”, she believes that getting away from herpast was the best thing she ever did and encourages others todo to the same before it escalates out of control:

“If anyone who reads this is going through a similar situa-tion, please, just get out, it may not seem it at the moment, butbelieve me, it will be the best thing you ever did,” she pleads.

by Sophie Card

Most people think of domestic abuse aspurely physical - but mental abuse can hurtjust as much. Photo: Elisabeth Moore

Before 2006, Lincoln didn't really have a de-cent sized venue for music. There was the DrillHall, SCY and the odd pub with a functionroom. Smaller bands would come through thecity and every now and then there would be abig band play the Castle or the Showground,but ultimately Lincoln didn't showcase muchmainstream music.

If the standard Lincolnian wanted to seetheir favourite artist, chances are they'd haveto travel to Nottingham, Sheffield or Leeds –cities with venues of 1,000 plus capacity thatbook the biggest and best touring bands.However, this was set to change with the in-troduction of the Engine Shed.

Opening in September 2006 at a cost of £6million, the 1,600 capacity venue promised tobe a haven for music in Lincoln. The openingnight was headlined by Embrace and sincethen there has been a stream of artists, DJsand comedians walking through its doors in-cluding; Gorillaz, Kasabian, Zane Lowe andRussell Howard. Lincoln's premier club night,Moda, even moved from the function room atSCY to the Engine Shed and has brought someof the biggest names in electro, from Fat BoySlim to Kissy Sell Out.

Despite the number of big names visitingthe venue, the overall amount of gigs is low.At the time of writing there are seven eventsbooked until the end of the year. This includesa DJ set, a tribute band and a comedy show.As such, there are only three actual recordingartists playing the premier live events venuein Lincoln - whereas last year Sheffield Cor-poration, a venue with a smaller capacity,hosted nearly 140 gigs.

The Engine Shed has over 10, 000 studentsand 90, 000 locals so there’s definitely an au-dience.

Instead, these people travel to Rock City inNottingham which at the time of writing hasas many shows in the next nine days as the

Engine Shed has booked for the rest of theyear.

There is obviously room for more bands tobe booked, which they no doubt will, but notenough bands are being booked in advance.Compared to the other local cities, Lincoln isseverely lacking. Even Grimsby Auditoriumhas booked Morrissey. Perhaps more risksneed to be taken?

The bulk of the artists booked for the En-

gine Shed are safe bets at selling out and aremore “student friendly”.

There has been the odd coup, the Radio 1Student Tour and the Gorillaz warm-up showwere brilliant examples of the talent Lincolncan attract, Zane Lowe also named the EngineShed as one of his favourite venues.

It could be an issue of funding and there issimply not enough income to book bandswhich aren't guaranteed to sell out instantly,

but as the old saying goes, “you have to spendmoney to make money”. The reason venuessuch as Rock City, Corporation and Cockpitare doing so well is due to their reputation,which currently the Engine Shed doesn't have.

It is a really good venue, when you're at afull capacity gig there's a great feeling andbands seem to love it, but these moments aretoo few, and without more bookings beingmade, Engine Shed's moment could be over.

THE LINC10

When it comes to making an album, longhours in the studio and plenty of hard workare not uncommon.

But what about funding the album?Most acts will get money from their recordlabel to help with producing, or even putone together themselves at home. Butsome acts are looking to their fans to fundtheir album, whilst raising money for char-ity in the process.

The Blackout, Funeral For A Friend,Madina Lake and even Charlie Simpsonare just some acts who have used Pledge-Music to help fund their next release.

PledgeMusic is a record company thathas set up an online system that allowsfans to “pledge” on items or experiences re-lated to the band in question. These can

range from a download or hard copy of therelease to rarer things such as album art-work or even an acoustic session at yourhouse.

When you go out and do something likethis, there is always a risk that it couldbackfire, but Welsh rockers The Blackout,managed to get half of what they neededwithin three days of their pledge going live.By the time the pledge closed, they had gotmore than 100% of what they needed, with10% the money raised going to the charityTeenage Cancer Trust.

Everyone that pledged had essentiallypre-ordered the bands album “Hope” be-fore it was even recorded.

Gavin Butler, one of the vocalists fromthe band, was overwhelmed by the re-sponse they got: “We were all thinking howcan you have that much faith in a band?”

One of the people who helped to fundthis particular album was Steph Blakemorefrom Somerset.

“I pledged for the listening party becauseI want to see them succeed. I've seen themcome so far already,” she said.

It wasn’t just the chance to listen to TheBlackout’s album before it was releasedthat Steph managed to get.

“My friends basically arranged to haveone of the acoustic sessions at my house.They all paid an equal amount each andmade it happen,” she said.

In total, they managed to find £500 tomake this happen and Steph was morethan happy: “They've been my favouriteband since I was 13 or 14 years old, and I'dasked for them to play at my house everyChristmas and birthday since then. It wasamazing having them in my house.”

Giving bands a helping hand with PledgeMusicby Rebecca Caroline

Culture

Has the Engine Shed runout of steam?by Luke Morton

It’s Lincoln’s major music venue but thingsaren’t sounding great. Photo: Huseyin Kishi

11www.TheLinc.co.uk

With the music business continuing to thrive and competi-tion heating up, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to getnoticed. Alexandra Foxley Johnson and Josh Davie are twolocal musicians hoping to break into the music business.They’re not only students at the University of Lincoln, butthey have also made their mark in the music industry, withsome very positive results.

Johnson is a first year journalism student and describesher musical inspiration as artists such as Florence and theMachine and Imogen Heap. She currently performs all overthe city, including Kind Bar and the Jolly Brewer, and hopesto get more gigs in the future.

“I write and play a lot of different music, a lot of it is al-ternative and something a bit different,” she said. Butsinging isn’t a new talent of Johnson’s and before comingto Lincoln she performed for many people in her hometown of Chesterfield.

“When I was back home over summer I played a lot ofgigs, some which I was asked to do for weddings and birth-days. It gave me the confidence to go out there and ap-proach people in Lincoln.”

Johnson regularly plays at a number of open mic nightsand events like this have encouraged her to visit more. “Irecently played a bigger set at Kind Bar, I played a coupleof covers and a lot of people seemed to receive it quite well.”

She spoke about the support she had already receivedfrom the general public. “They talk to you about your musicand you get encouraged by them to go further. They appre-ciate the amount of work and effort you put into it which isthe most important thing about being a solo singer.”

Josh Davie is a first year history student at the universityand his talents haven’t gone unnoticed. Davie is anothersolo singer and through his open mic nights at bars andclubs he has been recognised by music fans across thecounty.

He says he found getting noticed in a new city difficultafter moving to Lincoln in September. He approached sim-ilar bars and clubs and performed across Lincoln, but hisbig break was on the radio with BBC Introducing earlier thisyear after he sent a demo CD into BBC Radio Lincolnshire.“It was hard to get noticed at first but since appearing onBBC introducing I have had great feedback and hopefullyI’ll be back on the show soon.”

But just how difficult is it for young musicians who wantto get noticed in Lincoln and what is available to them? BenDeyn helped organise Kind Bar’s Couleur night, a popularevent dedicated to help young bands and singers performon stage in front of an large audience.

“Couleur has been a massive help to bands across Lincolnas suddenly there is a new venue for them to play at, onethat’s right in the centre of town and one with credibility.Due to Kind’s intimate feel, the band’s can really connectwith the crowd in a way that never seemed possible any-more.” They have had a huge role in the success of bandswho have left Kind and gone to play across the county andthe event has proven popular. “The event has been very suc-cessful so far, and even though it’s on a completely newnight, we draw in crowds from across the evening whichmakes all the organising worthwhile.”

It’s a long way tothe top

While most of us walk past high streetcharity shops without giving them a sec-ond glance, for record collectors they canbe treasure troves full of hidden gems.Hidden in the back of dusty goodwill col-lections in charity shops across thecountry, are vinyls that can be picked upfor literally a few pence, but can be soldto the right people for potentially thou-sands of pounds.

These stories of diamonds in therough are legendary within collector cir-cles and are what spur on many to visitcharity shops even more than recordfairs or specialist stockists.

One such collector is Ken Peters fromnorth Wales, a man who has been col-lecting vinyl for over 20 years and dur-ing that time has managed to find hisfair share of hidden gems.

He once bought a limited run of anearly Rolling Stones LP at a charity shopin Chester, for literally pocket change,that is now worth close to £500.

It’s widely accepted that the downfallof vinyl was caused by CDs. However,just like many people argue that the pop-ularity of music downloads is causingmusic to lose its physicality, collectorsargue that vinyl is the most robust andpermanent way to own music.

“The records you pick up form a diary,

they’re a throwback. It’s something solidin your hand that reminds you of whatyou were doing at that time of your life,”explains Peters.

“Records are so large that you couldget a wealth of information and reallywell produced artwork on their card-board sleeves. Nowadays people arelucky if they even get the lyrics whenthey buy a CD,” he said.

Recently, however, vinyl is starting tocreep back into music shops across theUK, with everyone from Lady Gaga toBritish punks Gallows using the formatas a way of releasing limited editions ofalbums. This has spawned not only awhole new generation of record collec-tors to go out and seek vinyls, butbreathe new life into the industry as awhole.

“You can look at it two ways,” musesPeters. “There are two streams of collec-tors. Financial ones who see a recordand buy it because they can pick it up fora fiver from a charity shop, knowing theycan sell it on for ten or a hundred timesthat price.”

“Or there are people like me who mayhave been interested in music for a longtime, or a particular group, and see col-lecting as not only a hobby but as a wayof exposing themselves to all the musicthey loved in the past,” he says.

“It definitely came back in a big way

when bands like the White Stripes beganto release coloured vinyls,” commentsJim Penistan, owner of Lincoln-basedrecord shop Back to Mono. “Artists likeFlorence and the Machine, as well asLady Gaga, go to a lot of effort to pro-duce some really great gate-folds fortheir vinyl releases that make them de-finitive collectors editions.”

When asked if he had ever heard anydiamond in the rough stories during histime in the record business he said: “Iknow a guy that picked up this record fora fiver and now I could probably get athousand pounds for it at auction,”pointing at a mint condition copy of aBeatles album which is proudly dis-played near his shop counter.

It seems the rumours of vinyls deathhave been greatly exaggerated. The newwave of records being released by cur-rent artists seems to be inspiring ayounger generation to start their collec-tions. Add to this the mythic stories ofpicking up priceless gems for a pittance,and it seems the format could finally beentering its second renaissance.

While it may never be as instant orcheap as its high-tech competitors, vinylis still going strong on turntables acrossthe world, and will continue to do so aslong as there are people who, want notonly songs when they buy their music,but an experience.

Charity shop goldby Ryan Peters

by Emma Greatorex

Even though more people are buying MP3s andCDs, there’s still some magic to rummaging

through vinyls. Photo: Bryan Fenstermacher

Student Alexandra Foxley Johnson hopes to

get her big break in to the music industry.

Photo: Alex Foxley Johnson

THE LINC12

County councils across the countryhave been forced to take major cut-backs but some initiatives have sur-vived the axe.

A new strategy is set to be in placefor Lincolnshire from 2012, to im-prove community culture and seewhat can be done to help differentaspects of culture flourish as it is atopic that is much wider than manypeople think.

Councillor Nick Worth, the chair-man of the cultural strategy organi-sation, says it is of vital importancethat a plan is put in place for Lin-colnshire as a whole.

“The strategy was being reviewedover the last two years and the newone has been adopted three monthsago. It was important to do it nowbecause there was no strategy inplace for the county as a whole.”

The plans, which looks to improveknowledge of Lincoln’s cultural fa-

cilities, is very important for thelocal economy.

“People don’t realise how manycultural attractions Lincoln has; theCathedral, the Usher Gallery andthe theatres to name but a few.These have a massive impact on oureconomy,” said Councillor Worth.

The main changes to the strategywould be how the attractions arepromoted: “We really need to pushpromotion and marketing – we con-tribute a lot to the UK as a whole in

terms of festivals, national and in-ternational events.”

Over the five years the strategywill be in place Councillor Worthhopes to see a lot more volunteers inLincoln’s cultural events, especiallyyoung people and students.

“We want to engage the commu-nity with our events so that peopleknow what is going on in their area– we aim to improve the availabilityof information on websites to in-crease the amount of custom we

get,” he said.He added that there will be a sur-

vey in the coming months to findout what young people would like tosee in their area: “We want theyounger generations to engage inour culture. We aim to find out whatyoung people would like to see thatthey can get actively involved with.

“It’s not just theatre; it can beanything from knitting to football.It’s what makes Lincolnshire what itis.”

More culture coming to the cathedral city

Playing video games online has becomeincreasingly popular over the last twogenerations of consoles. Xbox Live,which was first available on the originalXbox back in 2002, and has gone fromstrength to strength becoming thebenchmark in console online gaming.

But while the main purpose is to playgames with other opponent, there are asmall minority of online gamers whoabuse others. A significant amount of theabuse comes from male gamers and isaimed towards females, often referring tothem in sexual terms.

Jen Allen, a female gamer, has encoun-tered a few problems with abuse, though“nothing major, just people being stupidover voice chat”. Despite not being overlyconcerned about the problems she re-ceived Jen has altered the way in whichshe talks to people while gaming online.

“I’m pretty careful where I play andonly tend to chat if I’m with friends. It’snot worth the hassle otherwise. I’m quitelucky though, I’ve heard of people whohave had a lot more trouble than me.”

Upon signing up to online gaming serv-ices, players must agree to the terms ofuse, that big chunk of text most peoplescroll past and simply say they’ve read it.In the Xbox Live terms of use, under“using the service,” the contract betweengamers and Microsoft reads: “You mustnot use the Service to harm others or theService (for example, you must not usethe Service to harm, threaten, or harassanother person, organisation or Mi-crosoft).”

A number of ways to cut down on suchabuse have been implemented. One wayof doing so is by submitting a negativeplayer review, decreasing the player’s on-line reputation – a five star rating evidenton the gamer’s profile.

Microsoft has been downplaying thissystem and encouraging users to “file acomplaint” instead. This option, used toreport those in breach of the Xbox LiveTerms of Use, sends details of the com-plaint to the Xbox Live Policy and en-forcement team for review.

There have been a few cases where thishas proven a useful feature, however, theproblem still exists. This has forced manygamers to resort to “Xbox Live PartyChat,” a feature that allows players to talkprivately with their friends.

Arguably, this takes some of the funfrom the experience of meeting new peo-ple and some people just refuse to wear aheadset at all. But with so many un-co-operative, abusive players, it’s the mostcomfortable position for gamers to be in.

Go to any city centre on a sunny weekend andyou are bound to hear the sweet sound ofmusic.

Buskers come in all shapes and sizes, any-thing from a student with a guitar, an eccentricman with a recorder or even a five piece rock ‘nroll band.

Busking is a past time that many studentshave undertaken, not only for a little extramoney but also for the experience with a fewperformers even making it a full time job.

Some city councils frown upon busking andhave started to enforce busking licenses whichwill only be given once the street performerproves how well they can perform.

Jack, 24, is a busker from London. He usedto study at the University of Lincoln and hasbeen busking for the last eight years. He sees itas a hobby: “It’s for a bit of pocket money…it’sjust good fun to come out on the high street. It’slike people watching but you get paid for it.”

Jack has had mixed responses to his per-formances in the city centre. “I usually get agood reaction, there might be a little chav kick-ing off or something but it’s a laugh isn’t it? Ijust like practising my songs.”

For Jack it’s clear that busking is a way to tryand impress the ladies: “That [as a girl walkspast] is an amazing reason for busking. I justget to stare at hot girls all day.”

Some performers make a living from busk-ing, Blackbeard’s Tea Party, a folk band fromYork, have visited Lincoln half a dozen times.Paul Young, 25, plays guitar, melodeon and fid-dle in the band and has been busking “prettymuch as [a] full time job since 2007”.

He said: “We’ve always had a good receptionin Lincoln. A lot of cities tend to have peoplewhose job it is to wander around being busy-bodies, I think you do get some people like thatin Lincoln but the ones in Leeds especiallythink it’s their job to stop buskers.

“People don’t think about whether its actu-ally a problem and similarly with shops the se-curity will come out and be just like ‘Don’t playhere’.

“But on the other hand some shops pay us tobusk outside so it’s clearly debatable whetherit’s a good thing for them or not. In fact we hadsecurity guards come out here but there was abig crowd so I think they knew they’d have got-ten booed.”

Performing on the street is important for theband as it helps to promote their music. Black-

beard’s Tea Party also sell merchandise such asCDs and shirts when they go into city centres.

Young and co have managed to make a livingout of busking: “If you put in full time hoursyou can make full time money and you can cer-tainly make good money out of doing it.”

“It’s a lot harder making a living if you’re asinger/ guitarist but because we’ve got more ofa sort of wow factor and novelty it works and Iknow of some buskers who do very unusualthings and make a fortune, it’s all down to whatyou do really.”

Young expects to be busking for as long as theband is together “unless we get to the pointwhen we get really famous and make loads ofmoney so we don’t need to. But I think as longas we are a sort of working gigging band I thinkit will always be something that’s helpful.

“I mean if you think about a band which isquite famous and successful if they went outand did a days busking in a city it would be abig publicity event lots of people would seethem so I think it’s always a good thing to doand I think we’ll always enjoy it. ”

Buskers will always be a part of any busy citycentre scene, we may not like all of them butthey’re here to entertain and most of themmanage to do so.

It’s not all funand games onXbox Live

Lincoln’s busking boom

by Emma Kay

by David Wriglesworth

Busking is a living for Tim Yates andPaul Young from Blackbeard's.Photo: Samantha Viner

by Samantha Viner

Rubbing shoulders with the fashion pack, re-ceiving free designer samples and designinghis own luxury luggage label, Michel OlivierGeraghty is not your average student.

Last July, Michel began his blog, FrappeLondon, and it is now attracting up to 5,000hits a month - and that’s just the content thathe manages to get online whilst working forhis degree. On top of this the third year archi-tecture student from the University of Lincolndesigns his own luxury luggage label in hisspare time.

He juggles the two with a carefully plannedregime; university work from nine to five,then a quick blogging or designing session,before going back to architecture until aroundthree in the morning..

“It’s fun”, he says, “but tiring!”Michel is soon to make the first sample of

the first collection of his luggage label thathimself and a friend have created, which “iscalled the Heritage collection. It mainly fo-cuses on the modern day journey. Every col-lection is based on a different journey, so thejourney of a wall street business man, thejourney of a bumble bee, the journey of a stu-dent.”

The collection is based around ‘exotic’ ma-terials such as buffalo and ostrich leather fora ‘high end’ finish.

“The quality has to be immaculate,” he says.“We aspire to do things that have never beendone.”

Michel is hoping to gain a business grantfrom Enterprise@Lincoln to see the produc-tion of the collection through.

This passion began whilst at college: “I’minterested in everything. I don’t like to be a

person that’s fully focused on one thing. Ithink being diverse is what makes you differ-ent from everyone else.

“There’s a range of things I want to do.Styling…buying and merchandising with astore owner…and blogging the whole experi-ence of what I’m doing.”

Michel has a clear idea of what his blogshould include to attract the 5,000 monthlyviews. He says: “I want to try and create dis-cussion. I do a lot of things, I do ‘what I woretoday’ , I post certain brands and do a quickreview on them. I want to really just take it toanother level.”

All the success he has seen so far, he says,has come off the back of his blog and, by gen-erating a constant stream of views, it showspotential employers that “this kid is actuallydoing something”.

The success of his blog has also earnedMichel accreditation from the British FashionCouncil to attend London Fashion Week inFebruary this year and found himself sittingnext to some of the industry’s top stylists.

Despite the success he still has an interestin becoming an architect because it “is thepinnacle of design”: “A fashion designer can’tjump to architecture without having the sevenyears behind them, whereas an architect cango back and be a fashion designer, if they havethe inspiration and know how.’

In the future Michel, amongst all his otherplans, hopes to have his designs stocked inmainstream, high end stores and online retail-ers.

“There’s quite a few big stores I’d love to getmy things in to. I say love because I’m not sureit will happen! But you’ve got to believe,right?”

Follow Michel’s progress from student tofashion designer at: frappelondon.com/blog

13www.TheLinc.co.uk

Style

Something borrowed, something new

From student to designer

The catwalks are alive with ‘70s disco fever;wide legged trousers and block colours arewhat’s hot, but with so much choice on thehigh street this spring’s wardrobe is going tobe an expensive one to fill.

We’re all aware that rummaging throughour grandmother’s wardrobe is a cheap andmore authentic alternative to buying highstreet vintage, but borrowing from othermembers of the family will be just as valuablethis season, including your dad.

So once you’ve found your key pieces bor-row the rest and add a little extra to your en-semble - for free!

10. Boy’s cardigansIt’s time to give your nana her knitted cardi-

gan back and steal your boyfriends! The an-drogynous look is one of this season’s keytrends and matched with a pair of broguesand little white socks, his cardigan will be theperfect finish for that genderless look.

09. TrilbyHats are back with vengeance this spring,

they come in a variety of different shapes,sizes, fabrics and colours but the one to watchout for is the trilby. You’re most likely to findone of these hidden in the back of your dad’swardrobe, so get rummaging! Wrapping acolourful ribbon around the base of it willmake it look elegant and more on trend thisseason.

08. BroachAnother simple tip for pulling off the an-

drogynous trend is tailoring; jackets and blaz-ers are a hit with the high street right now butif you want a more individual, vintage feel toyour look, ask your mum if she has anybroaches which you can pin to the collar.

07. RibbonBow ties are cool – and one of this season’s

key accessories, but buying them brand new

can be a little pricey. Instead, raid your mum’ssewing box for a ribbon or long piece of mate-rial and make your own! Wear it tied under-neath the collar of a plain white shirt or blousefor more of that androgynous look.

06. Artificial flowersIt was once fashionable to wear shockingly

large artificial flowers in your hair, but thank-fully that trend died out a long time ago. How-ever, this season Dolce and Gabbanaintroduced the floral wedge to the catwalk! Sostart recycling those old artificial flowers bypinning them to your winter wedges and bringthem up-to-date.

05. ScarvesSilk scarves can be worn with almost every

outfit in almost every way imaginable; tiedaround the waist and neck being two of themore popular options. However, this springand summer is all about headwear so why notbe a bit more imaginative and wrap yourmum’s silk scarf around your head, becauseturbans are back!

04. White shirtA plain white shirt is a staple ingredient for

any girl’s wardrobe because there are so manyways to wear it. Borrow one from your brother

and work it with any style; cropped, buttonedup, open, tucked in or pulled out, and don’tforget the hand-made bow tie!

03. Make-upSucking up to your sister may come in

handy this season because make-up has ex-ploded onto the high street in every colourimaginable. ‘70s disco glitter and pastelcolours will awaken your eyes to the coloursof spring.

02. Leather bagYou’ll often hear your mum say “fashion

isn’t made to last these days” – and she maybe right! Or it may just be because she has themoney to indulge in high-quality materials,which is why her handbags are always the bestto borrow! Real leather shoulder bags lookvery classy with any outfit.

01. Summer hatsShe may not have made it in to our top ten

picks with her hand-knitted cardigans thisseason, but our grandmother’s wardrobe isstill the number one place to turn for vintage,raw fabrics. So in at number one is the floppyhat! Be big, bold and brave and don’t forget toadd ribbon or artificial flowers to the bonnetfor a more 70s summer vibe!

by Natalie Littlewood andStephanie Bolton

by Lauren Grey

How many students have their own luxuryluggage label? Michel Olier is an architecture

student and designer. Photo: Anneka James

Photo: Tal Shafik

THE LINC14

Sport

Lady Imps prepare for first women’s super league

It’s been a bizarre year for Matthew Bowser.He was the favourite for last year’s Lincoln10K but illness, bereavement and injuryconspired to throw his season off-course.

Now, despite those setbacks, the 27-year-old middle distance runner has regained hisfitness and has his crosshairs firmly set oncompeting at the Olympics next year, andin 2016.

Bowser recalls: “Last year, I was in really,really good shape but four days before it[the Lincoln 10k], I got the worst cold imag-inable.

A stint of altitude training followed forBowser as he battled for a return to full fit-ness, only to be greeted with the tragic newsof a close friend’s death upon his return.

“I don’t like to use it as an excuse, but aclose friend from the running club [LincolnWellington Athletic Club] died, and that

knocked me for six a little bit.“I ran a few early personal bests in May,

but I had no motivation and I was lookingoutside the box a bit. Then, to top it off, Iwent on holiday and injured myself.”

The lay-off ensured that Bowser was outof action until October last year, but sincethen the turnaround has been impressive,leaving him bullish about his Olympic aspi-rations.

“Over the last five months, I’ve been ab-solutely flying. I was aiming to go to theCommonwealth Games, and I was only asecond off the qualifying time for the 1,500metres.

“I never look back. I’ve taken a lot from itand a lot’s happened to allow me to believeI can make the Olympics.

Something that Bowser believes hasworked in his favour is the absence of in-tense training he undertook at a young age,to which he attributes his general good for-

tune with injuries.“To be honest, my initial ability – and I

don’t like to say it – came to me naturally.I’ve been a bit of a lazy runner.”

Now with a two-year sponsorship deal inplace that has allowed him to train full-time, the affable former Lincoln 10k cham-pion believes that now is his time, and iswilling to go to any lengths to make sure hisdream is realised.

“As an 18-year-old I was third or fourthbest in the country and I was only 15 or 20seconds behind guys like Mo Farah. Unfor-tunately, I didn’t take the opportunity I wasgiven.

“I had a lot of funding as a junior, but Iwas more inclined to drive around in nicecars and be an idiot.

“Now no-one’s holding me back, and atthe next Olympics I’ll only be 33, which fora middle distance runner is nothing. [Haile]Gebrselassie is 37.”

Lincoln’s Bowser sets hissights on Olympics

A manager’s pedigree is often determinedby the amount of success achieved at aclub. When Lincoln City were under ChrisSutton and Ian Pearce they ended up 20thin League Two and two points away fromthe relegation places.

Being patient and approachable aretraits that start-out managers can getwrong. It was a surprise to many Imps fansin September 2009 when Steff Wright ap-pointed Sutton as City's new manager.

Both Sutton and Pearce had played in thetop flight of English football, but it was anexperience that would prove inessential atLincoln.

The former Blackburn frontman wasnever shy of giving frank assessments andthe narrative of most press conferenceswould often result in a depleted cry of:"This club has, for a long time, been unsuc-cessful, and we need to be realistic.”

It was an echo of negativity that, as muchas being plausible, was not going to winover Lincoln fans that had witnessed theplay-off memories that the late KeithAlexander gave them in the early 2000s.

There were many frustrations faced bySutton. He found it tough to alter his ex-pectations from being a Premier Leaguefootballer to a League Two manager.

September 29th, 2010 was the day Sut-ton resigned as manager of Lincoln City.Soon afterwards, chairman Bob Dorrianannounced Steve Tilson as the new man-ager in an attempt to rekindle a team whowere then destined for the drop.

Dorrian, unlike Wright, opted for experi-ence and stability as opposed to giving anex-Premier League player his “big chance”.

It made sense, as in his last job as man-ager of Southend United, Tilson had savedthe club where he was a player in an almostromantic affair.

From the beginning there was a differentoutlook. And where Sutton would haveplayed down his side's chances, ‘Tilly’,seems to enjoy the positive speculationthat comes with recording consecutive vic-tories.

Tilson is showing his pedigree as a man-ager and has produced enough evidence towarrant Lincoln City with another seasonin League Two and something to build onfor next term.

Tilson’s experience isvital for City’s successby Tom Farmery

The maiden season of the F.A.Women’s Super League is fast ap-proaching kick-off. The event hasbeen hailed by some as the biggestday in the history of Englishwomen’s football.

The latest addition to the LincolnLadies Football Club, Casey Stoney,is the vice-captain of the Englandnational team. She joins three othercurrent internationals in the team,with Sue Smith, Jess Clarke and So-phie Bradley all playing for England

Ladies in the recent Cyprus Cup.The national representation at the

club is something that Stoney insistsplayed a factor in her signing for theclub: “Obviously I spoke to SueSmith, Jess Clarke and SophieBradley. They weren’t by any meanstrying to force my decision but theydid tell me about the club, which re-ally enthused me and excited me.

“They’re enjoying it so much.They’re loving training, they’re lov-ing being part of the club and theysaid Lincoln is like one big family. Iwanted to become a part of that

family.”While the high profile nature of

the signing meant that it was seen assomewhat of a coup for club, it wasa move that had been in discussionfor over a year.

But Stoney saw it as great moveconsidering what the team can offerher: “Lincoln are actually a full-timeteam. They train pretty much five tosix times a week, which no otherclub can offer.

“With the World Cup coming upand the potential of having anOlympic team as well, it’s was an

opportunity I couldn’t turn down”.Despite the prolonged talks be-

tween Stoney’s former club Chelseaand her new employers, she wassurprised to see reports linking herwith a move as nothing had beenagreed until only days before themove actually took place.

“But I suppose that’s women’sfootball for you—one person findsout and before you know it, every-body knows because it is quite asmall community,” Stoney says.

Stoney, as well as the rest of theteam, have ambitions to do well in

the league, but also appreciates thatnew members of the team will needtime to adjust to new surroundings.

“First and foremost, I am reallylooking forward to joining up withthe team.

“I’ve got separate goals for inter-national football and for club foot-ball but [my ambitions] for my clubare to fit in and continue where I leftoff with Chelsea.”

Lincoln Ladies open their cam-paign against Doncaster RoversBelles on April 14th at Ashby Av-enue.

by Calum Fuller

by Oli Gibbons

Lincoln’s Matthew Bowser isaiming to compete at the

Olympics. Photo: Calum Fuller

15www.TheLinc.co.uk

When you see Terry Fleming gallopingaround the football pitch, you could be for-given for thinking the Marston Green-bornright-back is a fresh-faced 21-year-old,keen to make his mark on the game.

In reality the enthusiastic LincolnUnited player-manager’s career is now intoits third decade. At 38-years-old, he is nowin the twilight of his playing days.

“My legs were saying, ‘Fleming, you’vegot to stop!’” he says half-jokingly after amidweek training session.

Fleming took over the reigns at AshbyAvenue from John Wilkinson, who movedup to the boardroom in February, givingFleming new responsibilities. “[I was] flat-tered, but it came as a shock,” explainsFleming, on being offered the United job.

Fleming’s career dates back to the earlynineties when he played in the inauguralseason of the Premier League for a Coven-try City side which included the likes ofKenny Sansom, Steve Ogrizovic and Peter

Ndlovu.He spent two seasons at Highfield Road

before forging a career in the fourth tierwith Northampton Town and then PrestonNorth End.

Struggling Third Division club LincolnCity were the next team to call on Flemingwhich he is nostalgic about: “We had somefantastic games down at Lincoln in the FACup runs and League Cup runs. We hadMan City and Southampton—some fond,fond memories.”

Fleming went on to Plymouth Argyle andCambridge United before ending up atGrimsby Town, where he became some-thing of a cult figure amongst supporters,despite only staying for one season.

A group of fans set up “The Black ZidaneAppreciation Society” to pay homage toFleming’s ability — something which headmits is humbling.

“It’s really good to know that fans do ap-preciate the player I am. The fans do seethat and they’ve had appreciation boardsand websites set up in my name, which is

fantastic and I just thank them very muchfor doing that.”

Afterwards, Fleming had spells at severalnon-league clubs before John Wilkinsontook him to Grantham Town, where he wasmade captain.

In 2008, when Wilkinson moved toUnited he took Fleming with him and lastyear told The Linc how he saw managerialpotential in the veteran.

Despite having landed the top job at theWhites, Fleming doesn’t think it is neces-sary for rookie managers to begin their ap-prenticeship at non-league level.

“Starting here, you haven’t got a silverspoon in your mouth.

“But it’s good schooling for me. We’replaying in a competitive league and I’mjust happy to be given the opportunity tostart here.”

Fleming will be entering his 40th yearnext year but, even if he starts to feel hisage, his thirst for success will continue togrow as he attempts to take Lincoln Unitedup the football pyramid.

The name “Lakers” automatically instils con-notations of Kobe Bryant, “H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D” in big white letters, and Jack Nicholsonsitting front row at Staples Centre. Lincoln isa long way from tinsel town – there was to beno slow motion three point buzzer beater towin it in the dying seconds.

But the Lincoln Lakers do have somethingelse in common with their California name-sakes – they are champions.

In the University of Lincoln sports hall onWednesday, March 9th, Staffordshire Steelersfailed to show up for the final league game ofthe season, ensuring there could be no bigHollywood ending.

But the Lakers didn’t mind— Staffordshireforfeited the game and the points and Lincolnfinished top of the league.

Team captain Matty Barwell said: “It’s fan-tastic to have won the league and I feel that wehave fully deserved it. For some of us, myselfincluded, this will be our last year playing forthe Lakers and so to go out as league champi-ons is an incredible ending.”

The game with Staffordshire had beencalled off once before but, instead of acceptingthe points by forfeit, the Lakers wanted to re-arrange to win the league on the court.

They were left waiting for an hour in therescheduled fixture before finding outStaffordshire never intended to show up.

Barwell said that was difficult to take, de-spite being crowned champions: “At the timeit did take the gloss off the achievement be-cause we had a record crowd waiting to watchthe game. We were all eager to play and theyshowed a complete lack of respect which leftthe team visibly deflated.”

In a season with more twists and turns thana silver screen blockbuster, that team spiritwas crucial in helping the Lakers bounce backfrom their low points: “The loss in overtimeagainst Birmingham was the toughest chal-lenge to overcome.

“We had the lead and let it slip. But wedidn’t dwell on it and came away from thegame even stronger and more determined tosucceed.”

Before the recent Varsity against the Uni-versity of Derby, Barwell was confident thatthe Lakers could prevail again: “Our confi-dence levels are high but we won’t get carriedaway.

“Our rivalry with Derby is an intense oneand if previous years are anything to go bythen it will be a heated affair.

“I feel that mentally this team is a lot morecontrolled than in previous years and I’m con-fident that we can come out with a win.”

The 83-47 Varsity defeat to Derby abruptlyended Lincoln’s hopes of a fairytale ending,but the championship-winning season willstill be remembered as a Hollywood smashhit.

Lakers shoot fortheir Hollywood moment

Fleming: Lincoln United ‘good schooling for me’

Futsal: Lincoln 11 Derby 7Men’s Football 2nd team: Lincoln 3 Derby 1Equestrian: Lincoln winMen’s Hockey 2nd team: Lincoln 5 Derby 0Badminton: Lincoln 5 Derby 3Men’s Football 1st team: Lincoln 1 Derby 1(Derby win 5-3 on penalties)Rugby Union: Lincoln 43 Derby 17

Women’s Basketball: Lincoln 61 Derby 31Netball 2nd team: Lincoln 16 Derby 42Women’s Hockey team: Lincoln 1 Derby 2Women’s Football: Lincoln 3 Derby 3 (Lincolnwin 9-8 on penalties)Netball 1st team: Lincoln 47 Derby 15Men’s Hockey 1st team: Lincoln 1 Derby 2Men’s Basketball: Lincoln 47 Derby 83

Varsity 2011 Results

by Tim Long

by Bradley King and Alex Blackburne

The Lakers finished off a successful seasonwith an unfortunate loss against Derby atVarsity. Photo: Leila Fitt

Terry Fleming took control ofLincoln United in February.Photo: Tom Farmery

LINC SPORT

Lincoln’s number one racing driverJack Harvey will make his debut inBritish Formula 3 in April, takinghim a step closer to the highest plat-form of motor racing – Formula 1.

The 17-year-old, who turns 18 onthe weekend of his first Formula 3race, has been given the chance tobe part of the five time British For-mula 3 championship winningteam, Carlin.

Despite being a rookie, Harvey isaiming high during his first seasonof Formula 3: “The goals are to fin-ish inside the top three, win someraces and be close at the end of theyear.

“You’re always aiming high andobviously we want to win, it’s thesame with every other driver that

has a racing licence – you want towin the series you’re racing.

“Realistically we want to finish in-side the top three.”

Going up to Formula 3 presentsnew challenges, with more powerand grip for the drivers to handle,but, having recently completed pre-season testing, Harvey believes thatthe more aerodynamic car suits hisdriving style.

“Testing has gone quite well. Theperformance on track has got betterand the more comfortable I’ve got inthe car it’s showed on track as well.We have high hopes for the season.”

Looking back on his season lastyear, Harvey says he had mixedemotions about finishing second,just 11 points behind the champi-onship winner.

“It’s always difficult because peo-

ple say you’d always take that at thestart of the year, which you wouldhave, but your expectations changeacross the season so we were a littledisappointed not to win the cham-pionship.

“Winning wouldn’t have createdany more opportunities for me.Being a driver I wanted to win, butit wasn’t the be-all and end-all thatwe didn’t.”

The British Formula 3 calendarsees Harvey travel to Monza for thefirst race of the season and he hopeshe can add to his win there in hislast Formula BMW race.

“I think if we have a solid openingrace that will put us in a good steadand separate the stigma that goesalong with being a rookie.

A dominant British calendar givesHarvey’s family the opportunity to

watch him in action, something thathas been difficult over the past fewyears with races abroad.

“Some of my family have alreadyplanned that they’re going to comedown and see some of the raceswhich is really nice because beforethey were limited with the flightsand hotels abroad being so expen-sive.

“It’s been almost inaccessible.”Although Harvey may be a few

seasons away from Formula 1, hehas already experienced the atmos-phere following seasons of racingFormula 1 weekends in the FormulaBMW series.

“Formula BMW supported For-mula 1 so I always used to race onFormula 1 circuits.

“I speak to some of the drivers.Robert Kubica was one of the driv-

ers who I spent most of my timewith and I was obviously upsetwhen he had his big accident andthat he wouldn’t be racing for thestart of the season.”

With time off this winter to relax,Harvey spent some time clay pigeonshooting—something he hopes tocontinue away from the track.

“I’ve been doing clay pigeonshooting for a little while but morerecently I’ve really got into it, so I re-ally enjoy doing that.

“I think it’s quite fun. It’s frustrat-ing because some of the days I’ll goout there and I can’t hit anything,and then other days I’ll do quitewell.”

The British Formula 3 seasonopens in Monza on the weekend ofSaturday, April 16th.

Harvey closes in on F1 dream

As the new Formula 3 season approaches forJack Harvey, he’s getting ever closer to thedream drive in F1. Photo: Jakob Ebrey

16

Match previews and reports at thelinc.co.uk

by Jack Teague