Lois

Alias Grace is the latest adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel, following the huge success of The Handmaid’s Tale. The Netflix series documents the attempts of Simon Jordan to establish whether convicted murderess Grace Marks could be gotten off her charge by reason of insanity. It is a fictional story based on fact, with Atwood’s […]

A noteworthy point to make at the top of an incredibly arrogant article, in which I will pretend my opinion of music is in anyway a definitive guideline for anyone else, is that the 70’s churned out some of the very best music to have ever graced our good Earth. Nonetheless, I have whittled it […]

Best 00’s Films Films, films, films. Love them or hate them, you sure can’t escape them. People have been making films for a long time, with the first known film being dated back to as early as 1999 when The Matrix was released. Since then, several so-called ‘films’ have been made, here I list a […]

The claim the leave campaign made last year that the NHS would receive an extra £350 million a week if we were to leave the EU, was, is and always will be, bogus. Many have accepted this as fact by now, but not, it appears, has Boris Johnson. He repeated the figure in a recent […]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s final novel is something to behold. Bizarrely readable – considering not only the time it was written but also the sheer length – it paints a vivid picture of the eponymous brother’s lives’. The story is bounding and broad, expanding to encompass most of the town in which the story takes place. The […]

A fact which is abundantly clear to most who follow the news is that the current political climate is chaotic, to say the least. Brexit is looming large in the headlines day after day, and no one seems able to agree on what the way forward should be. This fact is a dangerous one, one […]

The 90’s, in its role as a period of time, churned out many things. Some brilliant, some rubbish. Here, I shall attempt to outline the stand out films of the decade – from the good to the better, to the slightly niche. 1. Pulp Fiction, 1994 (dir. Quentin Tarantino) – Most people have heard of […]

Doing something new is at best exciting, and at worst, terrifying. ‘Is it possible for a situation to be both?’ was the question I was asking myself as I started college last week. The answer is no, and people who say otherwise are liars. There is something almost absurdly intimidating about sitting in a room […]

Documents have been leaked which show the governments post-Brexit immigration blueprint, and some key points have already caused controversy. The gist of the plan is to significantly reduce the amount of EU immigration through the use of tighter controls and government intervention with a ‘more selective approach’. There will ultimately be a phased overhaul in […]

Concerns rise internationally over North Korea’s continued nuclear testing. As shown in a recent photo, taken as Kim Jong-un watches a missile launch, the leader looks increasingly like a man in the midst of a nervous breakdown, reflected in the screaming eyes of the hysterical generals around him. Luckily, the North Korean leader’s US counterpart, […]

Former shadow minister Chuka Umunna has said Labour must distance itself from the Conservatives with their position on Brexit. He said Labour should support staying within the European single market and the customs union, adding that it was not enough to have a goal of not damaging the economy. “There’s got to be clear red […]

EU negotiations are to resume in a week, and David Davis is urging Brussels not to begin discussions on Britain’s future relationship with the EU alongside withdrawal talks. There is growing concern that if the talks continue at the current pace it will be impossible to begin discussing future trade till the end of the […]

To many people’s surprise, including my own, the 70’s actually managed to spew up some of what are considered by film critics and people who take part in online polls, to be the greatest films ever made. However, the following is a list compiled based entirely on my own personal taste, which I can assure […]

Republicans have come forward condemning bigotry after Trump’s press conference in which he said ‘many sides’ were responsible for the violence at Charlottesville protests. Trump has been apparently reluctant to single out and condemn neo-Nazi and white supremacist protestors, preferring to instead delegate equal blame to counter-demonstrators he called the ‘alt-right’ “I’m not putting anybody […]

A Chinese crime writer, Liu Yongbiao, has been taken into police custody after allegedly violently murdering four people over two decades ago. In the introduction to his latest novel The Guilty Secret, he revealed his plans for his next novel in which a glamorous female crime author evades justice and carries out a series of […]

F Murray Abraham, despite a long and enduring career in film which has yielded him an Oscar, an Emmy nomination, and world wide acclaim, has spent a great deal of his time in the theatre. He’s performed in Macbeth, Richard III and The Merchant of Venice. He now turns his hand to The Mentor, a […]

A long-running British Election Study (BES) has found that Labour picked up votes from the remain camp based on their ‘soft Brexit’ stance in the June general election. The authors of the report said: “According to our data, the main reason that Labour gained so much in the campaign at the expense of the other […]

When people think 80’s, ‘cinematic masterpieces’ is rarely the first phrase which jumps to mind. For some film philistines, I dare to say that 80’s films are probably written off before they’ve even been given a chance. Here I, a 16 year old girl who happens to have a keen interest in the cinema of […]

An anti-immigrant Norwegian Facebook group ‘Fatherland First’ mistook some empty bus seats (below) as women in burqas. The seats were described as ‘tragic’ and ‘terrifying’. The 13,000 members of the group pondered on whether the offending empty seats could be carrying explosives or weapons underneath their clothes. ‘Get them out of our county – frightening […]

The Trump administration seems to be experiencing utter chaos as Anthony Scaramucci looses his position as communications secretary after just ten days in the position. Just six hours prior to this former US Marine General John Kelly was appointed the new chief of staff. News recently broke that Trump intervened to prevent senior White House […]

Nicky Morgan, newly elected chair of the Treasury Select Committee, has called for a report from the Bank of England on the City’s readiness for a hard Brexit. The Conservative MP is a prominent advocate of a soft Brexit, and her position on the committee will see her scrutinising the government’s economic policy as the […]

The stones of small acts of sexism are being overturned by feminists everywhere, and it’s becoming increasingly clear how early sexism starts. Sadly, children are falling victim to idea-shaping acts of sexism on a daily basis, from a startling number of children’s films failing the Bechdel test to the fact that children’s books are almost […]

The Donald Trump administration has issued a brief saying the US Civil Rights Act should not be used to stop employers discriminating against LBGT people. The brief came just hours after the President banned transgender people serving in the armed forces. The 23-page brief claimed that Title VII of the 1964 Act, which bans discrimination […]

Michel Barnier (Chief Brexit Negotiator for the EU) says a lack of clarity from Britain means autumn trade talks are unlikely to take place. Brexit negotiations seem to be faltering, and Barnier has told ambassadors to the EU that the British government has been unable to provide sufficient clarity on many key issues during the […]

The second series of Jane Campion’s Top of The Lake (Subtitled ‘China Girl’) will begin tonight on BBC 2, having first premiered at the Cannes film festival in May of this year, only the second TV series to do so. The whole series will be available from ten o’clock tonight on BBC Iplayer. This series, […]

The country has been celebrating 50 years since the decriminalisation of homosexuality, but how far have we come? No-one doubts the country has made enormous strides since a time when young men faced prison sentences and hormone therapy for being gay, but to say the community no longer faces hate would be a lie. There […]

As is by now well known to most people, the next Doctor Who is to be played by Jodie Whittaker, who is, of course, a woman. The news has seen generally positive reactions, with only a small number opposed to the casting move. For example, Peter Davison, the fifth reincarnation of the Doctor, although having […]

As MPs part ways for summer break, the question of ‘what next?’ looms large. It seems almost impossible that this Parliament will last to the end of its five year term, and the chances that Theresa May will last even to the next election look even slimmer. Talk is already bubbling, from both within the […]

The BBC has published a list of its 96 highest earners, only a third of which are female. There has been, surprisingly, a great deal of surprise about the content of the list, which revealed the top seven highest earners were all male, and only two of the top 14 earners were female. It’s almost […]

Claims of ‘infighting’ within the Conservative cabinet have arisen over the weekend, resulting in Theresa May being given the go-ahead by Tory backbenchers to sack disloyal cabinet minister. May, among others in the party, has called for MPs to ‘get on with their jobs’ after a letter of no confidence began circulation and last week’s […]

Vince Cable, the likely new leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, has already set about giving interviews and making preparations for the official announcement of his leadership. In a recent interview with Andrew Marr he said he is “beginning to think Brexit may never happen,” and has said to the Guardian that “the Brexiteers are […]

The issues of class and social mobility are ones easily forgotten today. Politicians may have us believe we are living in a far more equal society than the one which existed 30 years ago, and we like to think generally that our country is one which is based on equal rights to opportunity; poverty is […]

Funding for mental health services and mental health issues generally came into the spotlight during the recent general election campaign. Each party included reference to mental health policies in their manifesto, and it appears to be an issue not only of growing concern but also one people have an increased awareness of. It is vital, […]

The Charlotte Brontë classic Jane Eyre has seen many film adaptations since its initial publishing in 1847. Perhaps best known is the 2006 BBC adaptation, which won three Emmys and was highly praised for how true it stayed to the original novel. The National Theatre production of the much-loved classic achieved a similar accomplishment, managing […]

Questions over what Brexit means for EU Nationals living in the UK are continuing after Theresa May’s paper on EU citizens rights was published last month. May called her plan, which entitles current EU citizens and those who come to the UK during the pre-Brexit ‘grace period’ to a special settled status, “fair and serious”. […]

Russia and China have called for North Korea, South Korea, and the US to sign a Chinese de-escalation plan designed to defuse tensions around Pyongyang’s missile programme. The plan would require North Korea to suspend its ballistic missile programme and the US and South Korea to simultaneously implicate a moratorium on large-scale missile exercises. This […]

Tom Watson, the Labour Party’s deputy leader, has said Jeremy Corbyn is now ‘completely secure’ as the head of the party for years to come, and could win a majority by reaching out to Labour’s traditional working class voters. The show of support from Watson, who has previously called Corbyn’s leadership ‘untenable’, is a demonstration […]

Five sisters raised by middle class, religious parents in the American suburbs kill themselves. This is the stark, bare bones of what Jeffrey Eugenides presents you with on the first page of The Virgin Suicides. The rest of the book, in a heady stupor of hindsight and painful memory, serves to garnish the fact, to […]

The nature of Inside No.9 and its standalone episodes I feel give me the right to give them each their own little mini-review or reflection on the latest snippet of black comedy action. These little bursts of action-filled plotline and the effort taken to squish a lot of action into a short space of time […]

“Libraries symbolise a commitment to learning, community and equality that can no longer be taken for granted.” That is a quote from comedian and actor David Mitchell, which I recently came across while reading an article he wrote for The Guardian on the new London Garden Bridge. It got me thinking about how much time […]

The Lost Daughter is a novel by Italian author Elena Ferrante (Days of Abandonment, My Brilliant Friend) and tells the story of a woman who sets about on a holiday to re-discover herself after her daughters have flown the nest. Ferrante writes the female inner monologue like no one else, and it is what she’s […]

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, two of four of The League of Gentlemen, have returned for a third season of black comedy Inside No.9. The series takes inspiration from series like Tales of The Unexpected, and each stand-alone episode takes place in a single setting and has some macabre subtext. To paraphrase a description from […]

Raymond Carver is an American short story writer whose style I admire endlessly. Carver once said: “It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things — a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring — […]

BBC documentaries have always been highly regarded. Most recently we’ve seen Levine on Love, Reggie Yates Extreme Russia and Drugs Map of Britain, and all have demonstrated how BBC Three have managed to maintain their reputation despite being moved to iPlayer. Sex, Drugs and Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone is yet another gritty, […]

The much-anticipated season finale of the Tom Hardy series did not disappoint. The different aspects of the story finally came together; loose ends were tied, characters’ true purpose came to light and the questions we have been asking since episode one were finally answered. Since it’s been such an intensely dark series, with very little obvious […]

The Lego Batman Movie does exactly what it says on the tin. It follows DC character Batman as he fights crime Gotham City. As an animation, it’s an amazing spectacle; in a similar fashion to the first film, you are constantly bombarded with action. In the words of my 4-year-old brother, “it was awesome”. Probably the […]

Tonight is the finale of Tom Hardy’s BBC drama Taboo. Over seven episodes we have followed James Delaney in his quest against the infamous East India Company, as he spins plates with the British monarchy and American spies. It’s been a series of ups and downs, both within the narrative and the quality, but those […]

A crowd was gathering last night in Newcastle’s city centre. Tables had been erected in front of The Monument, and scattered along its stairs were people in high-vis jackets holding microphones, and others around them who had set up cameras. Cries of “refugees are welcome here” could be heard over the sound of drums, and […]