If, like me, you have ever been forced to participate in a range of embarrassing team-building exercises in your lifetime, you will undoubtedly be familiar with the exceedingly popular and excruciatingly awkward game ‘two truths and a lie’. Universally beloved by overly enthusiastic seminar tutors and group leaders the world over, the aim of said game is to sneak a lie past your fellow players without being caught. However, whilst the lie is supposed to be the focal point of the game, in my exp

In an attempt to work through the (precarious) stack of ‘fun’ books that I had neglected in favour of the more ominous stack of books-for-my-degree, I finally started the one that had been on the top of the pile for at least eight months: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. A funny yet heart-breaking novel, Queenie follows its eponymous heroine as she navigates life, love and her own declining mental health as a young Black-British woman. However, it is as much a story about Queenie herself as i

It’s been a long 6 months. We’ve walked (oh… how we’ve walked) and we’ve talked (over zoom) and we’ve waited and we’ve hoped. We’ve worn masks, stayed off buses, taken up strange and fascinating hobbies, baked and baked and baked banana bread until we can bake no more. However, there’s one thing I (at least) haven’t done in a very long time: danced – in a sweaty, crowded room, with all of my best friends, whilst the DJ plays an extended remix of Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s ‘I Don’t Care’ for

Ellie Rowe recounts her experience of a final pre-Brexit vacation, and imagines a very different Europe just a few months from now. Sitting in the largest ruin pub in Budapest this summer, my travel pal and I made friends with two American girls ‘doing Europe’ for the first time. “God, you’re so lucky,” they cried, “you can come to Europe whenever you want!”. True, I thought – but for how much longer? One of the best things (and probably one of the only things I know) about being in the Europe

Ellie Rowe gives us an inside peek on the famous Venice carnival of the arts. For those who don’t know, La Biennale di Venezia is a huge international art exhibition that runs every two years in Venice. First held in 1895, the Biennale has been a prestigious international cultural organization for over 120 years. It comprises a vast array of participating countries – this year, for example, marks Ghana’s first-ever participation – each of which has their own ‘pavilion’ where their chosen artist

In an art show in a hair salon in Hackney, I met musician and singer song-writer Miles Pascall by chance. After he stoically endured us insisting that we play his song in front of him to the salon, Miles and I got to talking about his music, his fascinating life working as a drummer for artists like Mura Masa and Wilkinson, and his inspiration for now embarking on a solo career. Putting his own dreams ahead of the dreams of others that he worked so hard to facilitate, Miles tells us in this inte

Often at university, it can feel as if you never get to know these officers who are working your behalf, and so I sat down with Sally Patterson, University of Bristol Student Union’s Equality, Liberation and Access Officer, to get a sense of her role within the SU and understand what the future of equality looks like at Bristol - a university with a fairly bad reputation when it comes to representation. Hi Sally! Your role is the ‘Equality, Liberation and Access Officer’ here at the University

Ellie Rowe gives a personal account of her Freshers’ Week and discusses why you might want to dial down your expectations for the first few weeks of university. Dirt. Stress. Rum. Someone passing out in our halls kitchen and having to call emergency services only four days into university. Being lost. Homesickness… of all the things that come to my mind when I think about Freshers’ Week, ‘best week of my life’ is not one them, and after completing my first year at the University of Bristol, I f

Walking into The Loco Klub after the hefty journey down to Temple Meads is like stepping backwards in time to a seedy, scary underground carnival – perfect for a night of blood and beheading. Performed under railway arches in the incredibly dark, cabinet-of-curiosity style space, this University of Bristol DramSoc interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé has an eerie, haunting atmosphere. Wilde’s Salomé tells, in one act, the Biblical story of Salomé who is the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. As a

Ellie Rowe shares her love for the works of novelist Angela Carter. As an English student, I like to pretend that I am widely read, enthusiastic and proactive when seeking out authors that reflect my interests. Yet, I didn’t come across Angela Carter by myself, but rather through my A-Level English teacher. After reading the kooky, beautiful and shadowy fairy tales of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, I was instantly in love. Angela Carter was born in Eastbourne in 1940 and was a graduate