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November 1986

The November 1986 issues of Student are now live! Read on to see lots of student political debates, great theatre reviews and much more!

 

6 November, 1986: Sexist Bands and Unhappy Students…

  • Student reports that the UK Government may subsidise the Thatcher-era Poll Tax of £200 a year per individual, to only £40 a year. While some saw this as positive, others said they would not be satisfied until the entire idea of a Poll Tax, or “Community Charge,” was abolished.
  • University of Edinburgh hosted a conference called “AIDS: The Public Health Challenge” where Edinburgh’s delegates criticise what they considered “inadequate government spending” on the support of AIDS victims.
  • Page 5 of Student this week covers various people’s reactions to an incident at the Playhouse, where band The Stranglers “suggested” that female members of the audience who undressed themselves would have a better chance at winning the prize of the band’s new LP. While Student writer and editors held to their stance that this should be considered sexual exploitation, many penned letter complaining that Student was misinterpreting or misrepresenting the situation….

Read full issue here

 

13 November, 1986: Shakespeare Slumps Across Edinburgh!

  • Shakespeare’s plays Macbeth and Othello both made appearances in Edinburgh this week, with a classic Elizabethan performance of Macbeth preformed by the Royal Lyceum, while the operatic interpretation of Othello (Otello) was live streamed at the ABC Theatre in cinema format. However, both received lack-lustre reviews from Student critics Colin Hancock and Briony Sergeant, respectively.
  • The Student Representative Committee (SRC) of the Students’ Association drafter a policy of zero support for any type of student loan policy and wholeheartedly endorsed a return to the mandatory student grants system.
  • A professor from the Academy of Sciences in Moscow gave a talk on “Soviet Philosophy Today,” hosted by the EU Philosophy Society. However apparently both the majority of students in attendance, as well as the moderator, asked questions and made comments which were strongly western biased, according to correspondent Alaric Searle, leaving the professor insulted and unlikely to visit the University of Edinburgh in future.

Read full issue here

 

20 November, 1986:  Flour Girls and Marshmallow Journalists!

  • A first year Art student was handcuffed to the doors of the library while covered from head to foot in flour, and stayed there in silence until she had to be sawed free by the University Works Department who were called to the scene. The girl revealed nothing about her actions, except to verify that she had not been pranked against her will, but was preforming a “private gesture” of protest. However no one was able to find out what she was protesting, and it seems that no one but she knows to this day!
  • Chief Political Correspondent for The Guardian, James Naughtie, spoke to a University of Edinburgh audience for the 1986 Kenneth Allsop Memorial Lecture in David Hume Tower. Naughtie was reported by Student writer Emma Simpson to have said that then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher couldn’t see a public institution “without hitting it in the head with her handbag,” and to say that the daytime programmes of the BBC which claim to report news are of “the marshmallow type,” being “both metaphorically and physically cheap.”

Read full issue here

 

27 November, 1986: Privatising EUSA?

  • The General Meeting of the Students’ Association was particularly controversial this month due to the allocation of £250,000 of the budget to purchasing shares in British Gas. Many students expressed their lack of support for this motion, including Deputy President of EUSA, Claire McLintock.
  • Student publishes a scathing review of the just-opened movie Labyrinth, still famous today for its David Bowie cameo, Terry Jones scrip, Jim Henson puppetry, and overall psychedelic, supernatural ethos. However, critic Mark White was not impressed.
  • Music writer Keith Cameron pens a full page spread on analysing the fame, fortune and entity that is Madonna. Turn to page 13 to read!

Read full issue here

 



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